THE BIG SHORT 12/27/15

I do not  grasp what Hedge Fund Managers do, or what Collateralized Debt Obligations (CODs), Credit Default Swaps, Mortgage Backed Securities  (MPS) and subprime mortgages are, and what it means to “short” something, but director Adam McCay’s THE BIG SHORT based on Michael Lewis’ book is an excellent film - both comedic and forcefully tragic with many fine actors making this a movie that is both entertaining and deceptively poignant. Surprisingly we do get to understand a lot of what was going on in the fiscal system without having to take a course in the particulars. This is accomplished through visuals - quick flashes of TV shows, cinema and pop stars, artworks, news headlines, sports figures, etc. all subliminally flashing before our eyes embedding the culture of money into our psyches. Throughout the film, there are witty respites whereby the camera exits the narrative, and various actors in wildly strange settings explain Wall Street jargon with idiosyncratic humor to make the “wheeling and dealing” more comprehensible. 

 I left the theater with an abysmal feeling of sadness, my voice cracking and tears in my eyes - not wanting to betray my emotions and my fierce anger at a capitalist system gone completely awry; rigged and fraudulent in handing the money of everyday working people whose pensions, domiciles, and livelihoods were placed into the hands of manipulative, raptor-like greedy banks and money managers. Billions - not millions - of dollars are just abstract numbers to be gambled with as the “party” keeps blasting upwards and onwards, monetary gains piling up, until it all implodes with aftershocks eventually destroying the income, employment and shuttering the homes of millions in the US and globally.

Many of the main characters are based on real people who worked for Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns among other firms. Christian Bale is terrific as Dr. Michael Burry, a Cassandra-like figure, an eccentric - characterized by walking around barefooted - who foresaw the mortgage collapse early on, watching banks bundle mortgages which were being given AAA ratings by Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s without proper examination of the underlying financial integrity of the lenders and borrowers. Burry decides to “short” - to bet on a future housing crisis debacle and is ultimately proven correct.

Steve Carell portrays Mark Baum, an irascible individual, who was one of the few conscience stricken players in the “money game”, trying to make participants aware of the looming future cataclysm, but also wrestling with his own hypocrisy in personally profiting from the 2008 world economic bankruptcy. He is an anguished “truth teller” antithetical to most characters engaging in this closed world of financial gains and losses, whose egos get propped up by the insubstantial glint of wealth.

The director McCay includes every type of  trader - from self-centered, sophomoric “masters of the universe” to those with some integrity and concern for their clients. The editing is quick and incredibly entertaining for a subject that could easily put many of us to sleep. In THE BIG SHORT we are made painfully aware of the collusion of institutions and governmental agencies, all profiting from the deception that the housing market was one of the best and most secure investments to be made.  We see the social and human ramifications of this delusion that brought world markets to the brink of financial collapse. 

Unlike previous  films about Wall Street, this is a true story - a tale that is still resonating in our minds and pocketbooks. Many ordinary persons were encouraged and seduced by the easy access to home ownership, low interest rates that often skyrocketed a few years later to the bewilderment of landlords and tenants who had to flee their properties. This drama showed how the Banks were “brought down“, but today we are still wondering  were they ever punished? Cynicism persists as new ploys and risky gambits continue to be placed before a gullible public by corruptible institutions functioning without legislated safeguards. THE BIG SHORT is a powerful indictment of Wall Street engineering of avarice - profiting the few and afflicting the lifestyles of the majority of Americans that they are called upon to serve.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD 12/26/15

Saw a movie I never thought I would see and it is sticking with me. George Miller (at 70 years old) directed this last in the franchise and most probably the best - MAD MAX: FURY ROAD with one of my favorite actors - the silent Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa - the hero with a prosthetic arm who creates an incendiary revolt to save "the breeders" - the hand-picked wives - the child bearers of the all powerful horrific ruler - Immortan Joe whose "citadel" is trucked out with past and future apocalyptic adornment, including genetic mutations and the final gasp of death; physical weakness and a pasty whiteness indicating lack of hemoglobin.

Macho characters adorned with the armaments of bizarre - way over the top head gear, facial makeup, and decaying skin covered with the boils of greed.
The theme is the dead environment and the fight for drops of water and fuel. Not many people can breathe freely - oxygen masks with hissing sounds of inhaling air as if through straws contribute to the zombie like atmosphere. Women are the warriors - the old and the fecund. Hardy as "mad" Max is there for support - one of the last remaining males with a conscience still ruminating somewhere inside his gut.

