Real Life Events In The Film Sully

Sully In the last century, movie producers have turned to books and novels for inspiration for their new films. This type of film only became popular in the last four decades, and ever since then, it has only increased in popularity. However, another popular medium producers like to adapt is real-life events. There are many films out there now that are based on a true stories. Nevertheless, these adaptations usually aren’t an exact depiction of the real-life story. Producers often have to make additions and changes in order to make a movie that has enough substance and drama and can become a success in Hollywood. Some real-life events just don’t have enough substance to or enough drama to sustain the audience for a long period of time. Therefore, …show more content…
On January 15, 2009, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger was taking off from LaGuardia Airport and heading to Charlotte Douglas International Airport in US Airways Flight 1549, with one hundred and fifty-five people on board. However, in less than five minutes in the air, Sullenberger faced a predicament when a flock of geese struck the aircraft, causing Flight 1549 to lose all engine power. In order to save the maximum amount of lives, Captain Sullenberger approached his problem in a new direction: he decided to crash-land in the Hudson River. Miracuously, all one hundred and fifty-five people on board survived the water-landing, making the captain’s skilled maneuver an unmatchable feat. Almost immediately afterwards, the news of the crash erupted in the media. Many news outlets began hailing the Sullenberger and his crew as heros for their “‘masterful landing’, which was a ‘miracle on the Hudson’”. In the subsequent years, television shows and documentaries were released based on this occurrence, but the most popular was the dramatized feature film Sully, produced by Clint Eastwood. Although the movie and the real-life event are similar, there a few major differences that the audience notices when watching. These differences send a subtle, but strong, political message to the audience, and has left investigation officials of the National Transportation Safety Board feeling …show more content…
The actual crash landing was only around five minutes long, so the producer needed a way to add tension and visible storyline, so that it could be adapted into a standard length movie. To do so, Clint Eastwood needed a villain that his “laconic and iconoclastic American [male]” would be able to overcome. Furthermore, this is where Clint Eastwood’s political views are subtly introduced. Oftentimes, producers like to have their films send a message that they themselves agree with and will usually find ways to incorporate these messages into their work. Clint Eastwood’s message is that he has “always liked their kind of philosophy of less government.” Clint and other people of the libertarian party believe in limiting government interference and in maximizing the amount of liberty and freedom American people have. Sully and other movies that Clint has produced have shown this recurring theme of how the government can make situations worse. By having these subtle liberal ideals embedded into the movie, the audience doesn’t automatically realize that is libertarian propaganda and not actually the truth about the Hudson River landing. The audience sees that in this movie, the government agency is the villian who is out to destroy the man whose image is that of an true American hero. Furthermore, this change may also give a