Dan Rather and "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes thought they had a big scoop on their hands in 2004 when they reported on George W. Bush's service, or lack thereof, with the Texas Air National Guard. The controversial report was scrutinized for using questionable evidence and it ultimately cost Rather and Mapes their jobs at CBS.
Their story is told in the new movie, "Truth," in which Robert Redford plays Rather and Cate Blanchett plays Mapes. The film was adapted from Mapes’ memoir, "Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power."
The “60 Minutes” story was largely based on documents whose authenticity was immediately questioned, but never fully disproved. CBS convened an independent review that found “considerable and fundamental deficiencies” in the reporting and production of the story. The network also apologized for its report on then-President Bush.
Now the film has arrived in theaters and the controversy is far from over. CBS would not allow the film’s distributor to buy ad time on the network, and critics are coming out from all sides.
Writer and director James Vanderbilt says: "We always knew this would sort of be a divisive film. There was no version of telling this story that was going to make everybody happy, but I don't think that's a good reason not to make a film."
The Frame's John Horn interviewed Vanderbilt about the controversy surrounding the film and why he was interested in telling this story.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
When you were working on this movie, you were obviously working with Mary Mapes. You're adapting the movie based on her memoir, but you're also doing your own kind of investigations and looking into a lot of facts that are in her book and that are not in her book. Did you ultimately come to some conclusions that were at odds with her story? And how did you resolve those conflicts with her?
Mary's book was the basis for the film, but I wanted to do my own research and I wanted to spend a lot time with a lot of different people who were involved in it. What I ended up doing is talking to a lot people — both on and off the record — and there were certain times when I spoke to people who did not have a good opinion about Mary or her work. It was important to me to speak to those people. My process with that was when there was a disagreement, we'd put it in the film. We wanted to give voice to other viewpoints in the movie.
You've been a filmmaker your whole career, but you've never been a journalist. What did it feel like approaching this movie as a journalist?
It was amazing. The great thing about my job is that I get to go and live in other people's shoes for a while, and actually [say]: Okay, how do you this? When you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing you do? What's the first newspaper you read? How do you make those phone calls? How do you convince a source? I love that. Journalism is something I've always been passionate about, and if I hadn't gone into my silly industry, I would have tried to go into journalism.
So, I've always loved the world and that's one of the reasons why I did "Zodiac" and that's one of the reasons I did this film. What I really wanted to do was take you behind the curtain and take you through the excitement of running down a story. There's a reason the movie is structured the way it is. It takes you from [Mapes] pitching the story to them putting it together, and I wanted you to spend time in that portion of it, and not just cover the fallout of it.
"Truth" is currently in theaters.