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.
THE INSIDER EXPOSES HOW “60 MINUTES” BOWED TO 30 PIECES OF SILVER Publicity about The Insider stresses the courage of a whistleblowing research scientist, formerly employed by a tobacco company, who in 1995 exposed the fact that cigarettes have been altered in recent decades to enhance their addictivity. As a result of his testimony, there […]
TEENA BRANDON IS BRUTALLY RAPED AND MURDERED IN BOYS DON’T CRY Earlier this year The Teena Brandon Story was a blockbuster documentary about a true story—a rape and preventable murder involving a Nebraskan male trapped in a woman’s body. Now a feature film, Boys Don’t Cry, dramatizes the same events. The film is directed by Kimberly Peirce, who also
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
AMERICAN WAR CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO EXPOSED IN ONE MAN’S HERO When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States was aroused to respond to unprovoked aggression. When the United States performed a similar act of aggression against México in 1846 and marched triumphantly in México City in 1848, world public opinion was not mobilized against Washington.
In most Eastern European countries as the Cold War ended, the answer was for the leaders to resign, new leaders to rise to power democratically, and for the situation to calm down as the government was seen as reasonably legitimate. Not so in Yugoslavia, where ethnic scapegoating on all sides led to civil war. We
BASTARDS NOMINATED FOR AN AWARD AS A FILM EXPOSÉ The film Bastards reminds us that while in Vietnam for two decades, many Americans paid Vietnamese women for sex. An estimated 30,000 children were born as a result of these encounters. After the American pullout in 1975, these Amerasian offspring were ostracized within Vietnam, deprived of
THREE SEASONS IS NOMINATED FOR BEST FILM EXPOSÉ OF 1999 With the war in Yugoslavia rapidly turning a modern country into a Third World nation, release of Three Seasons, a film about contemporary Vietnam, seems unusually well timed. Despite the fact that the United States was allied with Ho Chi Minh during World War II,
A Civil Action, in contrast, follows a well-established formula in presenting a true story based on a well-researched book by journalist Jonathan Harr: Big business (Beatrice Foods and W. R. Grace) has harmed humble individuals, causing death and disease, by dumping toxic waste into the drinking water of Woburn, Massachusetts. Jan Schlichtmann, a lawyer who
The second nomination in the category of peace is “Regeneration,” a British film directed by Gillies MacKinnon and based on the novel by Pat Barker. The film begins with a scene displaying the squalor of the trenches of World War I and then focuses most of the film on soldiers psychologically unable to continue at