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Investigative Journalism and Films: Stories Exquisitely Told and Magnificently Portrayed

Very often, we tend to underappreciate the efforts (or not care at all) that go into structuring and writing a wonderful story for a renowned publication. I can speak for myself in this regard. I just love the write-ups of Jarrod Kimber, Bryan Coverdale, Andrew Fidel Fernando, Late Peter Roebuck, Simon Barnes, Ed Smith, David Hopps, Ramchandra Guha, Sharda Ugra, Firdose Munda and many others while going through ESPN Cricinfo for my daily dose of Cricket round-ups and not until couple of years ago, I started to really admire them and their precocious writing skills. As for the films that are based on the write-ups of such genius minds, I, first of all, came across 'All the President's Men' that was based on 'Watergate Scandal'. The two journalists who covered it for 'The Washington Post' were Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Richard Nixon, the then President of America, had to resign after the publication of their story. The second such film for me was 'Chinatown' starring Jack Nicholson and it covered the chronicle of 'California Water Wars'. The third entry is 'The Insider' starring Al Pacino and Russel Crowe and it's based on a Vanity Fair article titled 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' that tells the story of a whistleblower of American Tobacco Industry. Fourth one and probably the most humane and sensitive pick is 'The Killing Fields', based on the experience of two The New York Times journalist, Dith Pran and Sydney Schanberg of Khmer Rouge regime in Vietnam. This year's Oscar Awardee for best film 'Spotlight' is the story of The Boston Globe's "Spotlight" team, the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative journalist unit in the United States, and its investigation into cases of widespread and systemic child sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Roman Catholic priests. All these stories are some of the finest specimens of investigative journalism and then their glorious transformations into motion pictures.

My central subject for this feature is the fascinating and now deceased writer, David Foster Wallace. His incredible work and a shot to eternal hall of fame, 'Infinite Jest' is an encyclopedic novel and explores the themes of satire, hysterical realism and metamodernism. It's arguably the most talked about work of 'literary fiction' of pre 9/11 American era and is said to have contributed heavily to today's literary landscape of USA and the world mainly for the influence of Wallace had on his contemporaries and young writers. When introduced, it was marketed heavily in all of USA and Wallace, an eternal recluse and fond of only a 'limited' companionship, had to adopt to a more public life. Both he and his newly launched novel became instant success with masses and noted intellectuals of USA and the world and although only some could claim to have finished it, being a colossal work with more than 1000-pages and endless, copious footnotes, every single one of them were enthralled. Rolling Stone, a very celebrated and loved lifestyle magazine that's loved all over the world, sent David Lipsky to accompany Wallace on his 10 cities' book tour. David stayed with him, David traveled with him and David talked to him and what followed and came out of it took the shape of 'Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself', David Lipsky's memoir of his encounter with Wallace. It became a New York Times Bestselling Book just like Wallace's phenomenal work and was made the basis of a film, 'The End of the Tour'. It chronicles 'a five-day conversation you won't want to end... Part love story, part road trip, part elegy to a bygone, pre-9/11 age'. 'The End of The Tour' featured into at least 25 critics' list of Best of 2015 Films and very possibly, just because it didn't have the backing of a billion-dollar production house, it got lost in the frenzy of Academy Awards and had its identity lost. How I came across it is just one of the plays of my fate and I now feel fortunate to have come across it. You can go to its Wikipedia page, reach out to its 'critical reception' section and get enthralled by all the opinions of great film critics of our times that are listed there. Or simple, you can take my words for it on their face value and not only watch this one but all the others too that are talked about in first section of this write-up. I'll be glad then!!!!!

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