Tag Archive for 'history'

Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived

Published
by
James McNally
on April 21, 2008
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. 0 Comments

Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived

Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived (2008, Director: Koji Masutani): This film is somewhat awkardly titled. It’s not a re-creation of an alternate timeline where JFK survives. Rather, it’s a carefully-argued essay whose thesis is that, based on the way John F. Kennedy dealt with several military crises early in his presidency, he would not have escalated the war in Vietnam and that perhaps the tragedy of almost 60,000 American dead (not to mention 2,000,000 Vietnamese) could have been averted.

Narrated and written by Professor James Blight of the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, who was Errol Morris’ advisor on The Fog of War, Virtual JFK examines six different crises faced by the young president in his abbreviated time in office. Two involved Cuba (the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962), one was European (the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961), and the other three involved Southeast Asia (two confrontations over Vietnam, one over Laos). In every case, Kennedy stared down the hawks in his administration and the military commanders who were advocating war. In every case, his caution avoided catastrophe, most notably in the Cuban missile crisis, which many historians believe was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. Blight has every reason to believe that Kennedy would have prevailed on the subject of Vietnam as well. What he doesn’t discuss is the possibility that this had anything to do with JFK’s assassination, although that hypothesis has been circulated by more than a few people.

Overall, this was enjoyable and well-argued, but not exceptional. On a personal level, I enjoyed seeing so much footage of Kennedy’s press conferences. His charisma is clearly evident in his good-natured exchanges with journalists, even when he was under considerable stress. It also surprised me how much Kennedy had to deal with in such a short time. The world was going through some major upheavals, and we’re fortunate that Kennedy was guiding a restless America with such a steady hand. This film shows us how much more tragic his death was than we may have believed. Apart from all the usual sentimental stuff about Camelot and the loss of hope, America lost a man of caution who had been a warrior of peace.

Incidentally, some reviewers have complained that the film makes a blunt parallel with George W. Bush and his handling of the Iraq war, but the connection is never made overtly. In the times we’re living in, however, it’s hard not to find a critique almost everywhere we look.

Official site of the film
Watson Institute for International Studies page on the film
Trailer

7/10(7/10)

The Singing Revolution

Published
by
James McNally
on April 6, 2008
in Documentaries and Theatrical Release
. 4 Comments

The Singing Revolution

Editor’s Note: I have to make particular mention of the film’s excellent and comprehensive web site. The directors have done a great job using the web to generate interest and obtain screening dates in cities across North America. As a result of audience interest expressed on the web site, the film will open in Toronto on April 25th and play until May 1st (with a possible extension depending on ticket sales) at the Carlton Cinema. Check the link the week before for showtimes.

The Singing Revolution (2006, Directors: James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty): My wife and I are big fans of small countries. We will visit Iceland this fall and have taken holidays in Cuba, Slovenia and Uruguay in the past few years. There’s something inspiring about the indomitability of small nations, especially if they’ve been forcefully occupied or dominated by other countries. Estonia certainly fits the bill, and my dream trip is to one day spend a week each in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty are a husband and wife team who have documented the unique struggle of Estonia to emerge from the Soviet Union as an independent nation, and they’ve created a wonderful film.

For most of its history, Estonia has been dominated by much larger countries, and the 20th century was particularly cruel. This country of just over a million gained its independence in 1920 only to be invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939. As World War II raged, Hitler’s armies occupied Estonia as part of their invasion of the Soviet Union, and so there was another foreign occupier. By 1944, though, the Nazis had been expelled by the resurgent Red Army and for the better part of the next half-century, Estonia was occupied by Soviet troops and forcibly integrated into the USSR. But Estonia also had a very strong cultural tradition of folk singing, and despite its small size, possesses one of the largest collections of folk songs in the world. Every five years since 1869, a huge folk singing festival called Laulupidu was held in the university town of Tartu. At these events, huge choirs of 25,000-30,000 would sing on stage at the same time, expressing their unity and pride in their national identity. During the Soviet occupation, these festivals were practically the only allowed outlet for Estonian culture, despite being, for the most part co-opted to promote Communist ideas. At the end of the official program (Communist songs sung in Russian), the choirs were allowed to sing three or four songs in Estonian. At the 1947 festival, Estonian composer Gustav Ernasaks presented a new song he’d written based on a century-old Estonian poem. “Mu isamaa on minu arm” (“Land of My Fathers, Land That I Love”) became the unofficial Estonian national anthem and was sung lustily by the crowds at each festival. In 1969, at the centennial of the festival, the Soviet authorities banned it, but the crowds spontaneously took it up and sang it several times. It’s clear how much singing and this festival meant to the Estonian national identity.

When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 with his policies of “glasnost” and “perestroika”, the Estonians saw their chance to reclaim their culture and their independence. Political dissidents used music to inspire protest, and by 1991, Estonia had declared independence. Unlike its Baltic neighbours Latvia and Lithuania, there was no violence despite the threat of Soviet retaliation. The Estonian character values patience. As narrator Linda Hunt expresses it, “patience is a weapon, caution, a virtue.” Because of their small size, the Estonian resistance knew it could never triumph by force, and so they carefully navigated a very delicate process and achieved a practically bloodless victory. The film does a good job of documenting these amazing and tension-filled days.

Today, Estonia is a thriving democracy, a member of NATO and the European Union. The music festival continues, and for those who were involved in this still-fresh revolution, it is a place to share their memories with their children. And of course to sing “Mu isamaa on minu arm”, loudly and without fear.

