“Boal told the Los Angeles Times that he had talked to more than 100 soldiers during his research “and reshuffled everything I learned in a way that would be authentic, but would also make for a dramatic story.” "
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I’m not a huge fan of the film or of Bigelow (god, she gets a lot of gushing love doesn’t she?), but Sarver’s claim seems a bit of a reach to me – even if the filmmakers did use part of his experiences as a basis for the film.
However, it seems the central story, that of the bomb squad, is taken chiefly from this one account, so it would seem Sarver does have some ground to stand on here. It will be interesting to see if any other claims come forward.
I’ve read the complaint , and it’s not so much the story that’s alleged in the suit, It’s more a matter of Renner’s character alleged to be based largely on Sarver. To my reading, it’s not an especially strong case and is likely something that’s just being dangled out there in the hopes the producers will through some money at it to make it go away.
At any rate, there’s this :
“It could be tough for Sarver to win his lawsuit unless he can prove that Boal made promises to him while he was embedded with his unit, said Jody Simon, an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles. “Soldiers don’t have privacy,” Simon said. “The military embedded him so they gave the reporter permission to observe what was going on. … Works of fiction always have elements of fact.”"
Also note that the script has been vetted by both the Academy and the Writers Guild of America, which both deemed it an original, not adapted, work (that is to say, not adapted from Boel’s article).
It’s not the first time. Michael Herr, who wrote Dispatches, was involved in the scripts for both Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now, but in both cases the base text came from other sources. The Hurt Locker seems to draw primarily from Boal’s accounts, although I guess Bigelow was inspired to some degree by Chris Hedges’ War Is the Force That Gives Us Meaning.
I can’t say as that I really blame Sarver for trying to get his nickel out of this thing, as the more I read the more it seems Sgt. “William James” was based to a large degree on him, even to the point of family references and apparently even the title of the movie is derived from an expression of his. So, it would seem Sarver made a rather deep impression on Boal. From a legal point of view I think Boal and Bigelow can probably distance themselves from Sarver, but does Summit Entertainment really want to see this law suit dragged into the courts? I doubt it.
BTW, the real William James was a noted pacifist.
-even the title of the movie is derived from an expression of his—
The expression “the hurt locker” has been in use in the US military at least since the Vietnam conflict. Sarver also attempts to assert credit for the phrase “war is a drug” making it into the film, even though the quote at the beginning of the film is clearly attributed to Chris Hedges’ War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning which was published in 2002.
You are right about the expression, so it does seem Sgt. Sarver is stretching his case, although he may have referred to Iraq being “the hurt locker,” at the time. And, Boal is too young to have any memory of Vietnam. I don’t doubt that Sarver provided the base for the character Boal and Bigelow “created” in the movie.
I think whenever you transform real persons into movie characters you run this risk. I remember Richard Linklater getting into similar hot water in regard to Dazed and Confused, which he based on his high school experience. He even retained some of the names in the script such as “Pink” Floyd, and many of the expressions, with similar law suits arising.
It’s possible that Sarver may have been the first soldier in Iraq that Boal heard use the term. It’s hard to prove something like that, though, and, even if you do, I doubt that using a common parlance like that ought to give you the rights to its usuage.
-think whenever you transform real persons into movie characters you run this risk.-
Yes.
Dzimas
Despite all the attempts at verisimilitude, including the use of roving hand-held 16 mm cameras to give this movie a documentary feel, Bigelow and Boal are saying that this is a work of fiction, apparently in part to avoid the wrath of the real Blaster One ,Sgt. Jeff Sarver, who has filed a suit against the makers of this movie for using his story but not consulting him when it came time to make the movie.
Much of what gives The Hurt Locker credibility is its attempt to portray real events. The movie is largely based on Mark Boal’s embedded stories in Iraq from 2004, when he was working as a freelance journalist. The script he wrote largely comes from his 2005 Playboy article, The Man in a Bomb Suit, which was about Sgt. Sarver, who was then serving in Iraq.