Twitter tirades never seem like a good idea, but multiple tweets typed out in all caps are the social media equivalent of the multi-car wreck on the side of the highway. You just can’t help yourself. You have to look at the carnage.
So when Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz seemingly lost his mind at director Bennett Miller over the way events were portrayed in the new movie Foxcatcher, that attracted quite a bit of attention from film writers, sports fans and Twitter tirade gawkers. Schultz’s main issue is with how the relationship between him and multi-millionaire John du Pont was depicted, particularly one scene that several critics have interpreted as implying homosexual overtones.
Schultz has since deleted the tweets, but not before writers like BuzzFeed’s Adam B. Vary and The Playlist’s Rodrigo Perez documented the outburst in embeds and screen caps for everyone to see.
Foxcatcher is currently showing in a limited number of theaters throughout the country, but will get a wide release on Jan. 16. The lone living subject from the film accusing its director of portraying actual events untruthfully is surely not the sort of publicity producers envisioned.
If you’re not familiar with the story, Miller’s film depicts multi-millionaire John du Pont and his effort to create a world-class training facility for the 1996 U.S. Olympic wrestling team on his estate in Pennsylvania. Schultz and his older brother, Dave, were hired to coach and train with the team, though du Pont delusionally viewed himself as a guiding influence and leader of men. The relationship between the Schultz brothers and du Pont deteriorated — due in large part to mental issues du Pont suffered from — and in a shocking development, du Pont shot and killed Dave Schultz in 1996.
During the scene in question, du Pont (played by Steve Carell) wakes Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) up for a late-night training session. Earlier in the film, du Pont is shown participating in amateur tournaments for older wrestlers with his opponents being paid by aides to take a fall. This is something du Pont seemingly has no idea about, so he believes he’s an accomplished wrestler. In the training scene, du Pont pins Schultz face-down in an arm lock, and the camera then films a close-up on Schultz’s face in pain as his face is pressed into the mat.
Interpret that as you will once you see the film. Some obviously believe a little bit more than wrestling is going on during the scene. And when the real Schultz caught word of that, he went to Twitter to express his outrage. In a post to his Facebook page, Schultz said he got the same vibe from the scene when looking at Miller’s storyboards for the film and asked the director to take that sequence out, but Miller declined.
When I asked Bennett to take it out he refused saying he needed a scene showing duPont’s increasingly invasive encroachment upon my privacy and personal space. Wasn’t like I could do anything anyway.
Though I think the homophobia inherent in Schultz’s remarks is offensive, I did wonder what Miller was trying to say in that scene when I saw Foxcatcher a couple of weeks ago. I felt the close-up on Tatum was evocative, but can also see what Miller is saying about du Pont invading Schultz’s personal space to an inappropriate extent. When talking with other critics after the screening, there were questions among a few as to whether or not du Pont and Schultz had more of a relationship than one between athlete and benefactor.
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Foxcatcher leaves enough questions lingering that viewers might be compelled to look up news reports and features online about the actual case afterwards. That certainly applied to me, and I was surprised to see how much Miller — along with screenwriters E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman — had played with the timeline of real-life events. (This Washington Post feature by Lindsey Bever from this past November was informative, as were reports of du Pont’s conviction and eventual death in prison.)
What the movie portrays as happening relatively quickly actually played out over weeks in some instances, and years in others. Additionally, when Mark Schultz was approached by du Pont and when Dave was hired to coach Team Foxcatcher happened differently in real life than those events are mapped out in the film.
Do those inconsistencies take anything away from the movie? People have to understand that storylines are changed and condensed to fit the limited running time of a movie. But when telling a true story, especially one that can be easily researched online, I think it can call authenticity into question when changes to real events become apparent. That surely applies even more so when it’s your story being told on screen.
Whether or not Foxcatcher succeeds or fails as a film has little to do with certain details being changed to serve the script. The spirit of the story in Miller’s film is true, though various details being changed (or even manipulated) to fit the plot could be problematic for some. I think we can safely count Mark Schultz among such objectors. You can read his side of the story in bookstores now.
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