Moynihan is a documentary film which premiered in 2018. In March 2024, it was shown on US television (PBS). It is now an episode of the long-running program American Masters.
The topic is the life and career of the well-known American diplomat and politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003).
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Producers and directors: Joseph Dorman and Toby Perl Freilich
** Writer: Joseph Dorman
** Narrator: Jeffrey Wright
** Production: Riverside Films
** Language: English
** Subtitles: English
** Run time: 103 minutes
More than thirty persons are interviewed in this film. Here are the names of the participants. Listed in alphabetical order.
** Michael Barone – political analyst
** Joseph Biden – US Senator, Delaware 1973-2009 – since 2021, president of the USA
** Bill Bradley – US Senator, Democrat, New Jersey, 1979-1997
** Tony Bullock – chief of staff, Senator Moynihan, 1996-2000
** Ta-Nehisi Coates - journalist
** Richard Eaton – chief of staff, Senator Moynihan, 1983 and 1991-1993
** Kathryn J. Edin – professor of sociology, Princeton University
** Suzanne Garment – special assistant to Moynihan when he was the US ambassador to the UN
** Nathan Glazer - sociologist
** Harry Hall – childhood friend
** Ron Haskins – staff director, subcommittee on human resources, 1986-2000
** Stephen Hess – chief of staff when Moynihan worked for the Nixon administration
** Godfrey Hodgson – author of a biography
** Robert A. Katzman – chief judge, US Appeals Court, 2nd circuit, 2013-2020
** Bob Kerrey – US Senator, Democrat, Nebraska, 1989-2001
** Henry Kissinger (1923-2023) – national security advisor under Richard Nixon – secretary of state under Gerald Ford
** Trent Lott – US Senator, Republican, 1989-2007
** Thomas E. Mann – senior fellow, Brookings Institution
** Richard Meryman – Navy and college friend
** Ronald B. Mincy – professor, Columbia University
** Joel W. Motley – member of Senator Moynihan’s staff, 1983-1985
** Elizabeth Moynihan (1929-2023) – wife of Moynihan
** Maura Moynihan – daughter of Moynihan
** Eleanor Holmes Norton – Congresswoman, Democrat, Washington, DC
** Lawrence O’Donnell – senior advisor for Senator Moynihan, 1989-1992 - Senate Finance Committee, 1993-1995
** Norman Ornstein – political scholar, American Enterprise Institute
** James Patterson - historian
** Orlando Patterson - sociologist
** Robert Peck – Senator Moynihan’s chief of staff, 1983-1985
** Norman Podhoretz – editor, Commentary
** John R. Price – special assistant to the president for urban affairs, 1969-1971
** Richard Ravitch – Moynihan’s campaign advisor
** Charles Schumer – Senate Democratic leader, New York
** Sam Tanenhaus – historian
** Steven R. Weisman – editor of a book about Moynihan
** George Will – political commentator
** William Julius Wilson - sociologist
Archive footage is used between the talking heads.
Old photos are also used.
Archive footage is used to support and supplement the statements made by the talking heads.
Archive footage is used when the narrator is talking.
Archive footage allows us to see and hear several persons who are no longer alive today, including the person who is the main focus of this film.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan was born in a poor family in 1927. He managed to get a good education and he ended up as a prominent member of the intelligentsia.
He had a long and distinguished career:
** He was an academic scholar at Harvard University
** He served four presidents
** He served four terms as a US Senator
What is the main message of this film? What do people say about him when they are interviewed? The main message is positive, very positive:
(1) He was a good person
(2) He cared about people
(3) He cared about the poor and the minorities
(4) He insisted that the government has a responsibility to take care of those who need help
(5) Sometimes he was misunderstood, but he always had good intentions
(6) He was a New Deal Democrat
(7) He was a liberal
(8) He was well-spoken
(9) He was talented and influential
(10) He used his talents and his influence to help those who were less fortunate
What do reviewers say about this film?
Here are some results:
77 percent = IMDb
67 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
88 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)
On Amazon there are at the moment 25 ratings of this product; including four with reviews.
The average rating is 4.6 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 92 percent.
As you can see, the ratings are quite good. When I see these good ratings, I have to ask: are they fully justified? Does this film deserve these good ratings?
My answer is no.
This film is highly overrated.
What is wrong?
Let me explain.
This film runs for more than 100 minutes. There is plenty of time to cover Moynihan’s life and career in great detail. But one detail is missing. One detail is never mentioned.
This detail is not trivial. This detail is very important. What is it? What is missing? Here is the answer:
The role which Moynihan played in connection with the Indonesian invasion of East Timor which began in December 1975.
Moynihan was the US ambassador to the UN when the Indonesian invasion of East Timor took place.
The Indonesian invasion of East Timor was a violation of international law.
