The Oscar Winning film, Argo, directed by Ben Affleck is about the Iranian Hostage Crisis that took place during the Iranian Revolution in the 1970's and how on November 4, 1979, some angry Iranians got into the US Embassy in Tehran and took fifty- two hostages, while six Americans managed to escape. Tony Mendez of the CIA came up with a plan involving the six hostages acting as though they were part of a fictional movie in order to get them out of Iran. (“About the Film”).
While the movie, Argo, has many accurate parts to it, there are also some inaccurate parts included in the film, as well as details added in order to make the movie more interesting, and suspenseful. Despite these inaccurate parts, the movie starts out with a sequence of pictures with details that outline the actual events that occurred. The introduction shows how the Iranians were angry due to the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, allowing Iran's former pro- Western Shah to come to the United States for cancer treatment after being previously expelled from Iran. The revolutionaries were also being heavily encouraged and influenced by the extremely anti- American religious figure, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and wanted an end to the United States constant involvement in Iran's affairs (“Iran Hostage Crisis”). These details help give the movie a factual base, and explain the reasons for the crisis. In addition to the factual introduction, according to David Haglund, the overall storyline “in which the CIA establishes a fake movie production, complete with a full script and ads in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, in order to rescue six Americans stranded in post-revolutionary Iran—is 100 percent true” (Haglund). Despite the seemingly far-fetched plot of the film where a science fiction movie is used by the CIA as a way to get hostages out of Iran, it really did happen. Even former CIA agent, Tony Mendez says, “that he would give the movie Argo a grade of “90 percent” for realism in its portrayal of the 1979 operation that resulted in the successful rescue of six U.S. diplomats hiding in Iran” (qtd. in Getterman). He also says that when he went on the set that he thought the actors chosen to play the six hostages “were the actual people because of how well their body language resembled that of the actual diplomats” (qtd. in Getterman). This shows that the movie directors made an effort to show individual personalities, rather than showing the overall picture of all the hostages, including the ones still being held captive. In addition to the six hostages that the movie focused on, there were also the fifty- two hostages that remained captive to the Iranians, after fourteen of the original sixty- six hostages were released. (“Iran Hostage Crisis”).
Bruce German, one of the fifty- two, says, “We didn’t know from day to day if it was our last day because they kept threatening us with guns,” (qtd. in Lawrence), and “'He recalls the hostages being forced awake at 3 a.m., blindfolded, and “paraded in our underwear into a cold hallway,'” (qtd. in Lawrence). This is very similar to what is shown in Argo, with the few parts depicting the remaining hostages being threatened by the Iranian's guns, and blindfolded. Besides how the movie shows how the remaining hostages were treated, the film also gets many other details accurate, such as the original ideas of giving the six hostages bicycles to escape, and having them acting as crop inspectors (before someone pointed out that there was snow on the ground), and how the Americans in the US Embassy destroyed the stamps used to make visas after they realized the building was being stormed (Bearman). These attentions to detail show how the directors of the film wanted to make a film that was at least somewhat accurate. The Iranians “had even hired teams of carpet weavers to successfully reassemble shredded documents” (Bearman), which is shown consistently throughout the movie, and the idea of the people entering Iran giving the officials a white slip to be kept which was then compared to the yellow slip given when they left to keep track of who came in and out of the country is also accurately featured in the movie as a problem for the hostages (Bearman). These aspects of the film show that the directors of the film tried to be pretty accurate with the details, as well as the overall event that the film portrayed. Steven Lauterbach, one of the fifty-two hostages, says, “It was a menacing environment; there were crowds on the streets and bodies hanging from construction cranes, just like in Argo” (qtd. in Lawrence). Although some of the details of the movie may be inaccurate, the movie gets the hostile environment of Iran right. Even people heavily involved thought that it accurately depicted what occurred.
Bruce German, one of the fifty- two, says, “We didn’t know from day to day if it was our last day because they kept threatening us with guns,” (qtd. in Lawrence), and “'He recalls the hostages being forced awake at 3 a.m., blindfolded, and “paraded in our underwear into a cold hallway,'” (qtd. in Lawrence). This is very similar to what is shown in Argo, with the few parts depicting the remaining hostages being threatened by the Iranian's guns, and blindfolded. Besides how the movie shows how the remaining hostages were treated, the film also gets many other details accurate, such as the original ideas of giving the six hostages bicycles to escape, and having them acting as crop inspectors (before someone pointed out that there was snow on the ground), and how the Americans in the US Embassy destroyed the stamps used to make visas after they realized the building was being stormed (Bearman). These attentions to detail show how the directors of the film wanted to make a film that was at least somewhat accurate. The Iranians “had even hired teams of carpet weavers to successfully reassemble shredded documents” (Bearman), which is shown consistently throughout the movie, and the idea of the people entering Iran giving the officials a white slip to be kept which was then compared to the yellow slip given when they left to keep track of who came in and out of the country is also accurately featured in the movie as a problem for the hostages (Bearman). These aspects of the film show that the directors of the film tried to be pretty accurate with the details, as well as the overall event that the film portrayed. Steven Lauterbach, one of the fifty-two hostages, says, “It was a menacing environment; there were crowds on the streets and bodies hanging from construction cranes, just like in Argo” (qtd. in Lawrence). Although some of the details of the movie may be inaccurate, the movie gets the hostile environment of Iran right. Even people heavily involved thought that it accurately depicted what occurred.
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