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 out criminals because they wanted to monopolize the trade in booze and flesh. Directed by Clint Eastwood, Changeling, primarily a biopic of Christine Collins (played by Angelina Joli), provides details on the Los Angeles Police Department during that period. In the early part of the film LAPD is depicted as shooting unarmed criminals on the spot in a major raid, while payoffs enriched cops on the beat and possibly the head of LAPD and the mayor of the city. In 1928, when the film begins, Christine comes home from work to discover that her 9-year-old son Walter (played by Gattlin Griffin) is missing. A single mom, she calls the police but encounters bureaucratic delays (which persist to the present, wherein a missing person report requires a person’s social security number, something usually unknown to all but the very closest family members). She is persistent, however, eventually attracting the attention of Rev. Gustav Briegleb (played by John Malkovich), pastor of a nearby church who spreads news about the corrupt and incompetent LAPD on regular radio broadcasts. Five months later, the police present Christine with a young boy as her long-lost son despite her protest that he is not her own. Actually he is 12-year-old Arthur Hutchens (played by Devon Conti), who has been coached by the police. Continuing to insist that LAPD should be looking for her real son, the police eventually place her in a mental ward of the local hospital along with other women deemed troublemakers. The standard treatment consists of forced medications, desperate women sharing locked cells, and shock therapy for the most recalcitrant. However, Briegleb mobilizes not only street protests but the pro bono services of S. S. Hahn (played by Geoffrey Pierson), who ultimately brings corruption to an end in several dramatic developments at the end of the film. (For Angelenos, Changeling explains why the Hahn family has been held in such high esteem politically ever since.) The Political Film Society has nominated Changeling as best film exposé and best film on democracy and human rights for 2008. MH