Final Papers HIST - Questions 1&3
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Transcript of Final Papers HIST - Questions 1&3
HIST390 - Historical Problems Through Film: Conspiracy and Paranoia in the 1970s
Professor Dr. Kyle Riismandel
Spring 2015
Final Exam – Questions 1&3.
Due: May 14th
Jose Gonzalez Coronel
Question 1
For question number one I will be constructing an argument around and
about the two last films watched this semester Black Sunday & Hearts and Minds
exemplifying the paranoid style at work as stated by Richard Hofstadter. These two films
are perfect characterization of another quote that comes to mind when touching upon this
topic: “The end justifies the means”. Richard Hofstadter writes: “the distinguishing thing
about the paranoid style is not that its exponents see conspiracies or plots here and there in
history, but that they regard a ‘vast’ or ‘gigantic’ conspiracy as the motive force in historical
events. (They believe) History is a conspiracy set in motion by demonic forces of almost
transcendent power, and what is felt to be needed to defeat it is not the usual methods of political
give-and-take, but an all-out crusade.” This is a great concept to understand while watching the
Black Sunday film of 1977 and thinking back to what conspiracy is and what the characters of the
movie think it to be. In my point of view the characters from Black Sunday, especially one of the
antagonists of the film Michael Lander, fits perfectly into what the definition of Richard
Hofstadter of paranoid style is. Michael Lander feels the need to be remembered by people or just
anyone by any means necessary, after being a prisoner of the Vietnam war and having a bitter
court martial and failed marriage on his return he feels everything has been a big conspiracy
against him and the methods he will proceed to use are a truly Hollywood all-out crusade. Lander
says in one part of the film the following: “I was gonna give my wife and the kids something to
remember me by, I was gonna give the guy that took the picture something to remember me by, I
was just gonna give me this whole son of a bitching country something to remember me by, if
they can do it to me, why shouldn't I be able to do it to them” He feels that he should be able to
take revenge against a country and the people in it who didn't care for him and under appreciate
what he went through, so he decided to attempt suicide and take as many lives as he can from a
blimp full of explosives, led by the manipulations of a terrorist woman named Dahlia. There
seemed to be no limits and/or morals as to what these two characters would do to get what they
deemed was the right to do, is with people like this that paranoid style described above works
best. Dahlia had her agenda full of conspiracies of her own, which she would also do everything
in her power to see through, reaching the same or even worse paranoid style as the one seen in
Lender, same one Hofstadter speaks of in his quote.
The documentary-like film, Hearts and Minds 1974, also demonstrates Richard
Hofstadter’s theory and illustrates specific examples to validate what he considers it to be the
definition of those who exemplify the paranoid style believe history works in this way, and that in
their eyes history is one large conspiracy. The involvement of the Americans in the Vietnam War
is investigated in this film. And a conspiracy of the Americans’ reasoning to entering the Vietnam
War is projected by the filmmakers to be unlawful and unjustified. The documentary-film focuses
on the people who were against the war and the involvement of the Americans. The filmmaker,
Peter Davis, interviews people involved in the Vietnam War, including the Vietnamese citizens as
well as the Americans stationed there. Peter Davis had to take extreme actions to get live footage
of the war and interviews of people convoluted in the war to demonstrate and try to put a stop this
in what he believes is a conspiracy called history.
Father Chan Tin Saigon is one of the Vietnamese individuals interviewed by Peter Davis.
In this interview, Father Chan Tin Saigon states, “we fought against the French for 100 years, and
finally when the war was lost by the French in 1954, the Vietnamese were liberated from foreign
impression, but it was at that precise moment when Americans came to Vietnam.” The Americans
were not given a real reason to attack the Vietnamese, but to help the French. As quoted right at
the start of the film, “by 1954 the United States was paying for 78% of the French war in
Indochina.” Father Chan Tin Saigon continues to say, “An invasion of the American army, 500
thousand of them in Vietnam, people of North and South Vietnam fight only for freedom,
independence, and unity.” Peter Davis indicates that the Vietnamese people are innocent and
being killed and poisoned by the Americans, who had no real reason to start a war with them. The
conspiracy of the Americans entering the Vietnam War is unjustified as exhibited by these
interviews.
Peter Davis continues to proof his point by showing how the American veterans did not
care about the reasons as to why they are entering a war. The veterans only cared about their job
as a veteran, which is to kill the enemies. One veteran that is interviewed in the film says, “And it
felt good and I wanted more…and it wasn’t that I wanted more because of politics or whatever, I
couldn’t have cared if they were whatever, I just wanted them because they were the opposition.”
The Vietnamese people are suffering from the Americans just to fight for their independence and
unification from the Americans. With the numerous clips that Peter Davis brought to the screen in
the Hearts and Minds film, he tried to capture and unveiled what he believed to be a big
conspiracy from the American side. He took his job to another level and it didn’t matter what he
would go through either in Vietnam interviewing the citizens there or the veterans back in
American soil, he was determined to prove the conspiracy around the history of the American-
Vietnamese war bringing him closer to what Hofstadter considers as a paranoid style.
