Like many Americans, I am watching the primary races with a keen eye. Unfortunately, that has taken much of my time that I would normally watch movies. I want to share some of my favorite political movies.
Immediately, I think of movies like V for Vendetta as well as The Last King of Scotland but if I am going to look at American politics, there are two movies that stand out head and shoulders above the rest.
All the President’s Men – I referenced this movie just a few weeks ago when I looked at Spotlight because of the parallels that I saw in the two movies in terms of journalism. But All the President’s Men shows not only the journalistic side but also the political side of the Nixon Watergate scandal. It is seriously compelling and is well worth the time to watch it.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – I’m surprised that Marco Rubio doesn’t use this film on his Campaign trail. If you are unfamiliar, it tells the story of a man who is set to be a senator by the spineless governor of his state. He is a naive and idealistic and he wants to change everything starting from the building of a camp for children but his plans promptly collide with political corruption and there the true fight starts.
I enjoyed this movie because it addresses what we all know but never want to believe or talk about. How political corruption influences all of us and our lives as politicians and leaders just want to earn more and more wealth and power. But, this movie also shows us the other side of the story: a decent man who believes in something, and fights for his beliefs until the end. I might just write Jefferson Smith on my ballot.
Tell me what you think. What is your favorite political movie and why?
Vertigo is a psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The film stars Jimmy Stewart as a former police detective John “Scottie” Ferguson, who has been forced into early retirement due to his discovery of crippling acrophobia and vertigo. Scottie is hired as a private investigator to follow a woman, Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak) who is behaving peculiarly. The film received mixed reviews upon initial release, but has garnered acclaim since and is now often cited as one of the defining works of his career. It is currently listed at #65 on the IMDb Top 250, which I think is a travesty. It shows you what type of list the IMDb Top 250 is, to see this film and others, like Citizen Kane, outside of the top 50, but The Dark Knight currently holds the #4 place. But in the 2012 British Film Institute’s Sight & Sound critics’ poll, it replaced Citizen Kane as the best film of all time and has appeared repeatedly in best film polls by the American Film Institute.
Are there a special few individuals to whom the laws don’t apply, perhaps because they are educated at the finest schools or because they come from families with money or influence? What makes murder such a horrifying sin? Why don’t we cringe at other sins? Are there some sins that make the sinner feel superior? These are some of the questions that Rope concerns itself with. Not that it is a movie about these things, but as I watched it, my mind went to these questions. Rope is simply an adaptation of the true story of the Leopold-Loeb murder that took place in Chicago in 1924. In said murder, two wealthy and intelligent young men, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, killed Loeb’s 14-year-old second cousin Robert Franks for no other reason than the thrill of the kill.
My father had amassed a nice library of Hitchcock films by the time that I was old enough to start watching them. My first venture into the world and mind of Alfred Hitchcock, and my enduring favorite of his collection was North By Northwest. But I recall watching this nearly forgotten gem after Birds had scared the pants off of me and I was thoroughly hooked on the style, humor, and suspense of the master.
I am so very thankful that my parents didn’t care for most of the pabulum that was churned out during the late 70s and 80s. Instead they possessed a library of classics and future classics. Forget Airplane or Karate Kid, I would get to those later, I had Young Frankenstein and Indiana Jones to keep me company.