The latest film by Steven Spielberg, The Post (2017) tells about a particularly important happening of 20th Century for American politics – the publication of leaked papers of a Pentagon report on the three decades of Vietnam war. The papers were first published by New York Times, which got gagged by a court order and The Washington Post, which was at that time a much smaller company, risking criminal action decided to go ahead with the publication and rest was history. Meryl Streep was brilliant in the role of Katharine Graham, the owner of the newspaper – especially the closeup of her face when she makes the final call was outstanding. Compared to her performance, Tom Hanks, as the chief editor of the paper Ben Bradlee has played it more subtly.
The incident documented in “The Post” led to the fourth estate around the world accepting and boldly playing their role to hold the people in power responsible – it was a precursor to the Watergate by the same paper, the Roman Catholic priests’ child molestation reporting by The Boston Globe documented in Spotlight (2015), the Bofors leaks by The Hindu in India and later the Wikileaks publication by The Guardian and so on.
A fine film don’t miss it.
The Post (2017) – Tom Hanks & Meryl Streep
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