Steven Spielberg’s new film is a love letter to journalism (as it should be)
About one year ago we heard the expression “fake news” for the first time: Steven Spielberg was working on the pre-production of The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara and we have thank a casting setback if he halted that project to rush The Post.
Steven Spielberg’s new film is a political thriller/historical drama but, most of all, a love letter to journalism which celebrates the freedom of the press.
This film revisits an old story that is still relevant, now more than ever: set in 1971, under the presidency of Richard Nixon, The Post chronicles how The Washington Post came to publish the “Pentagon Papers”, a massive report which proved that the U.S. government lied for years about the Vietnam War. Making this study public was not an easy task: The New York Times made a first attempt by publishing only a portion of it, but it was thanks to the bravery Katharine Graham (the first female publisher of The Washington Post), Ben Bradlee (the executive editor) and a team of passionate journalists that the “Pentagon Papers” made history.
Only Steven Spielberg could transform such a story into a cinematic experience: the director conveys the passion, the urgency and the risks of investigative journalism during the non-digital era. Delivering sensitive documents in the 70s meant to run from an anonymous apartment to a newsroom, not sending encrypted emails.
The camera lingers on the details: manual typewriters, newsprint, envelopes, the tools of the glory days of journalism.
The heart of the movie is made up of the “dirty job”, but the relationship between Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee is also very important: the first is a woman on a journey from hesitation to courage, who struggles to fully understand what her power is, the second is a journalist and a friend who serves her as a mentor. The two characters are magnificently played by Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, with Streep conquering the 21st nomination at the Oscars (The Post is also running for Best Picture). Some other incredible actors like Bob Odenkirk, Bruce Greenwood, Carrie Coon and Michael Stuhlbarg star in The Post, that’s why the full operation looks convincing.
This is the film the audience needs right now and this is the Steven Spielberg we like to see: passionate, emotional, incisive. In a world where a president calls the news media “the enemy of the american people”, The Post reminds us what the main duty of the press is “to serve the governed, not the governors”.
