Recent events in America and the world at large have provided plenty of fodder for Hollywood adaptation. There have been movies about everything from hunting Osama Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty to the Valerie Plame scandal to weird biopics about George W. Bush. But it has been awhile since we had a good movie about scandal in America’s press corps. That gap will be filled with Truth, a movie about the scandal that eventually got Dan Rather in serious trouble with CBS.
Truth is based on the memoir by Mary Mapes and concerns the public brouhaha in 2004 following a CBS report that stated George W. Bush received special treatment while serving in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. The documents the report was based on were suspected of being forgeries. The upshot of the scandal resulted in serious damage to Rather’s reputation and the firing of his producer, Mapes.
Robert Redford is taking on the part of Dan Rather in the film, with Cate Blanchett as Mapes herself. Now Bruce Greenwood – recognizable in face, if not in name – has joined the impressive cast as Andrew Heyward, the president of CBS News.
You might know Greenwood from his recent role as Captain Christopher Pike in Star Trek Into Darkness. He also recently wrapped Spectral, a supernatural action movie from Legendary. With Truth, he joins a cast that also includes Dennis Quaid, Elizabeth Moss, and Topher Grace.
The Rather/Mapes scandal is excellent fodder for a film, mixing as it does politics from the not-so-distant past with current conversations about the role (and responsibilities) of media. It’s almost hard to believe that there was a time when something as simple as forged documents could result in a producer getting fired. Now we just take the press fudging information as par for the course.
Truth is currently filming in Australia. We’ll keep you posted when we hear more.