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Hearts and Minds: Visual Images and Political Problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2020

Sidney Wise
Sidney Wise*
Affiliation:
Franklin and Marshall College
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Extract

It's an evening network news show. The camera zooms in on Ted Kennedy speaking to an enthusiastic crowd in San Diego, while the voiceover sonorously ends a brief report with, “Can the Senator get the voters to forget about Chappaquidick?” It is a 30-second news item. Question: have we just seen a piece of nonfiction film or a mini-documentary? The Kennedy staffers will be outraged; others will insist that the coverage merely told it like it is. Yet those same staffers will be pleased several months later when the networks cover the Senator's speech to the Democratic convention by showing wildly cheering partisans, while the cameras pass over the many delegates who are either sitting on their hands or just chatting with each other. Others will claim that the coverage of the speech was visually distorted. They may all be right, but they may not be

Type
Research Article
Information
News for Teachers of Political Science , Volume 35 , Fall 1982 , pp. 4 - 5
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1982

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References

1 “Hearts and Minds” may be rented from Audio Brandon Films, 34 MacQuesten Parkway So., Mount Vernon, N.Y. 10550. While the catalog price is $250, a generous discount is available for a classroom showing. The running time is 112 min.

The Education Newsletter (Volume 5, No. 2, November-December, 1981 of the American. Film Institute includes a model syllabus on “Television Documentary in the United States” by Professor L, Paul, Del College. It includes an excellent bibliography. A copy may be obtained by writing to Education Services, A.F.I., J.F. Kennedy Center, Washington, DC. 20566.Google Scholar

2 For a more detailed description of this controversy, see Shawcross, William, “The Battle Over a Vietnam Film,” The Washington'Post, January 26, 1975, p. B1.Google Scholar Shawcross was, of coutse, sympathetic to the-film and quotes Davis approvingly to the effect that he was not unfair to Rostow because One of the objectives of the film was to show the attitudes of public officials.

3 The New Republic, March 15, 1975, p. 22.

4 Film Quarterly, Winter, 1974, p.63.