Metropolis came to mind - with shaven headed worker bees in an architecture of death and putrid decay. The ruler of the corrupted land allows the starving populations left on this dry earth some water - which he turns on and off - the benevolent despot - as it cascades out of pipes like waterfalls to scrambling desperate people buckets in hand to catch the jewels of survival.

Good review by Anthony Lane in The New Yorker - worth reading:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/high-gear-current-cinema-anthony-lane

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/high-gear-current-cinema-anthony-lane

REFLECTIONS ON CHRISTMAS PAST - CHRISTMAS ENVY published by Women's Voices For Change 12/21/15

When the air turned brisk and sharp in December and the

drab streets of Washington Heights suddenly blossomed

with color and lights, my imagination sparked. An

adolescent girl growing up within blocks of an ornate RKO

movie theater showing double features, serials, along with

cartoons; a kosher delicatessen for our Tuesday and

Thursday take-out dinners, when my hardworking father

was still “downtown” clocking overtime; a wondrous Horn

& Hardart cafeteria where for a couple of nickels you could

choose your meal through twirling windows giving you a

visual taste of what you would soon “bite into”; a Nedick’s

hot dog stand where one could sit tall on stools - a castle

perched on the corner of 181st Street and Broadway -

where my father's sly warning that the “dirt” of the

frankfurters gave them that special delicious flavor; and

mid- block was F.W. Woolworth's Department Store, the

culmination of my seasonal fantasies - where every

Christmas I could again marvel at “The Tree" “ decorated

with glass ornaments, dazzling bulbs blinking on and off,

awarding my eyes a retinal feast.

My family celebrated Chanukah but it was different. We

too had lights in a stately menorah with candles of a single

color, never glowing or twinkling, but the menorah did not

subsume me with the magic of the Woolworth's towering

tree, which could set my heart to racing in rapture and

generate feelings of entering uncharted magical terrains.

There was something beige and dry about our family’s

celebration - receiving presents was exciting, but usually

handed out “bare”, without being wrapped up in elegant

boxes with designs of Santa encased in red and green

ribbons which like curls would wrap themselves around my

fingers.

My twin sister Florence and I sat cross-legged, our long

braids sweeping the hallway floor, engrossed in playing

“spin the dreidel “ (a gambling, top-like toy) the goal being

to accumulate a prize of walnuts which were later traded in

to the adults for pennies; we were waiting - not for Santa

or looking skywards at reindeer flying over Apartment 1B

on 180th Street, but anticipating which of us would came

out on top and win the game and a possible jackpot of

coins. Aromas of familiar foods, hot apple pie made with

butter and cream cheese rich enough to cause bedtime

stomach aches, permeated the warm and peaceful space

- a welcome respite from the anxieties and nervous

tensions that that so often filled our lives.

 My parents were German Jewish refugees having immigrated to the United

States, fleeing Hitler's Nazi Germany to build a new life in

New York City. For much of our childhood, news of the

death of family members including our paternal

grandmother and grandfather took its toll on the family

psyche; the palpable sadness of loss was constant.

It seemed to me that practically everyone in my Upper

Manhattan community celebrated Christmas. Buildings

and walls awash with decorations; the perpetual music in

the air filling my childhood head with fanciful spectacles. I

remember skipping down the street, curious to glance onto

the grounds of one of the more rustic neighborhood

churches, the one with the high beautifully designed gates

surrounding its premises, inviting but also denying

entrance - where I saw a manger with “baby Jesus”

surrounded by hay and living, breathing baby goats - the

smell and grunts of another universe just out of reach.

Today years later, as the November autumn days wane,

the sun settling earlier, I begin to see deflated plastic

snowmen and Santa Clauses lying on suburban lawns

waiting to be blown up, an indication of the season to

come. I still look forward to the wonder of Christmas when

people open their hearts to nostalgia, the joy of giving and

to the dusty memories of prior observances - merry or

solemn. Trees for sale at street corners, filling up empty

lots - all ready to be dressed up. Still I have never seen a

tree - whether at Rockefeller Center or The White House,

that can compare to the ones that a New York City "five

and dime" store on 181st Street, just off Broadway erected

for Christmas, covered with glittering baubles, and flakes

of snow, with the height and mass of a mountain crowned

by a brilliant golden star - a tree that tapped into a child’s

hunger for inspiration and enchantment.

