Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Dennis Quaid, and Bruce Greenwood star in "Truth" from 2015.
This is a film you can't win writing about. Just take a look at the message board.
The story concerns documents that were given to "60 Minutes" stating that Bush used family connections to get out of going to Vietnam, and that he was a national guard pilot who was rarely around and, as such, could not be evaluated.
Mary Mapes (Blanchett) attempts to verify the documents, finally getting verbal confirmation and people to talk on camera. Dan Rather reported on it.
Then information began to surface on the Internet that the documents were fakes, written, in fact, on a computer in Microsoft Word. A big thing was the appearance of a superscript. However, this was explained as well, though there were no originals.
Then people who had spoken to 60 Minutes started waffling. The powers- that-be began to get nervous. Before you know it, the careers of Dan Rather and Mary Mapes were over.
The acting by Blanchett and Redford was absolutely wonderful, both being two of my favorites. Topher Grace, Bruce Greenwood, and Elizabeth Moss also gave strong performances.
The presence of Robert Redford in a film usually signals a liberal agenda. So I'm surprised people with another point of view even watched this.
The film, to me anyway, comes down on the side of 60 Minutes, giving the impression that Mapes did all she could to verify the documents, and that ultimately she was let down because of political pressure to state the memos were untrue.
A few things, since I was alive back in the '70s: Like it or don't like it, people, not just Bush (if he did), used family connections to stay out of Vietnam. The fact that there were so many children from well-known families in this one unit was suspicious.
This seemed to me another example like the Challenger - people knew it was going to blow up but sent it up on schedule anyway. 60 Minutes had verified these documents up to a point, but given the date they wanted to broadcast, they didn't have enough time to investigate further.
Explosive information like this, I would think, has to be run down to the ground. They didn't want to wait until after the election, but the schedule was full except for a date coming up in five days.
Mapes made an excellent point when she appeared before the antagonistic investigative committee, that it would be next to impossible for someone to know the right people, have inside information, and do the research involved in creating the memos - and then, ruin it all by sitting down and typing the memos up in Microsoft Word.
Rather left the show feeling that journalism had lost its integrity, that it succumbed to pressure to kill a story.
One has to make one's own decision about all this. My own opinion is that 60 Minutes did believe these memos, they did not present them knowing they were false, but they probably needed to spend more time on them.
One of the most striking scenes occurs while Mapes is before the board and is asked: Don't you believe that some of these men from prominent families actually wanted to serve? Long silence. Mapes: No. I do not.
A tense, absorbing film. The only thing is, to see Robert Redford, Bruce Greenwood, and Dennis Quaid looking so old depressed me more than I can say. Robert Redford looked embalmed. Forty years ago...well, I can't go back, any more than 60 Minutes, Rather, and Mapes can.
This is a film you can't win writing about. Just take a look at the message board.
The story concerns documents that were given to "60 Minutes" stating that Bush used family connections to get out of going to Vietnam, and that he was a national guard pilot who was rarely around and, as such, could not be evaluated.
Mary Mapes (Blanchett) attempts to verify the documents, finally getting verbal confirmation and people to talk on camera. Dan Rather reported on it.
Then information began to surface on the Internet that the documents were fakes, written, in fact, on a computer in Microsoft Word. A big thing was the appearance of a superscript. However, this was explained as well, though there were no originals.
Then people who had spoken to 60 Minutes started waffling. The powers- that-be began to get nervous. Before you know it, the careers of Dan Rather and Mary Mapes were over.
The acting by Blanchett and Redford was absolutely wonderful, both being two of my favorites. Topher Grace, Bruce Greenwood, and Elizabeth Moss also gave strong performances.
The presence of Robert Redford in a film usually signals a liberal agenda. So I'm surprised people with another point of view even watched this.
The film, to me anyway, comes down on the side of 60 Minutes, giving the impression that Mapes did all she could to verify the documents, and that ultimately she was let down because of political pressure to state the memos were untrue.
A few things, since I was alive back in the '70s: Like it or don't like it, people, not just Bush (if he did), used family connections to stay out of Vietnam. The fact that there were so many children from well-known families in this one unit was suspicious.
This seemed to me another example like the Challenger - people knew it was going to blow up but sent it up on schedule anyway. 60 Minutes had verified these documents up to a point, but given the date they wanted to broadcast, they didn't have enough time to investigate further.
Explosive information like this, I would think, has to be run down to the ground. They didn't want to wait until after the election, but the schedule was full except for a date coming up in five days.
Mapes made an excellent point when she appeared before the antagonistic investigative committee, that it would be next to impossible for someone to know the right people, have inside information, and do the research involved in creating the memos - and then, ruin it all by sitting down and typing the memos up in Microsoft Word.
Rather left the show feeling that journalism had lost its integrity, that it succumbed to pressure to kill a story.
One has to make one's own decision about all this. My own opinion is that 60 Minutes did believe these memos, they did not present them knowing they were false, but they probably needed to spend more time on them.
One of the most striking scenes occurs while Mapes is before the board and is asked: Don't you believe that some of these men from prominent families actually wanted to serve? Long silence. Mapes: No. I do not.
A tense, absorbing film. The only thing is, to see Robert Redford, Bruce Greenwood, and Dennis Quaid looking so old depressed me more than I can say. Robert Redford looked embalmed. Forty years ago...well, I can't go back, any more than 60 Minutes, Rather, and Mapes can.