The Steven Spielberg film "The Post" is a story about a confrontation between the editor-in-chief of The Washington Post and the owner of a newspaper with the US government during the Vietnam War. I believe that in the movies, Spielberg achieved perfection in the art of storytelling and was able to make an exciting movie without chases, special effects and loud revelations.
Two genres of American cinema seem unscientific fantasy: judicial films and thrillers about the victory of journalists over power. How can one observe the court sessions and not know in advance what the verdict will be? How can you believe that a journalist is an honest, principled person who has a chance to win in an unequal struggle with the powers that be? Incomprehensible. Therefore, the Steven Spielberg film "The Post", in which these genres came together, may seem even less believable than it’s "The Extra-Terrestrial", "Artificial Intelligence" and "Minority Report" combined. Although he put on real events, the veracity of which is almost not changed in the script.
"The Post" is a story about how in 1971, The Washington Post published a series of sensational materials about the Vietnam War. According to published documents, the US government led the doomed war for more than a decade, breaking the law at every turn, which killed thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Vietnamese.
Knowing Spielberg and recalling his recent "Bridge of Spies", it is easy to imagine how the director could revive a dry historical plot. Introduce special services, which will press journalists, remove at least a couple of chases, provide wiretapping and a couple of loud revelations. However, no.
Scrupulously, in a strict chronological order, the film describes how the consultant of the US Department of Defense took the secret documents out of the vault and handed them over to The New York Times for publication, after cutting the top secret with the scissors. All published. The White House flipped and intervened, banning further publication through the courts. Then the competitor, The Washington Post, published several articles on the same topic at once, based on the same dossier.
No, in short, plots. The whole intrigue — in the conversations of the editor-in-chief of the newspaper and its owner with investors and lawyers — whether they would not be convicted of encroachment on national security (in 1971 the Vietnam War was in full swing), and the subsequent decision was condemnation or not. Need to. All who looked into the "Wikipedia" also know the denouement. Boredom. However, for some reason it is impossible to break away.
Of course, the solution to the surface. Steven Spielberg is still a unique master who has achieved excellence in the Hollywood art of storytelling, whatever they are. He is a born cinematographer who thinks in images and easily processes any journalistic material into a fascinating spectacle, even without resorting to superficial techniques that give expressiveness. Spielberg is also the flesh of the flesh of the "new Hollywood", and it is terribly interesting to watch him, in his youth, having destroyed the too serious mood of American cinema with his blockbusters, now skillfully and respectfully imitates the 1970s style of social and political cinema.
The choice of Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep for the main roles (he is the editor of The Washington Post Ben Bradlee, she is the owner of the newspaper Katharine Graham) is also not a gesture on duty to attract the public and awards, but a conceptual decision. Hanks and Streep have long been not just virtuoso actors, they are the peculiar honor and conscience of American cinema and, more broadly, of society. In addition, "The Post" is a film that lies in the plane of the ethical, and not the aesthetic. No matter how carefully the creators of the picture worked to recreate the costumes, scenery, hairstyles and other attributes of the era, it still turns to today. And not only American.
The film avoids the speculative showing of the events that led to the scandalous publication: Spielberg had enough of one application of the military scene in Vietnam (about the same was in his "Lincoln"), the rest of the action takes place in editorial offices, apartments and offices in Washington. There are no suffering people - American, Vietnamese - on the screen, as well as President Richard Nixon or politicians who support him. Only, unlike the villain, US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (Bruce Greenwood) and journalists, whom he does not think to interfere in a strange way - even more, as it turns out, he is a long-time friend of Katharine Graham's house. There is no conflict at all, except for the internal one, but even it turns out to be simple: it is clear to all participants that the journalist is obliged to serve not the authorities, but the society, whatever the cost.
In an era when only the lazy one does not repeat the postulate about the death of print media, Spielberg almost fetishist enjoys the spectacle of a working printing press. During the time when even the romantics believed in the victory of "post-truth", Spielberg reminds in a quiet, low voice: a lie cannot be equated with truth in the truth, and it is impossible to confuse them with a blind one. War cannot be fought for peace, and peace will always be better than war. The government will never protect anyone’s interests except their own, and they rarely coincide with the interests of citizens.
A set of common places, set out without pathos and morals - busily and consistently, in the world of victorious relativity looks surprisingly fresh, precisely due to the conservative hardness of the director's intonation. However, there is a topical line in "The Post". It is associated with the transformation of the heroine Meryl Streep. At first, she is an annoying wedge of everyone, an uninformed aunt accidentally caught in a binder, who received a newspaper by inheritance from her deceased husband and is now struggling to figure out what is what. Yes, Graham goes into the best houses, but when the gentlemen at the table start discussing politics and other serious "male" matters, she and the other ladies leave for the next room for social talk.
When she has to decide on the publication of the secret dossier, no one doubts her cowardice and the desire for compromise: can this really challenge Nixon himself? Answer something according to the law then to her. However, Graham, with her sweet, well-worn manner, suddenly turns out to be a tough nut to crack. She has the will, the principles, and the imperturbable readiness to follow these principles at all costs.
https://youtu.be/N1VcCv9JOPQ[THE POST | Official Trailer [HD] ](https://youtu.be/N1VcCv9JOPQ)
The only woman among the many main characters of the film is stronger than all men. A little thought, we realize that it was she who ended the Vietnam War and brought Watergate closer. Perhaps, at this moment, supporters of patriarchy on both sides of the Atlantic realize that the Hollywood women's riot that has been shaking in recent months is not just a spirit of the times, but a serious revolution. Spielberg already understood this. In addition, after him - the members of the American Film Academy, who gave out this beautiful and quite traditional drama two Oscar nominations: "Best Film" and "Best Actress."
The illustrations are used in agreement with the Depositphotos photobank
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