Word: docudramas
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Some writers live off their work; others live in it. On the evidence of Michael Hastings' austere docudrama, Thomas Stearns Eliot--banker, publishing executive, playwright, premier poet of this century--passed his domestic life on automatic pilot, while his mind found refuge and flourished in the Waste Land. The play's Tom (Edward Herrmann) finds it "an enormous effort to be trivial" with people. He husbands his passion for the empty page. He is the hollow man, a prune and a prude with the secret sin of genius, which must not be dissipated in ordinary intercourse. This Olympian diffidence, Hastings...
Although truth usually conquers such error in the realm of serious scholarly debate, there is less likelihood of dispelling the distorted beliefs about history that casual viewers bring away from docudramas. Few books ever become truly "definitive," in the sense that no further books are written to challenge their interpretation. But docudramas have far less often retraveled ground covered by previous examples of the genre. If the only show on a subject is erroneous, corrective information may not sink in when conveyed in the less vivid form of print. The TV networks are plainly within their constitutional rights to make...
...what they did." Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who took office in 1982, expresses "grave disappointment" with the show. "The city of Atlanta dealt with a tragedy that had a potential for enormous personal and racial conflict, and really went through it together," he asserts. "What we have is a docudrama that rewrites history." Less partial observers, too, are appalled at the film's distortions. "They might as well have put us all in white sheets," says Richard Belcher, a reporter who covered the case for WAGA-TV. His station, a CBS affiliate, will respond with a half-hour discussion show...
Segments of "The Atlanta Child Murders" were shown to the audience, and Abby Mann, author of the docudrama, defended himself against growing nationwide charges that his admittedly "fictionalized" account of the trial is skewed towards Williams' defense...
Mann, the self-proclaimed "Father of the Docudrama," said. "If I erred at all, it was on the other side," He added. "The picture wasn't done to attack the status...