Directed by Steven Spielberg
Storyline
The Post depicts the journalists from The Washington Post and The New York Times who published the Pentagon Papers regarding the involvement of the United States government during the Vietnam War started by President John Kennedy
The Post, is a documentary. It is also a euphoric, angry, and shamelessly sentimental film – the sort that only Steven Spielberg can make. When everything is said and done, and whether or not any impeachments, assassinations or resignations happen, it will be seen as one of the most important films of our times.
It tells the story of the Washington Post’s race against time to release damning secret documents that proved the American government had been lying to its people about the Vietnam War, while an unprecedented battle wages on between the Nixon administration and the Ben Bradlee-led Post. The President had already shut down the New York Times’ efforts to publish the sensitive documents – it was the first time in history that the government had refused to allow a newspaper to report on a story of such magnitude – and Bradlee and his publisher (Kay Graham) saw this an opportunity to let the world know that the Post wasn’t in the business of reading news, but reporting news.
Faced with insurmountable odds, and against the advice of an army of very expensive lawyers, they pushed ahead. Their reputations, the legacy of the Washington Post, and possible jail time was at risk; but the country’s future was at stake.
Like its two protagonists, The Post is a brave movie – perhaps even braver than its biggest inspiration, All the President’s Men. That film, which has developed an unchallenged reputation as the seminal film about journalism, was only released years after Richard Nixon – who in the Post, is depicted almost as a Bond villain, lurking in his sinister lair – had resigned. The current President is still in office
And as played by Tom Hanks, Bradlee is just what an editor should be – decisive, inspirational, and – as he’d like to believe – brave. The sort of unstoppable idealism that he displays is almost impossible to find anymore, regardless of what the story is. In an early scene, he refuses the White House’s demand to assign a different reporter from the usual one to cover the President’s daughter’s wedding. He could simply have agreed and avoided the trouble, but in one of the first of the film’s many rousing moments, he declares, “We cannot let the administration dictate what we can and cannot print.”
By Bradlee’s side is Kay Graham, played by the great Meryl Streep. Her battles are different. She inherited the newspaper from her late husband, who’d been handed the reins when her own father skipped her as the rightful heir. And she didn’t question his decision. How could she? It was a different time for women. Even as one of the most powerful persons in the room, when the time came to discuss politics, she’d excuse herself with the other ladies to gossip about fluff pieces.
Spielberg and his longtime cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, shoot the duo’s scenes in a two-shot, and let the dialogue – partially written by Josh Singer, who previously won an Oscar for Spotlight – and their performances do the work. The camera takes a more frantic approach in the newsroom, lit with greys and blacks, dense with the smoke of a hundred cigarettes.
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