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--- 329:question:329--week_14_questions_comments-2022 [2022/12/01 06:05] – [I.How does this movie work as a secondary source? What does the movie get right about history?] poletes_aleksandra
+++ 329:question:329--week_14_questions_comments-2022 [2022/12/01 15:21] (current) – 192.65.245.80
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 One thing I appreciated was how the movie portrayed public opinion about the articles, and how people were conflicted about the articles and whether or not they should be published. Especially the divisions within the party itself were interesting to watch, with characters saying “I’m a republican,” and so on. Just how much opposition they faced, even from within the newspaper from other employees and higher ups, highlighted that a lot of people didn’t see the point in the articles and thought the journalists were printing lies up until the end. — Sasha Poletes
+I thought that this movie was incredibly accurate. From creating an exact replica of the Washington Post office to using footage from the actual Republican National Convention, the director, Alan Pakula, focused on getting the film accurate instead of making the film as entertaining as it could be. However, the most accurate parts of the movie (which were the majority of the movie), were when Bernstein and Woodward would be working at a desk in the office of the Washington Post. - Zack Steinbaum
 ====== II.	Problems with historical accuracy? Errors in fact? ======
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 One thing that I think this movie gets right is confusion and clutter around this event. Because there were so many people working to keep Watergate and the people involved under wraps, the amount of incorrect or semi-correct information was immense. Bernstein and Woodward worked hard to get around these blocks and to find the real information from the people who were part of the actions. Following the reporters the entire time also made the movie seem more realistic because the information they were getting and the rate they were getting it at would be similar to the way it came out in the papers for the general public. -Sarah Moore
+Something I picked up on was that the movie somewhat dropped the conflict between the two reporters. Though they get off to a rocky start their dislike of each other seems to disappear quickly even though I don’t believe that was the case. After their first antagonistic meeting, it seems like they get along just fine and work together without issues. Nevertheless I thought it was accurate how even the editor started calling them Woodstein, reflecting how everyone thought they were a pair even though they did not get along. — Sasha Poletes
 ====== III.	How does the film’s overall interpretation(s) deviate from scholarly historical sources? ======
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 This is an interesting movie as a primary source. It captures the perception of Watergate, 2 years after the event actually happened. Making the movie so close to the event, leads to less potential for error and shows the real opinions of people who experienced the event. The frustration of the journalists and the opinions of other characters would have been the feelings of the general public at the time. They would have known exactly how frustrating it was to get misinformation and the slow speed at which real information came out. -Sarah Moore
 Honestly, I think that this movie is an excellent primary source for the actual events of Watergate itself. This movie was made just 3 years after the events took place, and everyone who was in the movie was able to witness them real time. Very different than many of the movies that we walked in this class during the semester. It is an amazing example of current events being put to the big screen in record time. This movie shows how important this event was to the country as a whole. -Michaela Fontenot
 This movie works amazing as a primary source because it has the benefit of being made so close to the actual events. The actors playing Bernstein and Woodward were able to do research for their roles in the Washington Post. So, they got to experience a newsroom that the actual events happened in, in a state that was very close to what it was. This movie gets the facts right, but I think it is more intriguing how real the newsroom feels. The filmmakers clearly cared about making the movie feel authentic and the research by the actors who play the two main journalists makes the care to authenticity evident. Robert Redford, who plays Woodward, actually first talked to Woodward in 1972, meaning that his portrayal would have been as accurate as possible. The lack of time between the events and the movie makes the events of the movie not so much interpretation but just showing Americans what happened in the major political scandal they just witnessed. - Taylor Coleman
+I think this film works great as a primary source about it's time period. One of the reasons this works great as a primary source is that it came out only two years after the events of the Watergate scandal, especially with the scandal still fresh in everyone's minds. Something that really worked for the film as a primary source was it's perspective on Nixon. With president Richard Nixon resigning shortly before the movie came out, not just the filmmakers, but America as a whole did not like Nixon, and that was shown in the film in the director's harshness towards Nixon. - Zack Steinbaum
 ====== V. The "So, what?" question	======