Films that demonstrate how governments or quasigovernmental groups have violated or promoted the values in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
THE HURRICANE RECEIVES THE FIRST POLITICAL FILM SOCIETY NOMINATION FOR 2000 Thanks to two Northwestern University professors, a substantial number of men have been released from death row in Illinois because they were wrongfully convicted. In The Hurricane, director Norman Jewison brings to the screen the book Lazarus and the Hurricane: The Untold Story of […]
THE GREEN MILE SHOWS THE BLACKNESS OF THE DEATH PENALTY Only one film provoked the British public to repeal the death penalty—5 Rillington Place (1971). Several films have tried to shake up the American public in a similar manner, most recently Dead Man Walking (1996) and True Crime (1999). Now director Frank Darabont ups the
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.
THE GENERAL’S DAUGHTER NOMINATED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD The General’s Daughter, based on the novel of the same title by Christopher Bertolini which in turn is constructed from a true story, is a powerful film about discrimination against women in the military, recalling the publicity over the Tailhook incident and similar exposés. Directed by Simon
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XIU XIU NOMINATED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD The Cultural Revolution (1967-1976) was perhaps the cruelest period of modern Chinese history. Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl, the latest portrayal of the ruthlessness of the People’s Republic of China in trampling on the individual during the Cultural Revolution, is based on Yan Geling’s novella Heavenly Bath (Tian
HARD NOMINATED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD William Friedkin’s Cruising (1980) startled filmviewers by portraying a serial killer of gay men who enjoy sadomasochistic sexual arousal, with an undercover cop who was straight. Hard, released to the general public in Los Angeles in midsummer 1999, ups the ante on Cruising by focusing on closeted gay homicide
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