if two white thugs had slashed the facenof a black model.) The question ofnrace, however, was brought to the forenby Maddox himself: he constructed anpreposterous scenario involving a supposednconspiracy between Maria andnthe police, and portrayed the victim asna racist who had fingered his twonclients only because they were black.nSo what do we see in the movie?nWell, the courtroom assault on Marfanis there, in a watered-down version —nthe sarcastic hectoring, the blunt suggestionnof sluttishness. In the interest ofnverisimilitude, apparently, the lawyernwho batters Maria on the stand evennwears the kind of glasses favored bynAlton Maddox. But he’s a white man.nThe lawyer character’s persona is repulsive,nand his behavior is just aboutn(though not fully) as disgusting asnMaddox’s was at the real trial. But henhas been magically transformed. Andnthere’s not so much as a mention of thenracial red herring Maddox dragged intonthe trial.nThe affirmative action doesn’t stopnthere. Two cops, at first unaware of thencrime, happened to catch the assailantsnbecause they were behaving suspiciously—nrunning from the scene withnrazors in their hands and blood on theirnclothes. The cops were in reality white;nin the movie, one of them, the goodnguy who is cast as the interrogator ofnthe suspects, has become black. Andnthe tough but sympathetic prosecutornwho shepherds Maria through her ordealnis now a black woman; in real lifenshe was a light-skinned Hispanic (who,nreportedly, was privately upset thatnHispanics hadn’t gotten their due innthe movie). But those adjustments arenminor compared to the transmogrificationnof Alton Maddox.nCoincidentally, NBC’s localnanchorman in New York, Chuck Scarborough,nhad been involved personally,nas a reporter, in covering the MarianHanson case, and after the movie airednon February 4 we were treated to annunusual spectacle on the 11 o’clocknnews: instead of the usual practice, innwhich the news shows shamelesslynplug movies and series broadcast onntheir own networks, we got a newsnspot, by Scarborough, which in a lowkeynbut devastating way compared thenfacts of the case with the contortednmovie version, noting particularly thenconversion of Alton Maddox from nas­n54/CHRONICLESnty black bully to nasty white bully. Ansalutary coda, though hardly an antidotento the preceding two hours.nThat same distorting mirror, in annequally mendacious variation, was deployedna year earlier in a TV movienabout another notorious New Yorkncrime, the fatal black-white incident innHoward Beach, Queens. (This movienwas also aired on NBC, but that’snprobably a coincidence — NBC is nonmore prone to this sort of thing thannthe other networks.)nThe facts of the Howard Beachncase, in capsule summary, are these:nafter a couple of confrontations betweennwhite teenagers and three blacksnfrom outside the neighborhood, thenwhites, several dozen of them havingngathered by now, ended up chasing thenblacks, catching and beafing one ofnthem while another, high on cocaine,nran into traffic on a busy highway,nwhere he was struck and killed by anspeeding car. The movie was callednMaking the Case for Murder andnthat’s technically accurate, since it reverentlynchronicles the efforts of specialnprosecutor Joe Hynes to get murdernconvictions. But even the title is inflammatorynand misleading: it is highlynunlikely that the young whites intendednto chase the black victim onto thenhighway, or to kill him in any othernway, or that all of the defendants evennknew until later that he had run to hisndeath. In any case, the most seriousncrime anybody was convicted of wasnsecond-degree manslaughter.nWhile race was unavoidably onenaspect of Howard Beach, contemporarynsociety being what it is, the blackwhitenconfrontation arguably had morento do with turf than with race — thenkind of episode that would have gottennlittle public attention if the peopleninvolved had been either all white or allnblack. The press and television, however,nhave persisted in calling the incidentnboth “racial” and a “murder”;nJoseph Fried of the Times used thenphrase as recently as May of this year,nand Fried in particular ought to knownbetter — at least that no one was convictednof murder — since he coverednthe trial. Or maybe it was an overzealousncopy editor who put in the “racialnmurder,” lest we forget.nHow do you lie in a docudrama?nBesides the obvious techniques availablento print as well — ranging fromnnnselechve use of information to manipulationnof tone — the visual dramaticnmedium, especially when it combinesnfact, fiction, and conjecture, offers ancornucopia of inviting possibilities.nCasting and direction and the shadingnof performance alone create an impactnthat can easily overwhelm even annhonest script. You can lie pictorially,nwithout using any words at all. And ifnyou’re doing a docudrama you cannpick and choose your facts and emphasis—nand stir in your own fictions — tondrive home just about any point ofnview you want to peddle. This philosophy,nwhich, of course, applies to non-nTV movies as well, was neatlynsurnmed up recently by Irwin Winkler,nwho directed Guilty by Suspicion, thisnyear’s misleading treatment of thenblacklisting of the 1950’s: his film isnfiction, Winkler told reviewer RonaldnRadosh, but fiction that he hopesn”blends a certain amount of reality tonmake the fiction more truthful to thenaudience.” (Radosh’s dissection ofnGuilty by Suspicion was written for thenNew York Times but published in thenAmerican Spectator after the Timesndecided instead to run a piece bynVictor Navasky, editor of the Nation.)nIn the Howard Beach movie, whichnpresents itself as fact, not fiction, thenlies started with the casting: the threenblacks, who were all, in reality, physicallynimposing men, turned up on thenscreen as somewhat smaller, and asnvery appealing guys, despite some hostilitynthat was implicitly and explicitlynexplained away in the usual terms ofnpoverty, racism, etc. The movie generallynfudged their unsavory past historiesn(all three had criminal records), andntheir own not-so-innocent role in triggeringnthe ultimate violence. (Whonstarted the exchange of racial epithetsnthat took place, for instance, has nevernreally been established.)nThe white teenagers, on the othernhand, were portrayed as sneering,nsmirking little bigots (that indispensablenpejorative), and the movie made nonreference at all to the fact that the mostnprominent defendant, seventeen-yearoldnJon Lester, actually had a numbernof black friends (including a formerngirifriend) who think, and have nonhesitation in saying, that he was railroadednfor essentially political reasonsnin a poisonous public atmosphere inflamednby sensational, and often inac-n