Less known than the Watergate affair, but equally shocking in the United States, the Pentagon Papers scandal, on the secret files of the war in Vietnam. Steven Spielberg is back in his new film, which is released Wednesday.
Steven Spielberg’s film is named after the scandalous affair in the United States in 1971: the Pentagon Papers, revelations about the secret files of the Vietnam War and the lies of the American administration.
Steven Spielberg’s first ambition was to sign his most beautiful portrait of a woman in a world of men. Meryl Streep plays Katharine Graham, the first woman director of a major newspaper in the 1970s. A kind of Hillary Clinton before the hour. But the news has decided otherwise. The story resonates strangely with the present time.
The Trump years, echo of the Nixon years
The result of the presidential election gave an unexpected turn to Steven Spielberg’s project, which became indispensable at a time when journalists are increasingly accused of promoting fake news, the so-called “fake news”. “We all thought while writing the script that Hillary Clinton would win the elections,” says Steven Spielberg. “I was going to do the film, but it had to be done right away, as an antidote to all the lies that are being used right now,” argues the filmmaker. A film particularly committed given the current context.
In the cinema, you know, the truth always wins in the end. And nowadays, it is not so much the case. The time I find is much more dangerous from this point of view than in the 1970s
The film tells the difficult decision to publish these documents despite pressure from the US administration. A remarkable investigation work. The story is filmed as a thriller with Tom Hanks as the Washington Post’s editor-in-chief . This same newspaper reveals in the wake of the scandal of Watergate leading to the resignation on 8 August 1974 of President Richard Nixon.
