Films that bring previously obscured truths about the political process to the attention of the public, showing for example how offices of public trust are used for private purposes.
TRUTH SEEKINGDEFINITELY HAS CONSEQUENCES It is no coincidence that in 2004 George W. Bush was re-elected and Dan Rather resigned from CBS news. Truth, directed by James Vanderbilt, explains why but focuses most attention on the career of Mary Mapes (played by Cate Blanchett), who engaged in investigative reporting for Rather (Robert Redford) and Sixty […]
EXPERIMENTER SHOWS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PSYCHOLOGISTS IGNORE PHILOSOPHY A biopic of famous social psychologist Stanley Milgram (played by Peter Sarsgaard), Experimenter reviews his career, which is traced back to when he is a grad student of Harvard’s Solomon Asch (Ned Eisenberg), who proved in the early 1950s that most students conform to group pressure, even
BRIDGE OF SPIES RECALLS A TENSE PERIOD IN THE COLD WAR New York insurance attorney James B. Donovan (played by Tom Hanks), having earlier participated as an assistant prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials, is identified early in the film as a sharp negotiator. When Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a Soviet spy, is arrested in New
LABYRINTH OF LIES REVEALS INCONVENIENT TRUTHS The last Nuremberg Trial ended in 1946, convicting 133 persons (not 15, as a title in the film pretends). Courts of various countries soon convicted other war criminals, including two in German courts who had been found not guilty at Nuremberg. When the postwar occupation of Germany ended
STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON ENDS WITH A GAY PUZZLE After the Watts Riots of 1965, some African Americans in Los Angeles thought that a solution to the tyranny of the Los Angeles Police Department over African Americans was to move to a small town and gain majority control. One such town was Compton, not far from
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JIMMY’S HALL EXPOSES A SECRET ABOUT IRELAND In a biopic of Jimmy Gralton (played by Barry Ward), director Ken Loach has brought to public attention an episode that was long forgotten—and deliberately so by the Irish authorities from the 1930s to the 1970s. As Jimmy’s Hall begins, titles remind filmviewers of the fight for Irish
NOBLE GOES FROM IRELAND TO VIETNAM AND HITS THE JACKPOT A biopic of Christina Nobel (played by Deirdre O’Kane), the film Nobel features an Irishwoman from her life as a toddler in 1955 to her arrival in Vietnam during 1989 and beyond in a quest to save children from much of the same destitution that
WOMAN IN GOLD CELEBRATES A VICTORY OVER WAR CRIMES Article 46 of the Second Hague Convention of 1899, which requires military occupation authorities to respect private property, was not honored by the Nazis. Instead, they looted some 100,000 works of art, many of which were never returned to the owners after war. Some ended up
KILL THE MESSENGER SHOWS HOW TO DISCREDIT AN HONEST REPORTER During 1985-1987, members of the Reagan administration persuaded Israel to sell guns to Iran in exchange for the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon by a group connected with Iran. The United States Central Intelligence Agency then sold replacement weapons to Israel and used
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DIFRET EXPLAINS HOW ETHIOPIA STOPPED BRIDE ABDUCTIONS According to Ethiopian tradition, husbands seize brides after consultation with parents by the macho act of abducting them and having sex with them. But during 1986 in a farming area three hours from Addis Ababa 14-year-old Hirut (played by Tizita Hagere) does not like Tadele (Girma Teshome), the