REFLECTIONS ON MARK BRADFORD AND ZHANG HUAN 12/4/15

  

Two artists with distinctly different stylistic works dealing with their own cultural histories are exhibiting in Chelsea: Mark Bradford’s BE STRONG BOQUAN at Hauser & Wirth New York, 511 W.18th Street, November 7th – December 23rd, and Zhang Huan LET THERE BE LIGHT at Pace Gallery, 510 West 25th Street October 30th - December 5th, 2015. Both artists are making paintings that are not only incredibly ambitious, but their approaches co-opt abstract expressionism and photo realism into eloquent personal statements along with visual breadth, grandeur and the intimacy of poetry.

Mark Bradford born in 1961 in South Central Los Angeles where his mother owned a beauty salon, supporting the family. He spent many hours in that space during his formative years, even after she moved the family to Santa Monica when he was 11 years old, closer to the beach - a neighborhood less suffused with violence. After High School, Mark got his hairdresser’s license and worked in his mother’s shop, and it was not until he was 30 years old that he left to study at Cal Arts where he eventually received an MFA. His work makes use of the detritus of the streets of the city where he grew up and where he still lives and works. Supplies come from Home Depot as well as the shards of his urban environment - ripped billboard signs, ropes, wood, etc:

Calvin Tompkins in The New Yorker profile of Bradford - June 22, 2015:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/22/what-else-can-art-do

“…He starts with a stretched canvas and builds up its surface with ten or fifteen layers of paper—white paper, colored paper, newsprint, reproductions, photographs, printed texts—fixing each layer with a coat of clear shellac. Sometimes he embeds lengths of string or caulking to form linear elements in the palimpsest. When the buildup reaches a certain density, he attacks it with power sanders and other tools, exposing earlier layers, flashes of color, and unexpected juxtapositions. Not until the first sanding does he begin to see where the painting is going. He works like an archeologist, rediscovering the past…Bradford refers to his work as “social abstraction”—abstract art “with a social or political context clinging to the edges…”

Bradford’s process is one of tearing down and building up - excavating and constructing - the scratched surfaces, as if clawed in desperation are contrasted with the delicacy of lightly scraped areas, as if we can see through a telescope deep into the body of the work - an exquisite poignancy punctuated with evidence of his hand and arm tossing house paint flowing over the canvas like an erupting volcano. I am moved and stand still in my tracks - unable to stir. His presence permeates the room.

From the Hauser and Wirth Press Release:

http://www.hauserwirth.com/exhibitions/2642/mark-bradford-be-strong-boquan/view/

"‘Be Strong Boquan’ takes its title from Bradford’s new multimedia work ‘Spiderman’ (2015), which is presented together here with a series of new paintings, sculpture, and a second video installation. The exhibition builds upon ideas explored in the artist’s recent solo show at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA, referencing issues ranging from the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s and society’s misrepresentation and fear of queer identity, to the brutality and lasting outrage resulting from the race riots in Los Angeles during the early 1990s. Bradford’s latest work finds the artist returning to these themes, reaching back to the touchstone experiences of his early career and carving into his art the potent memories of youth and the political and social policies that ignited conflagrations over questions of culture, race, sexuality, and gender. "

This latest show takes time to absorb, as do the ideas embedded in the paintings many of which “draw inspiration from molecular and cellular imagery of the human body.” At first we are struck with what superficially looks like more conventional works - bombastic and sensual - but as I approach these overpowering objects,  my senses opened up to the realization that these are visceral pieces filled with both humanity and rage.

This exhibition which also includes videos - jokes, music, and voices from the street  - confirms that Mark Bradford is one of our greatest contemporary painters - I am humbled before his art.

When I walked into Zhang Huan’s exhibition, LET THERE BE LIGHT, I was overwhelmed by the pure scale of these amazing wrap-around-the-room paintings of over 1000 photo realistic images of mostly male Chinese   officials - transporting us back to1960’s China under the rule of Mao Tse -Tung  (Mao Zedong) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976.) In an excellent interview with the writer, Barbara Pollack, Zhan Huan explains how he came upon the photograph which is the source of this challenging work which took 3 years to complete:

“…About 5 or 6 years ago, when I first returned to Beijing  from NYC, I encountered this antique photograph in …flea market. I found that I was very familiar with the figures in this photo, who were all central leaders in the government when Mao Zedong ruled our country. And in June 1964 I was just about to be born [January 1965]. Therefore the sight of the photo took me back to my childhood…”

Upon closer inspection, JUNE 15, 1964, with its plethora of portraits are painted with ash on linen - a medium he began using in 2006 which he considered “…a spiritual  material for art creation…”, As I made my way around the gallery the ash background behind the seated multitudes changed imperceptibly  like the setting sun, from light to dark. Each face was distinctive - no two were alike - all strikingly observed and rendered with a tenderness that belied their roles as revolutionary bureaucrats.