The invasion was the beginning of a bloody and brutal occupation which lasted for more than twenty years.
The invasion caused a high level of suffering for the people of East Timor.
Many people in East Timor lost their lives as a result of war, starvation, and disease which were caused by the Indonesian invasion.
East Timor is a small place with a small population. In 1975, the population was perhaps one million.
We do not know exactly how many people lost their lives as a result of the Indonesian invasion and occupation.
Perhaps 100,000. Perhaps 200,000. This means 10 or 20 percent of the population. Whether the figure is 10 or 20 percent, it is a terrible death toll.
What did Moynihan do when the Indonesian invasion took place in December 1975?
Did he try to stop it?
No.
He made sure the UN Security Council did not do anything meaningful to stop it.
He made sure Indonesia could do what it wanted without any interference from the United Nations.
How do we know this?
Because he told us all about it.
After he left the job, he wrote a book about his time as US ambassador to the UN. This book was published in 1978. The title is A Dangerous Place.
In this book, there is a brief passage about the Indonesian invasion of East Timor:
“The US wished things to turn out as they did and worked to bring this about.
“The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook.
“This task was given to me and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.”
This is not an admission.
He is not sorry.
This is not an apology.
He does not apologize.
He is boasting.
He is proud of what he did in connection with the Indonesian invasion of East Timor,
But in this film about the life and career of Moynihan, the Indonesian invasion of East Timor is never mentioned.
Moynihan’s time as US ambassador to the UN is not ignored in the film. It is covered. It is included. But the directors decided to focus on something else.
They show us Moynihan’s vigorous defense of Israel when the Soviet Union was running a campaign to say that Zionism is the same as racism.
More than thirty persons who knew Moynihan well and worked closely with him are interviewed.
I am sure they all know the truth about the Indonesian invasion of East Timor and the truth about the role which Moynihan played in connection with this episode.
But not one of them mention it. If they did, the directors made sure that this part of the interview was not included in the film.
Let us assume a director wants to do a biography of Richard Nixon.
The director covers the life and career of Nixon in great detail, but he decides to exclude one detail (Watergate), because he does not want to place Nixon in a negative light.
What is the result? Do we have an honest account of Nixon’s life and career?
Hardly.
Let us assume a director wants to do a biography of Ronald Reagan.
The director covers the life and career of Reagan in great detail, but he decides to exclude one detail (the Iran Contra affair), because he does not want to place Reagan in a negative light.
What is the result? Do we have an honest account of Reagan’s life and career?
Hardly.
In this this film, two directors want to do a biography of Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
They cover the life and career of Moynihan in great detail, but they decide to exclude one detail (the Indonesian invasion of East Timor), because they do not want to place Moynihan in a negative light.
What is the result? Do we have an honest account of Moynihan’s life and career?
Hardly.
Why did the directors decide to exclude the invasion of East Timor from their film? Why was it so important for them to keep this episode out of the film?
The answer is obvious:
What Moynihan did in connection with the Indonesian invasion of East Timor is the total negation of everything he stands for.
What Moynihan did in connection with the invasion of East Timor is the total negation of the person he claimed to be or pretended to be.
The two directors decided that the role which Moynihan played in connection with the Indonesian invasion of East Timor should not be mentioned in the film.
What does this tell us about them?
The deliberate omission of this significant detail reveals that they are not honest reporters.
As stated above, this film has some good ratings.
Why?
Because the reviewers are not aware that the directors committed a serious sin when they compiled the evidence about the main character.
Not a single review mentions the fact that the directors made sure that the Indonesian invasion of East Timor is never mentioned in the film.
This deceitful manipulation of the historical evidence is not noticed in any review I have seen.
This film is neither great nor good.
It is not even average.
It is fatally flawed.
** Great means five stars = 100 percent
** Good means four stars = 80 percent
** Average means three stars = 60 percent
** Fatally flawed means two stars = 40 percent
This film cannot get more than two stars.
It deserves a rating of 40 percent.
REFERENCES
# 1. Regarding Daniel Patrick Moynihan
A Dangerous Place
By Daniel Patrick Moynihan
(1978)
The Gentleman from New York:
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
By Godfrey Hodgson
(2000)
Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters
Edited by Steven Weisman
(2010)
The Professor and the President:
Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House
By Steven Hess
(2014)
# 2. Regarding East Timor and Indonesia
East Timor:
The Price of Freedom
By John G. Taylor
(1999)
East Timor:
Genocide in Paradise
By Matthew Jardine
With an introduction by Noam Chomsky
(2002)
“If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die”
How Genocide Was stopped in East Timor
By Geoffrey B. Robinson
(2009 = hardcover)
(2011 = paperback)
*****
Moynihan
A documentary film
Produced and directed by
Joseph Dorman and Toby Perl Freilich
This is the original poster from 2018
*****
No comments:
Post a Comment