If I have one small criticism of the film, it would be its microscopic focus on Estonia to the exclusion of the other Baltic Republics. There are a few tantalizing mentions of events going on in Latvia and Lithuania (in particular, a protest where citizens of all three countries joined hands and created a 600km long human chain to protest the Soviet occupation), but it would have been enlightening to see in more detail how these three small countries worked together to take on the entire Soviet Union. Three distinct cultures, yes, but also three necessary allies. Perhaps that story will have to wait for my own trip.

Official Site
Trailer

8/10(8/10)

All The President’s Men

Published
by
James McNally
on September 18, 2007
in DVD
. Closed

All The President's Men

All The President’s Men (Director: Alan J. Pakula): I was seven years old when the Watergate scandal broke in 1972, and I learned about it mostly from reading Mad magazine, believe it or not. Still, 35 years later, I’m not exactly sure exactly what happened, and I seriously believe that nobody under 50 even cares. But what Watergate showed us is that the abuse of power in a democracy is not new, but that stupid and evil people sometimes don’t get away with their crimes. That is, if the media is doing its job.

All The President’s Men was originally a book published by the two men responsible for breaking the story, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, both reporters for the Washington Post at the time of the scandal. Pakula’s film teamed up two of the era’s hottest actors, Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, and attempted to dramatize the story of perhaps the biggest political scandal of the 20th century. But though the film scooped four Oscars (including an adapted screenplay Oscar for writer William Goldman), I don’t think it’s aged well.

Audiences approaching the film today with little background knowledge will come away baffled, since the story moves along at breakneck pace, with names being tossed out with no context. The filmmakers may have assumed that in 1976, people would still be familiar with the story, since it occupied the newspapers for months on end. But without that background, it can seem pretty opaque. As well, we learn next to nothing about any of the characters, most notably our intrepid journalists. Worst of all, despite a running time well over two hours, the conclusion of the film is remarkably weak. A final roadblock seems to be wrapped up hastily and the ending disappoints with nothing but a teletype machine informing us of several indictments. There’s not even any archival footage of Nixon talking about the scandal, nor of his resignation.

Mad Magazine, December 1974

Despite its obvious weaknesses, I still feel this is an important film, because it inspires the belief that journalism’s function is to empower democracy by speaking the truth to power. It’s outrageous that increasing corporate ownership and consolidation of the media landscape has left our democracy weaker and less accountable. My only wish would be for someone to make a strong documentary about Watergate to educate a younger generation. Maybe they could even recycle some of Mad’s satirical Watergate songs.

7/10(7/10)

Miss Universe 1929 – Lisl Goldarbeiter. A Queen in Wien

Published
by
James McNally
on April 23, 2007
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. Closed

Miss Universe 1929 – Lisl Goldarbeiter. A Queen in Wien

Miss Universe 1929 – Lisl Goldarbeiter. A Queen in Wien (Director: Péter Forgács, Austria/Netherlands/Hungary, 2006): The title isn’t the only thing unwieldy about this film. Based on the old photos and films of Maritz (Marci) Tanzer, the film attempts to trace Marci’s love for his cousin Lisl Goldarbeiter, “the most beautiful woman who ever lived,” and Austria’s first Miss Universe. The action takes place over the course of their lifetimes, encompassing war and peace, Naziism and Communism, Austria and Hungary. There is a wonderful story in here, but I constantly found the way the film was constructed maddening and annoying. Film clips appear out of sequence, are repeated, and are purposely cropped or panned in such a way as to draw attention to the director. In addition, the grating soundtrack kept pulling me out of the story rather than drawing me in. The decision to narrate the film in English was ill-advised, also, since some of the narration isn’t translated correctly. For example, I highly doubt that Marci Tanzer was “captivated as a prisoner of war” by the Russian army.

Lisl was indeed a very beautiful woman, and Marci’s dedication to her is touching. There is value in Marci’s old films as a social history, and there is a good love story here. I just felt it wasn’t well-told.

5/10(5/10)

They Chose China

Published
by
James McNally
on May 1, 2006
in Documentaries, Film Festivals and Hot Docs
. Closed

They Chose China

They Chose China (Canada, 2005, Director: Shui-Bo Wang, 52 minutes): An utterly compelling look at a forgotten group of US prisoners of war who refused to be repatriated to the United States after the Korean War. At the time, these 20-odd soldiers were branded “turncoats and traitors’ by red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy. In archival films, we see them making statements against Senator McCarthy and the current political climate in America, and although many of these archival films seem to have been created for propaganda reasons by the Chinese, the men claim that they were never mistreated in the prisoner-of-war camps. In fact, we see them organizing games and sports, even an “Inter-Camp Olympics”! Of course, having these men stay in China was a huge propoganda coup and they were quickly sent for “education” on the history of socialism and the Chinese Communist Party. Despite that, some stayed and even married in China. Gradually, most of the men returned to the United States, where they faced courts martial and scorn from the media and public.

It was a strange and almost forgotten episode in the Cold War and there is still a lot of ambiguity about what really motivated the men to stay. At the time, the American media speculated that they had been brainwashed (like in The Manchurian Candidate), but it didn’t appear that simple. It was just as clear that when the men returned home, the media used them in its own sort of propaganda war. One man’s interview with Mike Wallace was painful to watch, as Wallace continued to use the term “turncoat and traitor” over and over again. They were very different times.

The director’s voice over, in Chinese-accented English, was sometimes a little difficult to follow, but he did make clear that he considered these men heroes for trying to build bridges between enemies, and I’d tend to agree with that sentiment, even with so many questions left unanswered.

More information on the film from the National Film Board of Canada

8/10(8/10)

EYE Weekly: *** (out of 5) (review)