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Special Advance Screening of Truth
Post Screening Q&A with Director James Vanderbilt
and
Producer Brad Fischer
Hosted by TPH Critic-in-Residence Marshall Fine
October 6th at 7:30pm
On the morning of September 9, 2004, veteran CBS News producer MARY MAPES (Cate Blanchett) believed she had every reason to feel proud of a broadcast journalism job well done. By the end of the day, Mapes, CBS News, and the venerable CBS News anchor DAN RATHER (Robert Redford) would be under harsh scrutiny.
The evening before, 60 Minutes II had aired an investigative report, produced by Mapes and reported on-air by Rather, that purported to reveal new evidence proving that President George W. Bush had possibly shirked his duty during his service as a Texas Air National Guard pilot from 1968 to 1974. The piece asserted that George W. Bush had not only exploited family connections and political privilege to avoid the Vietnam War by joining the Texas Air National Guard, but he had failed for many months to fulfill his most basic Guard obligation—showing up on base.
Mapes and her team of researchers had scrambled under a tight deadline to pull together both on- air eyewitness testimony and newly-disclosed documents to make their case, and they felt confident that their story was solid. In the lead-up to the 2004 Bush v. Kerry presidential election, the “Bush-Guard” story could have had profound ramifications.
But within days after the story broke, George W. Bush’s military service record was no longer the focus of media and public scrutiny. Instead, it was 60 Minutes, Mapes, and Rather who were under question: the documents supporting their investigation were denounced as forgeries, and the 60 Minutes staff was accused of shoddy journalism or, perhaps worse, accused of being duped. Eventually, Mapes would lose her job and reputation. Dan Rather would step down prematurely as CBS News anchor.
How did attention end up focused on the journalists who questioned the official version of the story? How did the minutiae of document typefaces, line breaks, and superscripts become seemingly more important to the national discourse than the question of whether the President had failed to fulfill his military obligations?
Have journalistic integrity and independence been fundamentally altered in today’s newsrooms and boardrooms?
TRUTH is based on Mary Mapes’ memoir Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power (2005, St. Martin’s Press).
James Vanderbilt
James Vanderbilt (Writer/Director/Producer)
James Vanderbilt has been pushing words around a page professionally ever since he graduated from the University of Southern California’s Filmic Writing Program. A native of Norwalk, Connecticut, he sold his first screenplay 48 hours before graduating. It was promptly not made. He has written and produced numerous films, including ZODIAC which was nominated for a Writer’s Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and a USC Scripter Award, and WHITE HOUSE DOWN, which was not. His writing credits also include THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN films, THE RUNDOWN, THE LOSERS, and the upcoming INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE. He is a founding member of Mythology Entertainment, a company dedicated to story-driven entertainment and content. He lives in Malibu, California, with his wife and children. TRUTH is his directorial debut.
Bradley J. Fischer (Producer)
Bradley J. Fischer began his career at Phoenix Pictures in 1998, rising through the ranks to Co- President of Production in 2007 and taking charge of the majority of the company’s motion picture slate.
In 2012, Fischer formed Mythology Entertainment, a motion picture and television production company with partner James Vanderbilt (THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN, ZODIAC). WHITE HOUSE DOWN, directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, was the company’s first project.
During his 13-year tenure at Phoenix Pictures, Fischer was instrumental in discovering, developing, packaging and producing many high-profile motion picture projects, producing a total of seven films over seven years. Among the films Fischer produced while at Phoenix was Martin Scorsese’s SHUTTER ISLAND, based on the New York Times bestseller by Dennis Lehane, acclaimed author of Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone. After securing film rights to the book, Fischer sent it to screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis, with whom he developed the project. Scorsese and DiCaprio quickly signed on and the fully packaged project was set up on a production-commitment basis at Paramount Pictures shortly thereafter.
Following its world premiere gala screening at the Berlin International Film Festival, SHUTTER ISLAND debuted to a $41 million opening weekend, which remains Scorsese’s
biggest opening to-date. It has since gone on to gross almost $300 million worldwide.
Among Fischer’s other credits is the critically acclaimed David Fincher film ZODIAC, which he produced. An Official Selection of the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, ZODIAC stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. It was released by Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures to massive worldwide critical acclaim, and was one of the best-reviewed films of 2007. In 2010, ZODIAC was named one of the 10 best films of the decade by
Entertainment Weekly, Time Out New York, The Chicago Tribune and The New York Post, among many other critics and journalists around the world.
Fischer also executive produced BLACK SWAN, directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman. The film was released by Fox Searchlight and received strong critical praise, going on to gross approximately $330 million worldwide and receive five Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture and winning Best Actress for star Natalie Portman.
Among the upcoming projects Fischer is producing are THE OVERLOOK HOTEL (a prequel to Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING) with Warner Bros. and the Stanley Kubrick estate, with Mark Romanek directing; THE UNPLEASANT PROFESSION OF JONATHAN HOAG, which Alex Proyas will direct from his own adaptation of the Robert Heinlein novella, THE BRIGANDS OF RATTLEBORGE by S. Craig Zahler, ALTERED CARBON by Laeta Kalogridis and David H.
Goodman, based on the seminal sci-fi noir novel by Richard Morgan; and the thriller AMBULANCE adapted by Chris Fedak, which Phillip Noyce is attached to direct.
Mythology’s next releases include TRUTH, starring Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford, which Sony Classics will open on October 16; and the Suge Knight documentary AMERICAN DREAM/AMERICAN KNIGHTMARE, directed by Antoine Fuqua, which Showtime premieres on September 26.
In 2006, Fischer was selected by the Hollywood Reporter for their 13th annual “Next Generation” special issue as one of Hollywood’s top 35 executives under 35 years of age. In the Spring 2008 issue of Los Angeles Confidential magazine, Fischer was profiled as a “Power Producer” and recognized as “one of Hollywood’s most promising producers of sophisticated, challenging films.”
In addition to his work at Mythology Entertainment, Fischer serves on the board of directors of the Stella Adler Academy of Acting in Los Angeles.
Fischer graduated from Columbia University in 1998 with a BA in Film Studies and Psychology and is a native of New York. He resides in Los Angeles with his wife Karen, daughter Olivia and baby boy Leo.
Pelham, NY 10803