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

I thought that this movie was fairly accurate in its portrayal of the Watergate scandal. This movie has the benefit of being made closer to the event, so the pressure to have the facts correct it seems is higher. I thought especially that the gravity of the scandal was portrayed very well, as it went from a minor story to a huge ordeal almost overnight. -Margaret Jones

I liked how the story followed real reactions to the scandal. It has the advantage of getting the real perspectives and reactions since it was made during the time period it was happening. But movies often exaggerate stories, this one held true to the events. The general public had faith in their president and didn't pay attention to the news of the scandal. I also think the film did a good job at showing Woodward and Bernstein's relationship. They weren't "besties," they were coworkers. In the film it is obvious their individual personalities are very different and their relationship is purely professional. - Neonya G.
====== II.	Problems with historical accuracy? Errors in fact? ======
The movie did a pretty good job with historical accuracy, but like with all movies, there are some things it gets wrong, either intentionally or unintentionally.
 Howard Simons, the Post's managing editor 20 years ago, is portrayed as idiotic when in reality he was much loved and the most involved in the day-to-day process of all the senior editors.
Other things that changed are pretty small: names, events, fictionalized characters, and exaggerated dialogue. But the thing that was most inaccurate was how the movie depicted Woodward and Bernstein as piecing this story together on their own. The whole newsroom was invested in the story and stayed many late nights, and did field queries. They were all in it together.
Reportedly though the set for the Washington Post was deadly accurate. The producers even had the real newspapers trash shipped to the set. The discoveries of information were also very true. -Annika Sypher

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

====== 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

//All the President's Men// made 70.6 million dollars in the Box Office. The fact that this movie was such a success showed that so many people were invested in the story, and how many of them likely had felt lingering distrust and resentment towards the government from the scandal. Since the film was released so close to when the events took place, it lended itself to be a more accurate depiction of the scandal. -- Logan Kurtz

When it comes to the film working as a primary source for when the time period it was made it, it works very well. The time frames of both the historical event and time the movie was created gives the viewer (us) a deeper look at how many individuals saw this event as. There was obviously very conflicting opinions of the matter but the film did a good job portraying that. Now if the film were to be recreated or for a film to come out inspired by the watergates scandal now, we would see them both at a different light. Like previously mention, the situation would have been very influenced in either direction and can cause a rift in its historical accuracy. There’s also the notion of producers starting a film way way after a historical event because there is either more information or the biases are put more to the side or they’re more likely to not get “in trouble”. (Of course the biases can still be present but in a different view.) - Paula Perez

This film works very well as primary source for the Watergate scandal. The film was made shortly after Nixon’s resignation, so it is able to serve as a source for both the time and the event. The filmmakers were dealing with the initial shocks from the scandal and I think that that is very evident in the film. The filmmakers were very harsh towards Nixon and more so than I think we sometimes are today. As the event was so fresh in the minds of so many Americans, so the emotion of it is very well carried out. -Margaret Jones

The film works very well as both a primary and secondary source. The filmmakers, actors, and everyone else actually lived through this experience relatively recently so, they were able to draw from those experiences. The fact that it was so reliable to the actual history tells us that at this time, the population was either very invested into this story or still did not understand what happened fully. -Annika Sypher

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

====== 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

The film takes the viewer in the eyes of the journalist and reports that didn’t realize they were on the verge on something huge until they starting investigating a bit more. You can see the emotions range from something being too suspicious to not be overlooked to almost uncovering something but being pushed back and then ultimately finding what you didn’t even know you were looking at. It gives the sense of rawness that mostly likely did happen as the individuals were uncovering what they found. Like someone said before this film shows the Freedom of Speech in a variety of ways. In the way where some individuals were scared or bought into silence and in other ways tries to get information as best as they could. - Paula Perez

The Watergate scandal is an important event in recent history and All The President's Men portrays it as extremely dry and boring. It's important to present historical events as accurately as possible, and the movie did a pretty good job of that. However, it wouldn't've killed the filmmakers to have included background music or something other than monotonous dialogue. -Katherine Rayhart

The movie is really well done and does a good job of portraying a true event in history.The Watergate scandal was an important moment in Modern American History. It also mirrors events happening within the government recently. History truly repeats itself. -Neonya G.

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