The Braille Paintings which fill the second room at Pace Gallery, are very abstract with braille inscriptions - almost minimal in their quiet reserve, but the written words are precise and explicit giving clarity and the opportunity for the blind to communicate through touch, echoing  the title of the exhibition as well as Genesis and Zhang Huan the artist as creator -  LET THERE BE LIGHT.

“…What is most interesting about the Braille paintings is that I am using ash, which comes from Buddhist temples and carries the spirit of Buddhism, to express Bible stories and even the national anthem of the United States. It is a combination of cultures. Similarly the Braille paintings look like abstract paintings, but at the same time, they are not abstract because they have concrete text…” (Interview with Barbara Pollack.)

Both Mark Bradford and Zhang Huan exhume their own history and culture, generating a distinctly elegiac and elegant cosmos where the textures and materials of their personal backgrounds become the alchemy for new beginnings.

http://www.pacegallery.com/newyork/exhibitions/12768/let-there-be-light

TIMBUKTU 11/29/15

I saw TIMBUKTU directed by ABDERRAHMANE SISSAKO - the film was both poetic in its depiction of a sense of place and the relationship of an isolated cattle herder living peacefully and contentedly with his family in a tent under the stars in a sea of sand, herding cows, gently and playfully interacting with his wife and adored 12 year old daughter (who often reaches to the sky to attempt getting a signal for her cell phone - technology has permeated all our lives,) and devastating in its description of what people have to endure living under (AQIM) Al Queda in the Islamic Maghreb in 2012 Mali, particularly when they find themselves in direct conflict with this government.

TIMBUKTU shows the brutal rule of Jihadists (as they called themselves) - the hypocrisy, the legal capriciousness in the administration of "justice" and the total disregard for fellow Muslims under their authority - who are equally devout, but in contrast to those now in power, humane in the interpretation of their beliefs. Arbitrary orders concerning dress, (gloves and socks must be worn by all women), the banning of music and sports such as Soccer - edicts loudly proclaimed for all to hear from a megaphone proscribing and narrowing those very actions that allow for the breadth of life's beauty and individuality.

SPOTLIGHT 11/25/15

if you want to understand the process by which four investigative reporters - each with his/her own expertise - function as a team working for the “Spotlight” unit of The Boston Globe’s newspaper in 2001, exposing what will become a Pulitzer Prize (2003) winning probe of the Catholic Church’s furtive silence and the Boston Archdiocese’s cover up of pedophile priests who molested guileless young boys and girls in their Massachusetts’ parishes, see the movie SPOTLIGHT, a docudrama written and directed by Tom McCarthy.  A film that is not histrionic in its presentation, but slowly and methodically builds a case which unearths the horrific breach of trust between “believers” and those who are anointed as their spiritual sentinels in the secular world. The aftermath of the newspaper’s disclosures reverberated beyond its local sphere of examination into an international autopsy exhuming shame and dishonor upon the Church and its leaders.

SPOTLIGHT  opens with a feeling of tension; we sense the apprehension of a close-knit circle of reporters - the Spotlight investigative  division of The Boston Globe - a small corps of journalists who focus on one important story oftentimes for over a year -  when an “outsider”, Marty Baron (a self-possessed, beautifully understated performance by Liev Schreiber) is recruited from The Miami Herald to become their new Editor. Baron realizes the potential of Spotlight to substantially examine an issue and shifts their target unto a story that over the years had been buried deep into the paper, occasionally surfacing to be interred again - eruptions of accusations appearing in print expeditiously extinguished. Marty Baron understands the need to look at the Institution itself - not just pinpointing individual perpetrators and victims, but examining the Catholic Church and its powerful influence on other authoritative organizations in predominantly Irish Catholic Boston, well aware that there will be attempts to stifle any exploration that cuts deeper into the skin of corruption.

