Joyless films and liberal politics in the Hamptons
Harry Stein 9 October 2015
The film that opens this weekend’s Hamptons International Film Festival is Truth—based on former 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes’s memoir on the scandal that cost her and Dan Rather their jobs at CBS. As will be evident to anyone with even a passing familiarity with “Rathergate,” the story is falsified history at its most audacious. Far from the fearless, crusading journalist presented in the book and film, Mapes was a liberal partisan who had long been out to nail President George W. Bush, even if it took phony documents to do so. As Powerline’s John Hinderaker and Scott Johnson observe, “Mapes was fired for appalling professional misconduct, which disgraced her colleagues (including Rather) and the company for which she worked.” Think what Mary McCarthy said about Lillian Hellman, another self-aggrandizing leftist fantasist: “Every word she writes is a lie,
including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”
No matter. Since the audience that will pack the film’s three sold-out East Hamptons showings is the left/liberal elite in microcosm, Truth will generate only enthusiasm and praise. Ever wonder about that diminishing percentage of people who still believe Hillary on the e-mails and answer “yes” when asked the “honest and trustworthy” question? Same people.
Yet in its fundamental worldview, Truth isn’t all that different from a great many of the other 133 films on offer at the festival. Whether features or documentaries, products of Hollywood studios or foreign independents, they reflect a smugly confident left-of-center sensibility.
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