Cinema Club

Events

The Camera Cinema Club events are the most unique cinematic experiences offered in the Bay Area. Special guests and celebrities who have talked with audiences about their films include actors John Malkovich and Peter Mullan, and a host of independent filmmakers who have gone on to celebrated careers. One of the all-time highlights for members was when Jessica Yu, Academy Award®-winning director of "Breathing Lessons: The Life And Works of Mark O'Brien", passed her Oscar around the audience during the Club's inaugural 1997-98 season.

For an overview of Club events from its inaugural season to the present, check out our CLUB HISTORY

Club Screens Oscar Nominated Doc 'The Most Dangerous Man in America'

On Sunday, February 14 the Camera Cinema Club screened the Academy Award nominated (Best Documentary Feature 2009) THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS (http://www.mostdangerousman.org/). In attendance was the film's co-writer, producer and director Judith Ehrlich.

THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS opens this Friday, February 19 in the Bay Area with a one-week exclusive run at the Camera 12 Cinemas in downtown San Jose.

The Woody Harrelson You Tube video Judith made mention of in her Q&As: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G1SaatIp0w&feature=PlayList&p=38A2BF1463001111&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=88

See you all on March 14!

Cheers,

Tim
Director Camera Cinema Club
The Place To Talk Film

THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: A-

In a key segment of this gut-punching, superbly edited documentary, we hear that Daniel Ellsberg's defense team made sure that few if any middle-aged people would serve on the jury to hear government charges against the man. The reason? Many, probably most of these folks had probably ignored the call of principles in order to advance their careers. Ellsberg was not of this sort. He gave up career and friends, although not family, by blowing the whistle on a whole set of lies that successive presidential administrations had been telling the people. (The government lies? What a surprise!)

Stop people on the street and ask them this: Suppose you found out that a high government official, trusted by officials as high as the President and given security clearance, stole top secret documents from a confidential file. He then sent those documents to the press, particularly the country's most influential newspaper, the New York Times, papers that he would never have had access to had he not be given security clearance. What would you think of the fellow? Doubtless the majority of people on the street would tell you that such a guy is a traitor, a deceiver, a snake, someone who took advantage of his privileged position to trash the very administration that appointed him.

Hmmm. One wonders whether those who see this documentary would agree that Daniel Ellsberg should have been jailed for a long time, particularly since the high-level papers he released affected not only his own country but an enemy nation with which the U.S. was involved in a major war. After seeing "The Most Dangerous Man in America," I'm inclined to be not so sanguine about making Ellsberg a hero: I wonder if that's your view as well. Please get back to me on the forum with your commentary.

The story is this. Ellsberg, who had military credentials as a former first lieutenant in the U.S. Marines where he spent the happiest years of his life, was a brilliant man, a Ph.D. who had a position in the U.S. administration as a war planner. While presidents from Eisenhower to Kennedy, from Johnson to Nixon, repeatedly told the American people that the Vietnam War was, first, one for which U.S. involvement would be limited to an advisory capacity. Later Presidents Johnson and Nixon lied about the illegal bombing of Cambodia and Laos and covered up the atrocities being committed by our own side (of course the other side was at least as guilty, but we're supposed to be above that sort of thing.)

Let me cite a parallel, imaginative situation. Let's say you are ardently pro-Israel, a high official of that country's government with access to confidential documents. You discover a paper indicating that the Prime Minister and his cabinet have no intention whatever of giving Palestinians an independent state ever, though the government repeatedly blames the other side for the lack of progress. Would you be a hero or a traitor for turning a shekel?

Hey! It's to the enormous credit of this film that such questions can be evoked in the audience!

So when you watch this picture, think of that overriding question. Meanwhile Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith, who direct this wonderful doc, make clear their view that Ellsberg is a hero, though Henry Kissinger dubbed him "the most dangerous man in America." During the early seventies while the Vietnam was hot and heavy with over half a million American soldiers in that godforsaken country, Ellsberg stole secret documents that indicated a cover-up of atrocities with wildly overoptimistic statements about American progress. He Xeroxed 7000 pages-and remember that Xerography was in an infant stage in the early seventies-delivered the docs to the NYTimes which printed the report until the newspaper was enjoined by the court. The papers were delivered to one paper after another, one step ahead of injunctions, until the whole country knew that the war was lost. Nixon, who compulsively and self-destructively taped all his conversations in the oval office, let loose with obscenities about both Dr. Ellsberg and the New York Times-and Vietnam as well-all this information leading to humorous segments of the film.

In addition to the talking heads that include his wife Patricia and son Robert, journalist Tom Oliphant, historian Howard Zinn, Washington bureau chief for the NY Times Max Frankel and Republic Congressman Pete McCloskey, considerable time is spent on archival films, including graphic detail on the saturation bombing of that small country, the atrocities on the ground, a few funny animations when archival work was not available. We're told in the epilogue that two million Vietnamese and fifty-eight thousand Americans were killed in this unnecessary war.

So why is this film, seemingly dated with facts know by everyone middle-aged and above, shown now? Obvious parallels with the Iraq War exist. 'nuff said. Good show.

Unrated. 93 minutes. © 2010 by Harvey Karten Member: New York Film Critics Online

The Camera Cinema Club screened the Academy Award nominated (Best Documentary Feature 2009) The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, profiling the high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, who in 1971 leaked 7,000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times, making headlines around the world. In attendance was the film's co-writer, producer and director Judith Ehrlich.

The Camera Cinema Club screened The September Issue, an intimate, funny and surprising behind-the-scenes look into the world of fashion, and "Vogue's" legendary editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and her team of larger-than-life editors, as they create the September issue of "Vogue"--the must-have Bible of fashion. Director RJ Cutler discussed the film and took questions from the audience at both screenings.

The Camera Cinema Club screened Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, exploring the famed filmmaker's theatrical work in the days before he changed movies forever with "Citizen Kane." "High School Musical" star Zack Efron portrays a young New York actor who is offered a role in Welles's soon-to-be-legendary 1937 Mercury Theater production of "Julius Caesar". In attendance was Bay Area film critic ("Box Office Magazine"; San Francisco Chronicle) Pam Grady.

The Camera Cinema Club inaugurated its 14th Season with two screenings of The Messenger, a drama about two Iraq war veterans (Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson), united by the task of informing next of kin that their loved ones have been killed in action. Following the screenings members were treated to a brief interview/greeting from writer/director Oren Moverman and actor Woody Harrelson, followed by a lively discussion.