The meticulous and disciplined search for the “truth” of a story involves interviewing victims  now in adulthood, who reveal lacerating facts on their loss of innocence at the hands of the very people they trusted most to protect them - a spiritual shock as well as a physical one. Sacha Pfeiffer (a non-glamourous Rachel McAdams who is turning into a wonderful actor) conducts many of the painful interviews excavating devastating memories - her empathy and concern are both convincing and authoritative. One weeps for the hidden secrets that are divulged and the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness that these young people must covertly endure. 

Michael Keaton, who stars as Walter “Robby” Robinson, communicates through expressive facial nuance, and the hunch of his shoulders, the conflicted burden and courage that being leader of the Globe’s coverage exacts on his innate view of himself - an Irish Catholic member of the church; a man who rubbed shoulders with the Cardinal and other politically connected elite Church officials; a person who despite the distressing revelation that while he was Editor of the Metro Section years before - the glimmerings of this  scandal were literally kicked underground into files gathering dust in the storage bins of the newspaper.

Mark Ruffalo, another terrific actor is  frenetic as Mike Rezendes - a Spotlight columnist who is in constant motion, a whirlwind of  physical movement - ascetic in his dedication to spending long hours following leads, questioning defense attorneys, ferreting out important documents, petitioning court papers, and at the same time imbued with an equally impassioned integrity in lifting the lid on this pressure cooker of deceit. I responded to his innate decency and inexorable belief in the need for Spotlight  to yield a  scalpel of precision in cleansing the fetid decades old duplicity of the Church.

The fourth participant of Spotlight is the numbers man, Matt Carroll, (Brian d’Arcy James,) an individual who makes sense of the mounds of accumulated data, once the stick has pierced the hornet’s nest. Carroll intuitively makes necessary connections and has the tough “unglamorous” job of putting fact to “fiction.” 

SPOTLIGHT has an ensemble cast ie:  Ben Bradlee Jr. (played by John Slattery of Mad Men fame), son of Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post Watergate scandal fame) supervises the Spotlight team; Stanley Tucci excellent as Mitchell Garabedian who is portrayed as a querulous, cantankerous attorney whose firm to date has represented more than 1000 victims and survivors of clergy abuse. In 2001 Garabedian played a pivotal part in The Boston Globe’s explosive revelations. 

What sets SPOTLIGHT apart from other movies that dramatize political “cover-ups” is the directness and restrained tone of its presentation. There are no “deep throats”, midnight trysts lurking in the background, but rather a deliberate, efficient system of operation which slowly yields results that withstand legal scrutiny - conclusions backed by strong research that will detonate Institutional complicity and dissimulation - echoing around the globe generating further investigations like a chain of illuminations in a tunnel of obfuscation, lighting up the shrouds of darkness.

MEDITERRANEA 11/21/15

MEDITERRANEA  written and directed by Jonas Carpignano who has been working on this film for 5 years. Initially in 2010, he intended the project to be a short documentary on the African immigrants who were mainly farm workers in the town of Rosarno in Calbria, Italy protesting against their discriminatory treatment and horrific squalid living conditions.

“… several thousand immigrants live in and around Rosarno while helping with the harvest of oranges and clementines…On the Gioia Tauro plain which encompasses Rosarno, they are collected each morning by overseers and driven into citrus groves for work that can last from dawn to dusk…"They earn €25 a day", said Father Ennio Stamile of the Roman Catholic charity Caritas. ‘They have to send money to their countries to maintain their families and also live here. Not much is left for them. The economic crisis has exacerbated their situation…On the plain, there are about 2,000 African immigrants who sleep the night crowded together in a former paper mill and another large building, said Monsignor Pino de Masi, the vicar-general of the Oppido-Palmi diocese. ‘If anyone from central government were to see the conditions in which they live, without sanitation, electricity, water or heating, they would not be surprised by what has happened.’ “

(The Guardian, John Hooper 1/2/2010) 

Nights of violence between the migrants and the Italian locals led to many injuries and during the day demonstrators - marched on Town Hall to demand  an end to racial intolerance. Into this highly-charged milieu, the Director Carpignano met an Aftrican migrant, Koudous Seihon from Burkina Faso whose powerful presence changed the trajectory of his original concept - from a short documentary to a full-length feature film based on the life and stories told to him by  Seihon who also agreed to play the lead character, Ayiva - a beautiful, nuanced performance conveying steadiness of character with a deep longing for his homeland and the seven year old daughter he left behind, combined with an optimistic view of a future that is fraught with barriers based on color, and economic bleakness.

