Angry Family Members: The Truth
Several posts have been made asking why Gene DeBruin's family members are angry about Gene's portrayal in Rescue Dawn.
I am a relative of Gene DeBruin's and I'd like to take this opportunity to explain why our family is upset.
The majority of the early promotional pieces for this movie tout it as a "true story." Example: http://rescuedawn.mgm.com/ ("This summer experience the incredible true story of one man's fight for freedom.") Some movie reviews have been posted under the title of "documentary." This leads people to believe that the movie is factual and that the characters are factual. However, the movie is not truthful. In many instances, it does not even closely recount the book upon which it is based: Escape From Laos, written by Dieter Dengler himself.
If you know the facts behind the story, it quickly becomes apparent that Herzog did not do his research for this movie, nor did the performers who have respresented the real POWs in the movie. In fact, Herzog, ignored repeated attempts on the part of my family to discuss the character of Gene DeBruin. We offered to provide Herzog with the facts about Gene. We offered to consult with him - free of charge. We emailed him, called him, wrote him letters. All were ignored.
Instead, he created a completely fictionalized chacter that is "based" on the real person Gene DeBruin and used Gene's name without out permission. The fictionalized character completely defames the real Gene. When challenged by our family, Rescue Dawn, promoted as true, suddenly changed to fiction. This was an interesting shift that left my family without legal recourse.
Our contention is that if Herzog wanted to make a documentary, then he and the performers should have done their homework and made it a true documentary. If Herzog wanted to make a work of fiction, then he should have dropped the "based on a true story" approach and not promoted it as a true story. He needed to make his intention clear, rather than riding both sides of the rail. His mixing and matching of fact and fiction has had a very sad and troubling result.
Gene DeBruin was a kind, highly intelligent, gentle man with a solid sense of morality. He wasn't perfect, but he was no idiot, either. His mother was always amazed how he earned so many A's in school without hardly cracking a book. He loved baseball, hunting, fishing, and the out of doors. He graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in Forestry and worked as a smokejumper (parachuting out of planes and putting out forest fires). He always left packages of Juicy Fruit gum in his pants pockets so his little sisters would find them when they cleaned out his pockets when doing the laundry. He made sure they would have a treat after helping their mom do the laundry for 10 kids in the old wringer washer. He sent me hand beaded slippers from Alaska. I still have them - complete with holes in the bottoms due to so much wear and tear. I won't give them up.
Gene DeBruin was a living, breathing human being who does not deserve to be misrepresented so non-chalantly in the the movie, Rescue Dawn. There are much better and more respectful ways to artistically express the message that is intended to be conveyed in Rescue Dawn. It is a pity that Mr. Herzog did not rise to this challenge.