These two films discussed briefly in this paper have what I believe to be the
paranoid style but in different manners, given that Black Sunday is a Hollywood made
scenario of a what if? Situation where the characters explicitly display the paranoid style
inside the film as for in the Hearts and Minds film is the own feelings of the filmmaker who
lets us interpret his paranoid style as a documentary-film brought to the screen.
Question 3
In this paper I will contrast and compare two films that stood out to me in the course of the
semester, not only because of the quality of the movie and the fast pace scenes in which
these two movies were carried out but mainly because of their pure historical content. One
of them that was filmed around on-going already facts being shown to the public through
the media at the time, and the other film that was actually released only twelve days before
an actual similar real event would transpire in the United States. These two movies fell into
the category of thrillers at the box office but in this paper they will be treated as historical
events.
The films described briefly above are of course All the President’s men (1976) and The
China Syndrome (1979). These two films share an unmissable theme, media reporters of the
time (1970’s) trying to unveil something bigger than them. These reporters of the truth,
while doing a routine story at the beginning of their respective films stumble upon
something larger than what they original thought it was and they decide to embark in their
stories which turn out to be large conspiracies against the people of the nation, which in
turn affect us as the viewers, knowing it is us, the public of this nation. It is in this way that
the filmmakers make us relate to their story and make us root for the reporters. When our
“heroes” try to go toe to toe against the giant institutions in that cinematic world, it gives the
audience the sense of realization of the humongous task the protagonists of these films have
ahead of them.
Even though throughout in All the President’s men film, the audience is aware of what
the ending looks like, writers of this film did not focus on the who did it part of the story
rather as to how they did it, which is what keeps the audience hooked. As for The China
Syndrome film their ending is a more cinematic based one, though with a feasible outcome
and in within the range of possibilities when an individual or a group of individuals decide
to take on a powerful Institution.
All the President’s Men undermined the credibility of the government as a whole and
the corruption behind it, from the (CREEP) committee all the way to the President of the
United States at the time. The large conspiracy behind the infamous Watergate acts as the
centerpiece of this film. As the journalists revealed more and more of what soon would be
Nixon’s demise, the audience gets fed all the dark clues and irregularities behind the chain
of reaction that eventually brought down Mr. President’s administration.
The mix of paranoia and conspiracy plays a big role to cast doubt on the integrity of
any institution and this was the case in the 1970’s American institution led by Richard
Nixon. Filmmakers created an atmosphere of paranoia in All the President’s men and used
different film techniques to do so, some of which are explained in the next paragraph. The
tone of this film is an obscure one, building up on suspend and surrounding it by fear, the
latter being a main component of paranoia. Also in the film thanks to versatile camera
techniques, show how large this unveiling of news was for the two journalists. In scenes like
the overhead shots displayed when they would leave the garage and the streets of
Washington DC would seem to grow immensely and our heroes would get lost in all the
crowd or when they appear in the library scene researching through old records and all we
are left seeing is numerous circular desks in the library from above, where they would also
vanished in such a crowded sea full of people and information, making the audience
understand how great of a task they were facing. The paranoia shown by each character
involved in the conspiracy of the film surrounding everyone that the reporters came in
contact with is well detailed by the filmmakers, showing the faces of fear as if the
information revealed were to see the light of the sun, their lives would be in danger. The
audience is left with these interpretations but nothing is really shown in the film as to who
would take actions against them or what’s the actual risk that they were facing was.
Furthermore in the scenes were Deep Throat would reveal information to them were
always in the shadows of a parking lot giving the sense of fear these paranoid characters
were submerged in. As for the film The China Syndrome a catastrophe can be avoided by
stating the true facts of a first incident that could’ve put lots of lives in danger but the abuse
of power of the owners of this American institution decide against it and use cover ups in
order to keep their money maker plant running. This 1979’s film shows us how the
reporter of the story teams up with the supervisor from the power plant who shows a great
level of morality and cares for the lives of people from his town when he and reporter
Kimberly discovers a conspiracy in the making and stands up to the evil corporate owners.
The way paranoia is presented to us in this film is one where the audience is supposed to
feel the same fear our “heroes”, in this case the reporter and the plant supervisor, feel from a
power plant in bad conditions at the border of a meltdown and owners of an institution that
would go to any extent possible to keep their money coming in into their pockets at any
cost. Lying to the media and therefore the American people, giving out deceitful accusations
against one of their own workers, calling the supervisor insane and a drunk and even killing
to get what they want is what the filmmakers decided to portrayed in the film sharing the
paranoia experienced in the screen out to spectators real life.
All of those feelings caused by the filmmakers in the films left inside the public’s
minds are responsible for the undermined integrity of the American institutions pictured in
1970’s films.
Conspiracy and institutions in the 1970’s portrayed in films have a clear pattern that
filmmakers want to expose to its audience: every big institution has its dark secrets, they
are all evil and they do not play by the rules, is just a matter of the right type of adventurous
people to dig in and find these secrets. Not all American institutions are portrayed as bad in
the 1970’s films however, The Newspaper is presented as a source of credible news like for
example when even though the editor of “The Washington Post” (All the President’s Men)
wants to get the big conspiracy news out and wants to support his two journalists with the
story, he can’t allow himself to do that to the American people. The editor of the newspaper
needs more proof, he needs people on the record to corroborate that the story being
unraveled has a truth factor in it.