MEDITERRANEA follows the well worn path to “the promised land” which unknowingly is often seeded with hopelessness and despair. In this fictional dramatization of Koudous Seihon’s own trek,  Ayiva must first obtain the money to leave Burkina Faso and is forced to pay unscrupulous brokers high fees to get a seat on a truck filled with fellow travelers - herded together like lambs going to slaughter. 

I am an artist whose focus has been on refugees and migrants for the past 14 years and the images on the screen reflected my paintings like a mirror - literally pictures moving. I wanted to cry out “hold that frame, and the next one, and the one after, etc. etc!!!!” Once on their journey to Europe the exhausted bands of wanderers have to go through many difficult and life threatening trials - all on foot - over Algiers; stumbling through the dry vast seemingly limitless Libyan desert, where bandits/ human vultures prey on the vulnerable; and the final “labor” - maneuvering a small boat without a seasoned navigator through the volatile waters of the Mediterranean Sea  exposed to nature’s moods  - be they light-filled or threatening storms - until those that endure arrive in Calabria - the toe of Italy where the local welcome is wary and impassive and often downright aggressive and dangerous.

Wyatt Garfield’s cinematography is immediate and intimate. The hand-held camera bounces along with the fleeing characters contributing to the chaotic climate and the confusion of flight - we don’t know where we are; there are moments when the lens is in and out of focus, an arm, a leg an eye bounces on the screen, distance is compressed - near and far become a blur, and we in the audience experience the tension and agitation of the approaching unknown.

We follow Ayiva and his best friend Abas (Alassane Sy), a languid, narcissistic, spoiled man envisioning Europe as a huge Hollywood fantasy with a dream of sexy women responding to his “handsome charms” - who smashes up against reality filling him with anguish at the fetid and wretched circumstances he and his friend are forced to  occupy,  falling into depression and despondency, eventually striking back in frenzied frustration.  

MEDITERRANEA  is not delusional cinema - it is a heard-hitting view of displacement, contrasting cultures with moments of shared humanity. The flight from the homeland - is a painfully difficult one which requires a steeliness of will and some humor. That humor is injected by a teenaged Italian boy Pio (Pio Amato), a consummate tradesman who barters with the African immigrants and is a dead-panned comic. In contrast the immigrant women are often exploited by the Italian men, and we catch a glimpse of how they are sexually abused - barely witnessed by the camera, silhouettes in the act of fellatio behind a dim, closing door. 

The film climaxes with the immigrants’ fierce uprising on the streets of the city after the destruction and collapse of their tawdry makeshift “homes” - demolished by the Italian Police - Carabinieri. The locales in the community are brutal in their response  - a retelling of the original Rosarno outbreak, where Director Jonas Carpignano first met Seihon (Ayiva) who would galvanize this movie; an attempt to narrate crossing borders without any simple answers to what we see daily in the “headlines”.  

TRUTH 11/16/15

TRUTH a film that often felt like a theatrical stage production, directed by James Vanderbilt is reminiscent of a much better movie, KILL THE MESSENGER - both docudramas about investigative journalism and the virulent consequences of digging into the actual facts - the "truth"- and the complicated process of vetting, double-checking data, and ultimately getting a controversial story aired and the consequences of doing so. The aftermath/repercussions from the "higher up" media power-brokers (often linked to big corporations) includes impugning the integrity of the correspondents and their searching methodology to the actual loss of jobs; winning a Pulitzer Prize does not make you immune to virulent attack.

http://graupepillard.blogspot.com/search…

TRUTH focuses on the CBS 60 Minutes' investigation into President George W. Bush's service with the Air National Guard in 2004 - when he was running for re-election against then Senator and now Secretary of State John Kerry. The "military service" issue was relevant because of the outrageous "swift boat attack" political ads waged against Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, during a nasty campaign at a time when we were fighting a disastrous war in Iraq.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiftboating

The film's heroes and victims were Dan Rather (Robert Redford) - respected anchor of CBS news and his producer, Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett.) TRUTH is a cautionary tale extolling those journalists who have the courage to question, and the fortitude to continue digging into political events that affect all our lives, stories that are floating out in the ether - like the first inklings of Watergate - eventually brought to the attention of the public slamming us with the "truth".

