Argo seen and reviewed here

This is my reaction to the movie Argo and Ben Affleck & Co's "artistic" license that is as far from the truth of the historical events as one could ever imagine.

       I was totally ignorant of the historical events (of the six diplomats) before watching, having the intention to look it up after for accuracy, which is what I look for most in a movie depicting real events.

       But about half way through Argo, I knew that it was mostly fiction because of the never-ending suspense in the form of "close calls" at a pace equal to or exceeding that of famous fictional  suspense thrillers like the Die Hard series. 

     Indeed, as the diplomats left Iran, it reached an unbelievable crescendo.     

      But I checked the record anyway and found that this movie is disappointing after the fact for anyone that posthumously checks the record because it is fiction down to it's core. It turns out that the real "Canadian Caper" as it was known in the press, was indeed a Canadian caper, a Canadian operation, not a CIA one, in which Canadian Ambassador Kenneth Douglas Taylor played a major part and the protagonist of the movie, while CIA operative Tony Mendez, and "exfiltration" expert (as he is depicted in the movie), played a real-life supporting role to the Canadian effort smuggle out o and repatriate the American diplomats.

     Movie director Ben Affleck calls this "artistic license" while  I call it a lack of artistic discipline. 

       I assert that because most people are too lazy to  research anything and take these movies at face value. Thus, in the aggregate, movies like this create a twisted, false idea of history. Because of human nature to be lazy in body and mind, not to question anything on film or in print, Hollywood has a leadership duty to be as factual as possible when dramatizing historical events.

    But my view is even more hardline than that, as i assert that "artistic license" like that employed in this movie is not art at all, rather it is merely the  formulaic Hollywood ritual to  churn out another blockbuster (financial juggernaut) film. 

     True art requires  disciplinary parameters in the form of  rules and guidelines within which unique, honest art is created. For example, iambic pentameter, Shakespearean sonnets and haikus, are all genres of poetry with very rigid rules, BUT NO ONE EVER HAS MADE THE CLAIM THAT Well done example of them ARE NOT ART. 

     No sir, Ben Affleck is smokescreening us and perhaps himself. All he did was avoid a challenge to be creative and truthful at the same time and turn out an important work of art that is entertaining as well. Instead he chose a tried and true (to make millions) much easier hack approach to this historic event that shows his talent for directing and making movies that are more about pop-culture entertainment rather than the enduring art he imagines that he is creating.
    My criticism aside, Argo is a very credible effort and entertaining as intended. The acting, script (and I assume direction) is first rate throughout lending much realism to this work of fiction. In fact, the degree of realism achieved in this move is that of being there with real officials in the government office during this crisis as well as on the streets of Tehran.

Spoiler alert: I love John Chamber's (John Goodman) response to the director Affleck playing Mendez asking if he can teach Mendez to be a director in a day: "I can teach a rhesus monkey to be a director in a day."

And I hope this goes viral and he sees it.