Media Center

Recommened Viewing: Politics
It’s an election year!
Come on up to the fifth floor of the LLC, and remember to vote early and vote often.

Feature Films: 

TANNER 88 – Dead to rights, and remarkably prescient, satire of an American political campaign, made for television by Robert Altman.

NASHVILLE – Altman’s complex masterpiece interweaves several storylines of politics and Americana.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE – The paranoid classic of a brainwashed soldier from the Korean War used in an assassination plot.  

ALL THE KING’S MEN – From the Robert Penn Warren novel, and loosely based on the larger-than-life Louisiana politician, Huey Long.

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN – Watergate.  Deep Throat.  Woodward.  Bernstein. 

WAG THE DOG – Manufacture a war to raise poll numbers? Absurd. Intelligent satire pokes as much fun at Hollyword as at Washington. 

THE GREAT MCGINTY – Old school satire of political machinery is as salty and sharp as they come. 

ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS – Young, honest Abe in this topnotch biopic.

MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON – Archetypal Capra tale of young senator in a corrupt Washington.  Filibuster, anyone? 

DICK – Sprightly teen comedy set in the Nixon White House.

JFK and EXECUTIVE ACTION – A lot of paranoia in movies about politics, no?  Especially when it comes to the Kennedys.

BOB ROBERTS – Tim Robbins’ satire revolves around a folk singing conservative politician.   No, it’s not a true story about Newt Gingrich.

CITIZEN KANE – What to say about Citizen Kane.  It’s Citizen Kane, for Pete’s sake.  Trenchant, groundbreaking, rosebud, blah blah.   See it. 

MEDIUM COOL – This electrifying film uses real footage of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and the riots that followed. 

STATE OF THE UNION – Tracy, Hepburn, Capra:  all together at one low price in this comedy where Spencer Tracy is running for president. 

THE CANDIDATE – Robert Redford is an idealistic candidate for the senate in this satire. 

Documentaries:

30-SECOND PRESIDENT – Bill Moyers looks at the role of television advertising in presidential campaigns from Eisenhower to Reagan. 

PRESIDENTS AND POLITICS WITH RICHARD STROUT - Journalist Richard Strout reminisces about his career as a reporter covering Washington and the White House, from the administration of Warren G. Harding up to the Reagan administration.

GREAT AMERICAN SPEECHES – Speakers include FDR, Huey Long, Jesse Jackson, Barbara Jordan, Mario Cuomo, JFK and others in this six-part series. 

CONSTRUCTING PUBLIC OPINION:  HOW POLITICIANS AND THE MEDIA

 MISREPRESENT THE PUBLIC – Examines the use of public opinion polls in politics. 

LEADING QUESTIONS – Campaign consultants and the role of advanced marketing research as a political tool.

THE POLITICAL ARENA – Ruth Messenger, Manhattan borough president, and C. Virginia Fields, city councilman from Upper Manhattan, talk about women in politics. 

 

A selection compiled and annotated by P. Jewell 3/04.