Wiki for Dr. McClurkens Courses

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You should do a total of 2-3 comments/questions/observations this week.  You do not need to post to all areas. Please do include links to sources, clips, images that are relevant to your point. -- Dr. McClurken

====== I.	How does this movie work as a secondary source? What does the movie get right about history?  ======

This movie seems to pretty accurately portray the breaking of the Watergate scandal. I like how the film chose to show how the scandal was originally a small story that ended up revealing greater corruption. Sometimes films about big historical events will show people believing those events to be important before their impact is seen. This can sometimes come at the cost of historical accuracy. I think this accuracy is important to this film in particular, since it shows how much of a shock Watergate was. Many Americans had faith that the federal government would not do something like this, so when the initial events of Watergate happened, government espionage was not the automatic assumption. - Maris Tiller

This isn't THAT relevant but I thought it was interesting that so much attention was brought to the newsroom. Many of the interviews and articles I read mentioned that the Washington Post allowed the producers to visit their newsroom, but not to shoot there. It had only been a few years so it was still looking almost identical to how it did during Watergate, so they took photos and even took wastebins of trash from the real room to use in their set. The accuracy of the newsroom was a very small detail but so interesting how much they invested in the Washington Post-centered perspective. -- Jane Michael

The film actually seemed pretty accurate to what we discussed in class. Of course, as this came out so soon following the scandal, it is a reliable source as the filmmakers and audience all lived through this event. The movie was dramatic without being too over the top, and it was a really realistic watch. I think it was interesting to portray the scandal from the perspective of the journalists rather than the perpetrators.-- Logan Kurtz
====== II.	Problems with historical accuracy? Errors in fact? ======

====== III.	How does the film’s overall interpretation(s) deviate from scholarly historical sources? ======

====== IV.	How does this movie work as a primary source about the time period in which it was made or the filmmakers? ======

Over the latter part of this semester we’ve been able to watch and discuss movies that were released close to the historical events that are the subject of the film. This film was released two years after Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency following the Watergate scandal and his impeachment. While I do think that making these movies so close to the actual events that it is based on leaves room for very little historical error, it also erases the possibility to create any sort of reflection on the historical events. The filmmakers had the intention to capture an event that would still be in the recent memory of the audience, and to also feature an event that was incredibly important and popular to its American audience. The film was incredibly accurate to the actual events involving Woodard and Bernstein investigating Watergate. It would be interesting to know how audiences who saw the film in theaters felt while watching it, and how they may base their entire understanding of the Watergate scandal off of this film. –Olivia Foster

When this movie was made, the events of Watergate were still pretty fresh in the minds of the general public. The many names dropped during this movie were easier to pick up and were more known in 1976 than they are today. Furthermore, the movie focuses on the investigative journalism done by Woodward and Burnstein as a way to retell the story. Though this is an interesting way to look at the movie, it does make it a little more convoluted because the audience has to go through all the hardships of finding out the truth as Woodward and Burnstein did, including the red herrings they investigated. Though this is a good way to tell the story, it does show that the targeted audience for the movie would know more about the process of the investigation, and  how the FBI, CIA, and Justice Department were involved. On top of this, if this movie were to be made today, I believe many producers would eventually give the identity of Deepthroat, but his identity was not known at the time the movie was made so even if the movie producers wanted to make that information known, they couldn’t, because they didn’t know that themselves. -Teresa Felipe

This film definitely is indicative of the time it was made. Because it was released so close to the actual event, almost all viewers had experienced the publicity of Watergate in real time. This is most likely why it seemed rushed at the end - the actual televised hearings, Nixon's impeachment discussions, his resignation, and all the other events that happened directly in the public eye were diminished to a post-script at the end. Many viewers of the time would have been more interested in what was happening behind the scenes. For us, it could seem more like the filmmakers were ignoring the real historical event - Nixon's resignation - but for viewers of the time, it was filling in the picture of how deep it had been before the story was uncovered in the public eye. -- Jane Michael

There were many moments throughout this movie where I thought, “This is something that would deter people from voting for Gerald Ford.” As the film goes on, there’s a lot of emphasis placed on Nixon’s dishonesty which I believe is meant to point to Ford’s mistake in pardoning him. It’s sort of showing the audience that they ought not to repeat this mistake, and it would have been a very prescient message because of how fresh the betrayal of Watergate was in the minds of the American public. - Maris Tiller
====== V. The "So, what?" question	======

Throughout this semester, this is the first movie we have watched that does not feature a historical event(s) based in violence (war, racial violence, ptsd, riots, etc.).  That made watching this film very different to watch compared to the others. The dialogue was much more important in this film than the physical movements and action shots throughout the other films we have watched, which I found difficult to focus on at some points. I know that the films in this class are a small percentage of the amount of films made about American historical events, but this made me think about the number of films made about American history that are centered around acts of violence. I think that movies about war are much more popular to a wider range of audiences, while this movie about politics may not be as attractive to most audiences. Although, the popularity of the Watergate scandal may counter that argument and most likely drew large audiences at its time of release. I think that the more we reach contemporary times, the less movies we see being made about wars, and more films being made about American history that may not be as well known or more “underground” (maybe achieving what Matewan had started). –Olivia Foster

This movie is important for a multitude of reasons. First of all, it does a good job of showing the importance of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It shows how important and integral the investigative journalism by Woodward and Burnstein was. It is also important because it tells the infamous story of Watergate, which is still very relevant to politics and society today. Watergate is important to know about because it shows the corruption that is allowed in the US government. It is also incredibly easy to draw parallels from this story and from Nixon’s strategies and antics to current politicians, such as former president Donald Trump. The film shows how difficult it was for a story of government corruption to be known by the public that that government serves. This is important because it continues to happen to this day, in this country and in others. Paying attention to politics of the past, especially the recent past, can tell us a lot about politics today. Without understanding politics of the past it’s difficult to fully understand the motives and the reasoning for current laws, or bills that Congress is attempting to pass. This movie is important because it shows just how important it is to pay attention to politics and that paying attention to politics should not be an option but a given. -Teresa Felipe

This film was very heavy on the dialogue and equally on legalese. I found it realistic just on that fact - a lot of journalists spend an inordinate amount of time on the phone and it takes a long time to get the full picture on something like this, and also politics just involves a lot of names and a lot of intersection between bodies with power. All history intersects with politics and a lot of people like to focus only on the straight facts about wars or romances or murders and such, so I appreciated that there was no weird attempt at a romance plot or more violent action. Regardless of making it appealing to an audience, I was impressed with the focus on the real facts of the politics. Generally when a political system is corrupt, it goes way deeper than people like to believe, and especially in financial scandals and bribes, it does good for people to be aware of the possibilities. Politicians are certainly harmed less nowadays when a scandal like this comes out because people are desensitized, and move on. Teresa and I have similar responses since we were discussing this while we were watching, but we were really taken by the parallels to the Trump administration so it feels worth repeating. Nixon was given a presidential pardon for all the criminal activity and it was an uproar - it's notable to look back on that when considering why, after everything that's been found against Trump, that he's still a free man. In my opinion, the Mar-A-Lago raid had the potential to become this era's Watergate, and the fact that it didn't garner as much attention as Watergate is very very telling and makes these kinds of films so important else we keep repeating these mistakes. -- Jane Michael

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