Wonderful documentary film on journalist Simmour Hersh

November 13, 1969, the presses rolled in Chicago Sun Times With an explosive story on the front pages: “An officer accused of killing 109 in Viet.”

The shocking incident that was discovered in the report will be known as the Lai massacre, where the American army soldiers, led by Lieutenant William Kali Junior, were slaughtered hundreds of innocent Vietnamese men, women, children and infants at the height of the Vietnam War. Secondary line on the story: Seymour Hersh.

The documentary installation CoveringLaura Betteas and Mark Obinhaus, Oscar winner, directed by Oscar, explores the exceptional profession of Hersach, which has been widely recognized as one of the greatest verbal journalists in American history (perhaps by those whom he revealed). It was first shown at the Venice Film Festival today and will hold the first show in the United States in Tylaorid this weekend, followed by a berth in TIFF.

The film dominates attention from the opening frames – likable archive clips of a man wearing a gas mask pushing a pickup truck on a road bordered by white cylindrical storage containers. We know that this is the Dugway that has proven in Utah, where the US military secretly tested chemical and biological weapons. An unintended launch of nerve gas was killed in March 1968 6000 lambs and harmed countless people. The correspondent that broke the story: Seymour Hersh.

The 88 -year -old journalist publishes exhibitions for more than six decades – in Vietnam, the Abu Ghraib scandal during the Iraq war, on American companies, the CIA spying on American citizens, in Watergate. He is used to obtaining sources to reveal the secrets, but it offers a great frequency in sharing a lot about himself or his methods.

“You love talking about the sources,” Hirsch tells his interlocutors Betteas and Obenhaus. “I love no To talk about the sources. What you want to do, I know, but I will not go there. ”

Hirsch may not want to go there, but managers are still succeeding in formulating an insightful image of a man who sometimes reveals himself about what he will not say. There are multiple scenes of it as a younger man who walks lightly in the streets of the city, a bag preserved under the arm – targeted, directed, does not flounder or take the atmosphere around him. He got rational from a dog hunting truffles while inhaling a buried mushroom; Once on the smell, it will not give up. The film provides great visions on how Hirsch got the story of My Lai Massacre – a result at the beginning of a phone advice, then followed by the acquaintance he was planting in the Pentagon. A major break came when he had an interview with a lawyer for Kali, who left a shipping paper that defines the alleged lieutenant crimes on an office as the two occur. The document was upside down from the Hirsch perspective across the office, but he pretended to write down the notes about what the lawyer says while copying every word he could read from the printed page.

Wisely, film makers do not leave the Hirsch-Lay Lay’s story-and he praises him to stand and then move. Instead, they explore “why” the story – why does Kali (alleged) orders his forces to kill hundreds of civilians who are isolated? At the beginning of the film department dedicated to Vietnam, Poitras and Obenhaus include notes by President Johnson at the time, who assured the journalists, “We are making progress. We are happy with the results we get [in Vietnam]. We scatter more losses than we take. “

This misleading thinking is tragicly imposed on the ground forces to kill the largest possible number of Vietnamese, whether they are fighters or otherwise. “The entire army ran on the number of bodies.” This hideous incentive sparked Lay and other heinous attacks.

Obenhaus cooperated with Hirsch in three previous investigation documentary films. Betteas, we learn, first try to persuade Hirsch to participate in a documentary 20 years ago. It is safe to say that they like and respect his work, yet the relationship between managers and their subject, fortunately, does not explode like Chummy. Just like Hirsch in his rhythm, they want to get the story, and part of those that involve looking at his correspondent notebooks and also ask him about his personal life.

Hirsch grows uncomfortable in an increased way of scrutiny, especially from his yellow and tense concepts (which he admits to agree to be delivered to Poitras and Obenhaus). Looking at one page of the notes they made to him, he shouted, saying: “What does the curse do there!” He is concerned about maintaining his identity not revealing his sources: “The status of their name there will be a killer,” and he declares (although there is no indication that directors are planning to reveal the identities of its sources recklessly).

Finally, he pledges, “I would like to leave” – ​​this means that he wants to give up the documentary. (For those who saw the documentary Tbul Way himselfThe friction between the protagonist Paul Robbins and director Matt Wolf, who fought each other over creative control of this movie, will remember.

Hirsch cools at the end and sits again for more questions. He even shares some details about himself (while it is clear that he does not enjoy the process), and speaks shortly and affection for his wife Elizabeth Stein; They got married 61 years ago. It is a psychological analysis, as noted – interesting given what he says earlier in the film about their unwillingness to psychoanalysis.

Hirsch, of course, has his critics. His book in 1997 was subjected to Kennedy’s presidency of the attack. The film was subjected to a smuggler on Hersh’s reputation – when he is close to publishing the details of the alleged messages between JFK and his lover Marilyn Monroe, letters that have proven to be forgery.

The film also pays some attention to Hirsch’s relationship with Syrian President Bashar al -Assad, the dictator who toppled him last December. The journalist conducted an interview with Assad several times, including at least once in Damascus in the early first decade of the twentieth century, and wrote stories that filmed Assad somewhat positively. In the movie, Hersh admits that he is thinking that Assad will never invade his people. “Let’s call this error,” as the directors told. “Let’s call this very wrong.”

Poitras and Obenhaus are searching for his reliance on unknown sources for some of his reports, and his answer is not complete. However, I called Hirsch an incredible service to American democracy and the American fans – an assessment that I doubt that filmmakers will get rid of him.

In fact, the film includes the voice of President Nixon its residents about Hersh in talks with his national security adviser Henry Kissinger. In one of the tapes of the White House, Nixon Grosss, “The son of the prostitute is the son of the prostitute. But he is usually right, right?”

address: Covering
festival: Venice (outside the competition)
Production companies: Praxis movies, Project Mockingbird, Plan B.

Sales agent: MK2 movies
Managers: Laura Bites, Mark Obinhaus
Running time: 117 minutes.