1. Argo
does an amazing job setting the first scene up in the movie with background
information before it dives straight into the characters and events that take
place in the movie. At the beginning there is a narrator that talks about the
history of Iran and how it was a Persian Empire that was ruled by Kings for
2500 years known as Shahs. The movie talks about the election of Mohammad
Mosaddegh who was a secular democrat that became Prime Minister. Mohammad
Mosaddegh had the support of his people because he was able to return Iran's
oil to his people. The movie also mentions that in 1953 the U.S. and Great
Britain arrange a coup to overthrow and install a new Shah to Iran. The U.S.
choose to install Reza Pahlavi, and he did a terrible job at pleasing his
population. It was said that people starved, his wife bathed in milk, wanted to
westernize Iran, and had a ruthless internal police known as the SAVAK all of
which enraged his people. In 1979 the Shah was overthrown and Iran soon became
entangled in score settling, death squads, and chaos which led to the former
Shah being taken in by the U.S. The people of Iran then took the U.S. Embassy
in an act of rage and demanded the Shah to be returned, tried, and hanged.
Many of the events that took
place in the movie were historically accurate. Six U.S. Embassy hostages did
manage to escape and hide out in the Canadian Ambassadors property. The U.S.
did send in a CIA Agent in to extract the stranded hostages with the plan being
to pretend that they were filming a movie, 'Argo', in Iran. The airport scenes
were dramatized but the hostages did really go through customs and fly their
way out of Iranian airspace even with many pressing threats such as immigration
officials, revolutionary guards, and flight details and paperwork. Studio Six
Productions was a fake Hollywood company that was fully funded by the CIA in
order to better convince the Iranian immigration control that the movie was
actually happening and it helped to fully credidate their cover story as a
production crew. Thankfully, the 6 American hostages and the 2 CIA Agents were
able to safely make their trip back to America and were greeted with open arms
after their many days spent in Iran.
2. One of the most important historical facts
that was left out of the movie was that the Canadian government actually had
much more to do with the operation than the film portrays. The movie also does
not show that there was a second CIA Agent, Lee Schatz, who helped Tony Mendez
in the extraction of the American hostages. The movie does not go into depth
with the time that the Americans spent in hiding but they had been with the
ambassador for about 80 days before this extraction took place. Mendez actually
left early the morning of the escape and scouted out the airport to ensure that
everything was going to plan and there would not be any surprises waiting for
them as they walked by.
The airport scene was one of
the most dramatized portions of the movie. Although the Americans did have to
travel through customs and board the plane, there were many discrepancies
between what actually took place. The Americans spent many long hours in the
crowded, clogged, and chaotic airport wondering when they would finally be
home. The hostages flight was actually delayed an hour so they all had to wait
in the departure lounge for an extra hour while revolutionary guards were
making their rounds. In an interview after the escape Agent Mendez recalls that
he knew that the final stop (customs) would be the weak spot if any in the
escape. He knew that the patrol officers would have to correctly identify and
match the current health card with the one you receive when entering Iran. If
the match would have failed than the whole mission would have been a bust and
the escape would have never happened. When Mendez handed the guards his card
they went to a back room and he was not sure what they were doing but it turns
out that the guards had actually just taken a tea break and when they came back
they stamped the Americas through to the terminal. Once out of the Iranian
airspace it was not only just the Americans but the whole plane was cheering
now that they could escape from the violent and lawless streets of Iran.
3. I think if the filmmaker had another 20
minutes that he could have added a scene with the actual hostages stuck in the
Embassy to show what could have been for the six that escaped. This would
historically show some of the terrible circumstances that were just narrowly
avoided and it would help to add suspense and pull on the heart strings of the
audience knowing that there are still many hostages still stuck in Iran. This
would also add a chance for another movie because it is almost as if the work
is not done until everybody is free from Iran and back in the U.S. Overall I
think that 'Argo' hit many of the main points of the operation and extraction
of the 6 hostages, the only thing I would add would be a scene in the embassy
that shows some of the hard times and rough road that some of the hostages had
to face while being held for 444 days.
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