The Post: Why Steven Spielberg’s latest movie demands attention

By Anindita Mukhopadhyay

The latest movie with film stars Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, ‘The Post’, is yet another feather in director Steven Spielberg’s cap. The film, which was released in India only last Friday, has been named the best film of 2017 by the New York-based National Board of Review. In addition, the film has been nominated for the Golden Globe in five categories. ‘The Post’ chronicles the events that led to the disclosure of the Pentagon Papers—a multi-volume set of top-secret documents detailing America’s political-military involvement in the Vietnam war.

The Post’s storyline

The tense drama, set at American newspaper The Washington Post in the 1970s, illustrates the struggle over the publication of the Pentagon Papers, that occurred in 1971. The film begins during the Vietnam War, and shows former US military analyst Daniel Ellsberg (played by Matthew Rhys) walking away with the report commissioned by the US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara (Greenwood) on US-Vietnam relations.

Frustrated with the government’s deception about the war and hoping to stem further carnage, Ellsberg stole the classified files, handing them over to a reporter for The New York Times, one of America’s top newspapers. Soon after publishing the first article of the exposé, then US President Richard Nixon’s administration obtained an injunction in the name of national security, forcing The Times to refrain from publishing the documents. However, Ellsberg also gave copies of the report to Ben Bagdikian (Bob Odenkirk), a Post reporter, who brought them to Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), the executive editor of The Post.

The film covers the deliberations between the central protagonist Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep), owner and publisher of The Post, and Bradlee, leading up to the concluding decision made by Graham to publish the exposé. Nixon’s administration threatens the newspapers with a violation of the Espionage Act, which could send them all to prison. This drives Graham and Bradlee to make some tough decisions in the face of a series of moral, ethical, economic, and legal conflicts. Graham, repeatedly deemed unsuitable for her position, is seen to finally find her feet through the course of these deliberations and takes charge of the paper she inherited by accident.

The film’s relevance today

Although the events of the film took place nearly five decades ago, the timing of ‘The Post’ could not be more apposite, with the current President trying his best to discredit the press and accusing them of purveying ‘fake news’. Put together in the short span of six months, the film’s urgent release suggests the pertinence of the matter to the public as it highlights the role of the press in a democracy. It is a wake-up call for the media to remind them that, “the press is to serve the governed, not the governors”.

“I think that’s why he wanted to do it this year especially – was because of the siege on the free and independent press,” Streep said. “When the state goes after the press, it—it’s a very dangerous situation in a democracy because it gives license all around the world for this to happen.” Paraphrasing from the Pentagon Papers, she went on to add “They knew it was not winnable and the great line is that it was fought basically 10 percent to help the Vietnamese, 20 percent to contain China and 70 percent to save face.”

It is relevant in India too

The film’s pertinent subject is especially relevant to India in the face of increasing censorship across most walks of life, in addition to the recent suppression of the freedom of the press. Indians will likely relate to the film’s protagonists, who were faced with the duplicitous nature of their government.

This message should hit home in a country where reporting on corruption by the son of the ruling party’s president has just earned an independent news organisation a gag order by the court. In such restrictive times, the film underscores the need for journalists like those at the Washington Post and New York Times, who are committed to reporting the truth as it is rather than as the government wants it to be. In addition, it is exhilarating to watch a woman emerge from the shadows as a lead protagonist.

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