SUFFRAGETTE 11/11/15

The struggle for the right of women to vote is an international one and the bruising fight continues to this day. The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution: Women’s Right To Vote was ratified in August 18, 1920 after decades of civil disobedience, strife, marching, humiliation, hunger strikes and incarceration -  a battle with simple but enormously important consequences - the necessity  for women to have a voice in who represents them in making the laws of the land and how those laws which often affects a woman’s life are interpreted. Without the vote, we are ignored, invisible and betrayed. Here is a link to a Library of Congress’ paper Why Women Should Vote written sometime after 1896 by  Alice Stone Blackwell giving 16 compelling and poignant reasons why women should vote - as relevant today as ever:

http://tinyurl.com/l3hbvf4

SUFFRAGETTE directed by Sarah Gavron focuses on a group of both working class and wealthy British women in 1912 whose ideologies and wretched situations at home  propel them to risk jobs and marriages in order to crack the male shell of resistance to the idea of women’s equality. Led by Emmeline Pankhurst, (a cameo performance by Meryl Streep) who in 1903 founded the more militant Women’s Social And Political Union (WSPU) - participating in demonstrations and hunger strikes where she herself was violently force-fed - acts that contributed to her mystique and the adoration of her followers. The bleak ambience of SUFFRAGETTES characterizes with historical accuracy the streets of London, the  wardrobes, and homes of women in different socio-economic groups, just before the advent of World War I - a time when women were more expendable and vulnerable to their male bosses; wages were a mere pittance and escape, a mirage. Husbands had absolute control over wives and children - both through physical abuse and the power of the British legal system. 

Films distort by the very nature of their structural limitations which are usually 2 hours. In that compressed amount of time and  a director’s subjective view of history, we follow the political radicalization of a laundress who labors under deplorable conditions (having begun as a mere child) named  Maud Watts (an actual composite of a suffragette named Hannah Mitchell - http://www.biography.com/news/suffragette-movie-history) beautifully played by Carey Mulligan, coming to the realization that she has no legal recourse over her detestable working environment, and in her personal world no claim over the welfare and future of her child. Maud comes to the conclusion, along with a group of fellow activists after hearing Mrs. Pankhurst speak, that years of peaceful protests had not altered their situations; shocks of violence were the only means of getting the attention of the government controlled Press and Parliament. The consequences of  these menacing actions are woven into the film’s drama. The wonderful actor Brendon Gleeson plays an Inspector Jarvert-type police official who is relentless in the prosecution and strategy of dealing with political “agitators” personifying the authority of the British legal system which enveloped ALL women who were subjugated to the daily slog of male dominance vitiating their every breath.

SUFFRAGETTE is not a great film, but the  inequities that befall the heroine and her “co-conspirators” made me fiercely conscious of society’s injustice to those who are seen as  defenseless. I was overcome by the overwhelming powerless of an individual to enact change without organizational support. Transformation is possible where there is courage and the remaining choices have been eliminated - when one is caged there are few alternatives other than shattering the bars.

At the very end of the movie there is  a timeline listing when women got the right to vote and the list was astonishing. There are many country's that in 2015  still do not grant women that right such as Saudi Arabia where it is still pending!!!!

Timeline of Women’s Suffrage Granted, by Country

1893 New Zealand

1902 Australia1

1906 Finland

1913 Norway

1915 Denmark

1917 Canada2

1918 Austria, Germany, Poland, Russia

1919 Netherlands

1920 United States

1921 Sweden

1928 Britain, Ireland

1931 Spain

1934 Turkey

1944 France

1945 Italy

1947 Argentina, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan

1949 China

1950 India

1954 Colombia

1957 Malaysia, Zimbabwe

1962 Algeria

1963 Iran, Morocco

1964 Libya

1967 Ecuador

1971 Switzerland

1972 Bangladesh

1974 Jordan

1976 Portugal

1989 Namibia

1990 Western Samoa

1993 Kazakhstan, Moldova

1994 South Africa

2005 Kuwait

2006 United Arab Emirates

2011 Saudi Arabia3

NOTE: One country does not allow their people, male or female, to vote: Brunei.

1. Australian women, with the exception of aboriginal women, won the vote in 1902. Aborigines, male and female, did not have the right to vote until 1962.

2. Canadian women, with the exception of Canadian Indian women, won the vote in 1917. Canadian Indians, male and female, did not win the vote until 1960. Source: The New York Times, May 22, 2005.

3. Women in Saudi Arabia will not be eligible to vote until 2015.