hozymary

8/10

The movie is a glimpse of what the American people saw in 1954: the Army–McCarthy hearings, which would mark the decline of McCarthy as one of the most vociferous anti-communist voices in the Senate, was broadcast to the entire nation for more than 2 months. The central figure is McCarthy, who was charged with pressuring the Army for preferential treatment of Schine, an acquaintance of him and Cohn. On the Army side, it is clear that the person to pit against McCarthy is their legal representative, Joseph Welch. Both stand their grounds in the beginning, but as the movie goes on, McCarthy slowly gravitates from defending himself against the charges to accusing the members of the counsel of subversion when it fits him, while Welch firmly questions and dismantles the lies of the senator from Wisconsin. The quarrels are filled to the brim with adulterated evidence, fabricated document, baseless accusations, and caustic remarks. Throughout the movie, the tone of these two characters makes for a remarkable indicator of the strength of their arguments. As McCarthy's voice sinks lower and lower together with his pretense, Welch cannot help but raise his voice little by little, finally culminating in a sour lament that has echoed far beyond Capitol Hill. In the end, McCarthy becomes the boy who cried wolf. It is quite unusual to see a movie completely made from the footage of televised congressional hearings, and it is just as unusual for a movie to manage to turn the 188 hours of kinescopes as source material into a riveting, entertaining, and cohesive story with no stylistic change or editorialization whatsoever. A pleasure to watch.