Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)In Steven C. Barber's film "Return to Tarawa," which features Leon Cooper's role in the Battle of Tarawa, Mr. Cooper is portrayed as a heroic character who ferried Marines into Tarawa and wounded guys out throughout the 3-day battle in November of 1943. Cooper has said publicly many times he "closed the eyes of the dead" and buried "scores" of his fellow countrymen in the days following the battle.
Unfortunately, in Cooper's own 2003 book, 90 Day Wonder: Darkness Remembered, which has been widely marketed and reviewed as "true to life" (i.e., a nonfiction memoir), he tells a different tale. In the book version Cooper's Higgins boat was hit and he was returned to a ship and cleared for duty by a Navy doctor. Cooper then ordered a coxswain to bring him to a strip of land far away from the battle for about a week, by which time the fighting and follow-up actions had ended. He'd missed the battle almost entirely and never set foot on Betio, the islet where the fighting took place.
Both accounts cannot be true. If audiences accept the film version then Cooper's own autobiography is a fabrication. That means Cooper knowingly duped readers and allowed them to think it was true. The book conveniently lacks a label as "fiction," "nonfiction," "history," etc, yet reviews on the author's own website clearly indicate that readers view the book as truly an account of the author's life. Mr. Cooper proudly features these reviews to market the book, further promoting the book as a true account. But on the other hand, if audiences accept the book version as fact, then this film cannot possibly be accurate or considered a true documentary. The film then becomes the fabrication.
As we know from recent controversies in the publishing world (e.g., James Frey and the falsehoods of his memoir "A Million Little Pieces"), fiction sold as truth is unacceptable and destroys an author's credibility. If Mr. Cooper's memoir is one such fiction, then his claims in this film, and the many interviews available online with the likes of Katie Couric, Larry King, and others, are impossible to believe.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Return to Tarawa-the Leon Cooper Story
A WWII veteran returns to the site of his first battle because he had learned that many of his countrymen, who died in the battle, still lie where they fell sixty-six years later.
This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.
Click here for more information about Return to Tarawa-the Leon Cooper Story
0 comments:
Post a Comment