Zuckerberg takes on The Social Network:
Ben Heineman Jr. debates the unreality of storytelling:
[F]or me, one of the more interesting questions raised by the film is whether works of entertainment or art presenting themselves as real accounts of contemporary events owe fidelity, not just to story-telling, but also to a search for truth in a journalistic or historical sense. Certainly some of Sorkin's own statements suggest that he didn't want The Social Network just to be story-telling. And, if that is so, then he had an obligation to get closer to the facts.
But, if he did want pure fidelity to "story-telling" there was a different way to shape the movie, which has as its direct forebear the film many believe is the greatest ever made, Citizen Kane.
Orson Welles' classic was based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, but in the movie he was a fictional character, which allowed Welles great artistic license.What if Sorkin had fictionalized The Social Network, including its main character (Sam Kainenborg in homage to the past)? Wouldn't the film have been at least as powerful (perhaps with less of the hokey deposition by-play to trigger flash-backs) without the legitimate,and troubling, debate about the fairness of the portrayal?