By Mary Shaffer
and Jerry Bunin
The Tribune

Movies aren't books.

Movies aren't history.

Criticizing a film because it's historically inaccurate makes as much sense as ignoring Shakespeare because he adapted history to suit his times and to reflect his vision of mankind.

"Forbidden Planet" might be silly science, but it's lasted 36 years because it reveals timeless truths about the human spirit.

You should ignore anyone who criticizes Spike Lee's just-released "Malcolm X" and Oliver Stone's 1991 film "JFK" for being historically inaccurate.

Historical accuracy is irrelevant to filmmakers who view art as a political weapon, propagandists more concerned with changing today and tomorrow than in explaining yesterday.

The further we get from the actual event, the less people seem to care. "Bonnie and Clyde," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "Last of the Mohicans" ignored the truth and few complained.

But Malcolm X and President Kennedy still affect our lives. To learn details about Malcolm's life or Kennedy's assassination, you can go to the library - don't go to the theater and come out complaining because it's not a bookstore.

Artists are influenced by their personal history, and they record impressions of what's happening in their world, but not necessarily by telling the literal truth. Art is symbolic by nature.

Life is chaotic. Things seem to occur randomly. Patterns emerge only with hindsight.

Films, like fiction, make more sense than life does.

Fiction is arranged for a purpose, so things come out in a certain way, so they tell a story illuminating the artist's vision of life as it should be, could be or should have been.

Artists are god-like, creating a reality for us. Filmmakers adapt novels and history so we can see that vision.

In "JFK," Stone blended real and imaginary events with fake and real documentary film footage as if they were the same things. Then people complained because his movie wasn't a documentary about what happened in Dallas 29 years ago.

Instead, the movie is about the origins of the paranoia and doubts people have today about politics. It's about the distrust people have built up toward government since Kennedy was assassinated, a distrust fed by public fears the government hasn't told us everything about the president's death.

Stone deliberately manipulated history to influence it. He wanted the government to open files on the assassination it's kept secret for nearly 30 years. He succeeded. Stone literally changed history by changing it figuratively in his film.

Lee wants to do the same. His film has been criticized for making Malcolm X's father too heroic and for ignoring some of the seamier political activities of the Black Muslims.

Such criticism ignores what the film is about. Malcolm X's life is simply an outline Lee uses.

In Malcolm X's transformation from street hustler to a national leader preaching black pride and self-reliance, Lee sees lessons for today about individual responsibility and racial harmony.

The movie - based on an autobiography Malcolm dictated to Alex Haley just before the famed orator was gunned down in 1965 - is three-times removed from the reality Malcolm Little grew up in.

Malcolm X saw the book and his life story as a means to spread his message to a broader audience. Haley reinterpreted Malcolm's message to fit his literary vision.

Lee then adapted the autobiography to fit his own vision, one that's obviously more concerned with influencing events today than faithfully chronicling one man's life.

To criticize any of them for not sticking to history is to miss the point of having more than one kind of art form.

It's like people who complain if a film didn't totally recreate their favorite book, a charge leveled last year against "Prince of Tides."

The differences between films, novels and history are so obvious it's astonishing that anyone even compares them.

Books are internal, using words to create images and describe emotions and thoughts.

Films are external and visual, using images and actors instead of relying totally on words. Movies only have a few hours to tell a story, so they combine events and characters and omit subplots and details that books have days to unfold.

Many novels and plays have made memorable films: "The Grapes of Wrath," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Gone With the Wind," "The Caine Mutiny," "Maltese Falcon," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and last year's Oscar-winning "Silence of the Lambs."

But literary greatness, like that of "Catch 22" or "The Great Gatsby," doesn't guarantee the same magic can be translated to the screen. Some average writing, such as "2001: A Space Odyssey," can become an unforgettable film.

Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea" made the transition because the novel was short and relied on Spencer Tracy reading passages from the book as he talked to the fish he battled.

Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove" needed an eight-hour TV miniseries to capture the scope of a tale stretching across the American pioneer experience.

Haley's book is great literature. Malcolm X was a powerful and intriguing man. Lee has made a great movie. It doesn't matter if his Malcolm X is close to the real one, the literary one or neither.

His Malcolm is one you should definitely meet.

Mary Shaffer works at Cal Poly. Jerry Bunin is a Telegram-Tribune reporter. They don't like critics who can't tell the difference between a book and a movie.