Films that portray the way in which ordinary people have a right to choose public policies and can bring about political change by making officeholders accountable to the people.
NATURALLY NATIVE SHOWS THE PLIGHT AND HOPE OF AMERICA’S NATIVE PEOPLES Early films depicting the aboriginal inhabitants of North America showed them killed with single bullets by cowboys. From the 1960s, Native Americans have been portrayed with more sensitivity, though from the eyes of Caucasians. At last in Naturally Native, we have an opportunity for […]
AMERICAN WAR CRIMES AGAINST IRAQ EXPOSED IN THREE KINGS If war is hell, then going AWOL must be a relief. Not so in Three Kings (originally called “Spoils of War”), directed by David O. Russell, who also developed the screenplay after eighteen months of research about the waning days of Operation Desert Storm. At the
In contrast, Enemy of the State demonstrates in depth how terrorism and other high crimes can be fought, using the technology of electronic eavesdropping, communication satellites, and computer hacking, thus making privacy obsolete. Although most filmviewers will doubtless assume that the high-tech gadgetry is yet another Hollywood fantasy of director Tony Scott (of Crimson Tide
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In The Siege, nominated for the best film of 1998 raising consciousness of the need to protect both democracy and human rights, Edward Zwick (director of Courage Under Fire and Glory) poses a hypothetical: What if terrorism graduated from retail bombings to wholesale slaughter in New York City? What would government authorities do? Would the
Peter Weir’s continuing effort to inspire filmviewers to reflect on the stupid mistakes committed by those in power has hit the jackpot again. Whereas his Gallipoli questioned why Britain used soldiers as cannon fodder, and his Dead Poets Society depicted the cruelties of authoritarianism and antisemitism, The Truman Show tells us about the most frightening
Bruno Barreto’s Four Days in September is a retelling of events of 1969, when the American ambassador to Brazil was kidnapped by youthful, idealistic “Marxist” guerrillas seeking to free their comrades from detention and torture by the dictatorship ruling the country. Though the words of the ambassador, Charles Burke Elbrick, we learn how a career
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Mike Nichols’s Primary Colors develops the same theme as Wag the Dog—a president’s campaign is in jeopardy, so political advisers invoke various measures of damage control. In Primary Colors, a Clintonesque candidate is confronted by sex scandals but manages to distract the public into believing that he deeply cares about human problems. Political advisers, including
Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog has been nominated for best film in 1998 promoting the need for greater democracy. Similar to Catch 22, the film plays out a plausible scenario to an absurd conclusion. In this case, a presidential candidacy wanes, provoking the incumbent to launch an external war in order to boost his re-election