This film Brad Pitt Star was based on a controversial memory

“It’s a true story about friendship that goes more deep than blood.” These words open the “Sleepers” of Barry Levinson, the drama of the legal crime of 1996 which revolves around juvenile delinquents who end up serving sentences of more than nine months. As planned by the first lines of the film, the story revolves around four friends who grow up in a difficult neighborhood which is supervised by two morally opposed characters – the father of the parish priest Bobby (Robert de Niro) and the local gangster Benny (Vittorio Gassman). While children often do small races for King Benny from time to time, an unfortunate accident in the summer of 1967 completely changed the trajectory of their lives.

After stolen a hot cart, the children play with him, and he accidentally rolls a staircase and crushes a man. The four children are condemned to serve the time in a minor detention center, where they are subject to unimaginable horrors, including repeated cases of abuse and torture by a sadistic guard (Kevin Bacon). Quick advance in the near future, two of the children (now all adults) shoot the goalkeeper without remors in question, while the other two use their legitimate positions as a DA journalist and assistant to help their friends thwart the law. Just when you think it is a simple story on justified revenge, “Sleepers” presents the themes of complex morality and redemption, which define the lives of thousands of people affected by similar social circumstances in America.

The story of Lorenzo (Jason Patric), Michael (Brad Pitt), John (Ron Eldard) and Tommy (Billy Crudup) in “Sleepers” is based on the eponymous non-fiction book by Lorenzo Carcaterra which details these real-depth events. However, Carcaterra’s assertion according to which he is one of the boys who have experienced these heartbreaking events have been disputed since the publication of the book, throwing a dubious light on the veracity of memories. This raises the question: are Carcaterra’s “sleepers” really a true story? Here’s what we know.

Any memory or personal account which is even slightly autobiographical intrinsically raises questions about authenticity. To begin with, our memory of memories is never perfectly aligned with objective truth (because some experiences are colored by a subjective interpretation), and it is natural to want to paint as slightly different from the way we really perceive ourselves (Levinson himself made of four Deeply personal films which are collectively nicknamed his Baltimore films). But even when we do not take into account these aspects, the “sleepers” become controversial, because the real institutions which would have been involved in the events which took place strongly disputed the story of Carcaterra.

The first is the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church and School on the west side of Manhattan. This is the institution that Carcaterra and his friends have attended as a child, and the father of the Bobby sect belonged. In the memories of Carcaterra and the adaptation of Levinson, Father Bobby provides a false alibi for John and Tommy just after being tried for shooting the security goalkeeper as part of their revenge plan. The Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the real school of Jesus vehemently refutes this assertion, calling “malicious” and defamatory (via the Catholic League):

“To defame Catholic schools and priests is malicious. The whole story is a hoax: there was no crime, no one went to the reform school, there was no murder and no priest was ever talking.”

Now we do not know if this official declaration is true or not, but even the office of the Manhattan district prosecutor stipulates that there is no file of a case that resembles that of the book. Although Carcaterra did not respond directly to these allegations, he said that many details in the book were fictitious, and some were modified to protect the real people involved (via the New York Times):

“You have to change the dates, names, places, people. With their appearance; you have to make them look a different way. If that happened here, you have to get there.”

Carcaterra’s claims were supported by his publishers and Levinson himself, who is convinced that these events are credible.

The controversy reactions surrounding the “sleepers” have been interesting to say the least. Some people believe that the whole story is a hoax, while others think that events have occurred, but not in the way that the memory tells them (which aligns with the Declaration of Carcaterra on the modification of key details). Although the truth is difficult to discern at this stage, the fact that Carcaterra’s book is a lively and amazing exploration of nature against Nurture is not to be discussed.

Regardless of fiction, non-fiction or a hybridized story, “sleepers” go to the heart of friendships who change their lives and how the neighborhoods we grew up by ending up shaping the kind of people we become. Of course, the story in “Sleepers” is hyperspecific and may not be applicable to a universal level, but it is a fascinating vision of these themes that influence the microcosmic world of the book.

Although Levinson thinks that Carcaterra’s account, he told the New York Times that his interest in adapting the book was summed up for a fascination for a central idea of choice, destiny and luck:

“What also fascinated me was the idea that an incident, in an instant, can go wrong, and always your life will be changed. Think about it in my life, and some of the things I have done, and how a slightly different movement could have altered everything. I hate to think about it.”

This uncomfortable dilemma is the knot of Levinson’s “sleepers”, because it is as much a story about the punishment fueled by rage as the tragic injustices that juvenile delinquents experience due to a broken system. While the star drama of Levinson (which is far from his only foray into a bizarre horror film of false-metal style, years later) is deeply imperfect, it is always a heartbreaking story that forces us to think about its thematic fabric. Whether based on a true story or not in any way decreases the impact of the film, and that’s what really matters.