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.
SIN NOMBRE EXPOSES THE PERILS OF MIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES Sayra (played by Paulina Gaitan) is on a long train trip from Honduras to relatives in New Jersey through Guatemala and México in Sin Nombre (Nameless), directed by Cary Fukunaga. Although she must elude the border patrol, the main peril is gang warfare inside […]
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12 REMAKES12 ANGRY MEN WITH A RUSSIAN ACCENT In 1957, the film 12 Angry Men peered into the inner workings of a hypothetical jury in which an 11-1 vote to convict turns into a 12-0 acquittal because a lone juror insists that the evidence must be reviewed logically rather than allow a rush to judgment.
1,800 JEWS ARE SAVED FROM EXTERMINATION IN DEFIANCE Knowing that the Nazis are rounding you up because you are Jewish, what would you do? The conventional answer—flight or passive acceptance of fate—leaves out resistance as an option. In Byelorussia, one form of resistance was to hide in a forest (though filming is in Lithuania). Defiance
VALKYRIE PORTRAYS THE LAST & MOST EXTENSIVE PLOT TO KILL HITLER There were 20 plots to kill Hitler. One was the failure of a bomb to explode in 1943 on the aircraft carrying Hitler out of Smolensk. The most complex and well planned effort, which failed on July 20, 1944, involved several generals and other
CHE GETS INTO THE NITTY GRITTY IN CUBA & BOLIVIA In Motorcycle Diaries (2004), director Walter Salles tracks the life of Ernesto Che Guevara from Argentina to Venezuela. Director Steven Soderberg’s current Che, which exceeds four hours in length, focuses on his time in Cuba and Bolivia, though press interviews and his speech to the
FROST/NIXON GOES BEHIND THE MINDGAME In 1977, three years after President Nixon resigned from the presidency, talk-show host David Frost conducted four televised interviews. Not politically savvy, he was interested in advancing his career by sitting opposite the biggest newsmaker in the world. Directed by Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon not only goes behind the scenes to
MILK IS A BIOPIC OF THE MAN WHO MOBILIZED THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT The election of Harvey Milk as San Francisco Supervisor in 1977 was of the first openly gay American politician of stature. The film Milk begins with a montage of documentaries about police hostility to gays, including the famous Stonewall Riots of 1969.
W. EXPOSES A STRUGGLE FOR POWER FOR ITS OWN SAKE—WITHOUT PURPOSE W., directed by Oliver Stone, places filmviewers in the role of amateur psychologists, seeking an explanation for the irrational behavior of the current President Bush (played by Josh Brolin) from the prolonged adolescent rebelliousness of a son who never grew up. Flashing back to
CHANGELING EXPOSES HOW “FACTS” CAN BE FIT TO A POLICY TO SUIT A SECRET AGENDA During the Prohibition era the police were asked to enforce laws while lawbreakers made millions. Although The Untouchables (1987) focuses on heroic efforts of the federal government against Chicago mobsters, less attention was directed at corrupt police departments that wiped
STILL LIFE DEPICTS LIFE INNUNDATING IN CHINA The aim of Still Life (Sanxia haoren), directed by Jia Zhang-Ke, is to demonstrate the impact of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China upon those whose homes were inundated along the upper Yangtze. Two phases of the project have been completed, and workers are demolishing