In-Class Write (Pt. 5)

IN CLASS WRITE

Sean Davis

1. In the film Argo, one can learn the truth behind the 6 escapees in the Iranian Hostage Crisis, a significant crisis in Americans history. the film does a great job showing the initial raid of the US Embassy in Tehran, Iran. In the first scene, Iranians start storming the US embassy, as the Americans keep in their head that if they were to respond with violence, a war would start and they would be the first dead. After the raid and 66 hostages were captured, Argo skips to 69 days ahead and focuses heavily on the 6 escapees who went to the Canadian Ambassador's house. In 1980, the CIA have limited options in operating in Iran, which is why everything done was revealed after as work from the Canadians.

The film also allows the viewer to see what stance Americans had to Iranians and vice versa in 1980. Tension between Iran and the US stemmed from an increasingly intense conflict over oil. The movie portrays the CIA operation Argo quite well, as the CIA's plan to create a fake movie and have the Americans be Canadian writers/directors was 100% true. They also make sure to let the viewer know that Americans didn't take any public credit in the movie.

2. Argo does a lot of things well in portraying the Escape of the six Americans in Iran, but falls short on a few aspects. During the time of the actual crisis, Canadian's were given all the praise for saving the hostages because the CIA's work was not public information for a good reason. In the film, they make the CIA the only priority in bringing the hostages home but still portray Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor as a brave and sympathetic man who took great risk in saving the hostages, but in reality he played a bigger role. Taylor also spied for the U.S. throughout the hostage crisis, at the request of president Jimmy Carter. Canada's Involvement also stems higher, as they established airport patterns and copies of entry and exits for the Mendez, they also purchased the tickets used in leaving Iran.

The movie portrays the Escape of Iran falsely, mostly to make it interesting to the viewer, and it works. In the movie, the U.S. government reversed the tickets at the last second when in reality, the Canadian government purchased the tickets ahead of the day. In the movie, the characters take huge risks in talking to the militia troops and giving them art pieces of the fake movie, but Mendez stated in his post mission that it went as "smooth as silk". Another inconsistency in the final escape, in the film the Iranian government finished remaking the shredded documents the same day as they left, the police chased after the airplane shooting at it, but again this never happened.

3. If the director added 20 min to the film, they should have explained more behind the current relationship between the US and Iran. Specifically having president Carter interacting the Canadian government about Iran. They also could have done better explaining how Mendez learned of “argo”. In the film, while looking for a fake movie, Mendez found Argo, but in reality Chambers found a script named Lord of Light, claiming it was perfect for this. Mendez asked to change it to Argo, naming it after his favorite joke. This scene did not make the movie, leaving Affleck to change the originality of the fake movie. I would prioritize both of these scenes because it respects what really happened, and gives the viewer more context to the rest of the film while keeping the audience entertained.