Dear Mr. Costner,
I’m so glad you started getting back into serious movies. You certainly did a damn fine job with “Hidden Figures.” I know the baseball movies meant a lot to you, but I must say I had trouble getting into them. They were watchable films, but, not being a baseball fan they just didn’t do much for me. “Black or White” is still in my rental list, but I did watch “Criminal” and found that to be a very fine flick as well.
This open letter is a request for you to find funding or get involved with a movie based on the subject matter of “Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II.” I must confess to not having read the book, I just found it in an issue of Time Magazine. Even if the book isn’t movie material a small team of Hollywood script writers and investigators could bring this story to the screen.
Personally I feel there are many such stories from World War II forward which we are desperately losing the ability to portray. So many of the people directly involved in the secret stories have passed on. Now is the time for the entertainment industry to capture those stories on a hopefully permanent media so generations to come will know just how much was done by so few.
During World War II, Americans, by and large, had an unwavering faith and trust in their government. We allowed such monumental secrets to be kept “for the greater good” but now it is time for all of those secrets to be told, during those last fleeting moments when the scant few remaining who were there can tell the tale as completely as they know it.
I applauded Nicolas Cage’s “Windtalkers.” It was shocking to see just how devoted to a country which oppressed and slaughtered them the Navajo people could be. Even more shocking to realize little was done to reward the men and their families once the war was over.
While I suspect the treatment and lives of the American code breaking women weren’t as oppressive as those in either “Hidden Figures” or “Windtalkers” I do feel that this and other stories like it from World War II through Viet Nam should be recorded on film in a manner which the average citizen can find compelling. Too few of us watch the documentaries. The History Channel used to do a good job of such things, but now it is just fake reality like every other channel.
While I’m sure “The Monuments Men” had some Hollywood liberties taken, it was still a compelling story about something the average Joe & Jane were never taught in history class. These are all real stories from a time when America was great, rather than the puddle of shit it has become, having the best government and justice elitist’s money can buy.
Please consider and look into this request Mr. Costner.