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Ray! <"If the teenagers are sitting next to the professors in the audience and they all walk out satisfied, you got a hit.">
Those professors hopefully didn't write that type of material over which you enthuse. The scholarly work of a university faculty member would never- under any circumstances -include the introduction of fictive elements introduced solely for their role in retaining audience interest. Historical issues are too important for that: subsequent decades must have the right to presume that in what was written the researcher was as close to the truth as inquiry into that periods contemporary commentary, remaining evidence and corroboration of still measurable evidentiary elements can make it.
Failure to work with extreme dilligence is considered completely irresponsible in academic circles. Many a academic career has foundered when published work was found to be offering departures from the literals of the issues into- shall we say? - the imaginative.
Do you believe Luke entered the H.Q. of one the French "Storks" escadrilles and threatened to kill everyone, including himself with a hand-grenade if they didn't give him a better quality of ammunition? One current book on Luke states that! Another, in my opinion, shameless, author offers that the Luke-Wehner relationship was sexually based. Did the writer have the right to send this allegation down through the future "corridors of time" as a fact? I certainly think not! In a less grievious but still most unfortunate conceit we see that, above, in this thread, BH offered the nonsense about "Lt. Rieper" - Yes, we all know that the Aristotelian conventions of literature traditionally require an identifiable antagonist be positioned for the purpose of simplifying audience acceptance. Sadly the "Rieper" deceit- and all such innaccuracies, when identified, unfortunately make the complete body of a author's offerings rather suspect.
Unless identified- and deplored whenever possible, such "innovation" will, moreover, leave the future audience unethically deprived in that they will be unable to discern for themselves the important actual as discerned from the immorality of untruths. This is the fundamental ethical impairment when an audience is denied a perspective other than that offered by those either of the "flack" or "hack" persuasion.
More specifically- the ascension of FL- within the First Pursuit Group- from being viewed as "the village idiot" - to the status of a near "Charlemagne" - requires no introduction of extraneous offerings. What obviously great dramatic potential! Do you know there was an "anti-Luke" among the First Pursuit Group flyers who chose disgrace (he flew to a German airfield and surrendered) over death? What a marvellous counterpoint for a sub-plot!
The above is just an offering to you of why playing to the audience is not a responsibility of and in fact is the anathema to scholarly presentation of research- and a good documentary is an adjunct of this scholarship.
I'm happy to exchange comments with you. I didn't see my posting as a "rampage" and am happy you obviously consider our exchanges of to be in the nature of a responsible order of dialogue.
"Documentaries- Si?- Docudramas- "No"? At least as re the saga of FL!. I'm pleased to perceive that Tim King's approach is in my understanding of it is, suitably, so inclined toward absolute concern with the literal. My best and a great 2001 to you and yours. Lee
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