Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, it gives Pentagon Papers. In 2017, the director brings together these two sacred cinema monsters for the first time for his new film. He attacks one of the biggest scandals in the American army that two American journalists unveiled. He pays tribute to them in this plea in favor of press freedom. Pentagon Papers is broadcast this Sunday, May 4, 2025 on Arte at 9:05 p.m.
A lie at the top of the state
In his political thriller, Steven Spielberg tells how journalists Ben Bradlee and Katharine Graham got their hands on the famous “Pentagon Papers”. This file brought together 7,000 pages of edifying reports on the role of the United States during the Vietnam War between 1955 and 1971. Over the mandates of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, the documents revealed that the American administration lied on the so-called army success in Vietnam and the number of deaths. The goal is to continue the war on the spot without worrying its public opinion.
These top-secret documents were first published in the New York Times In 1971, thanks to the analyst and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. However, President Nixon managed to ban their publication after the first three articles. It was then that Ben Bagdikian, a journalist of the Washington Post. With its editor -in -chief, Ben Bradlee, he has traveled and analyzed each document that was grouped out of order, a government tactic. Despite their discoveries, the newspaper’s legal service opposed the publication of the investigation. Katharine Graham, director of Post And one of the first heads of a press group, then authorized the publication, even if it means bringing the future of the newspaper into play. After the publication of investigating it, the American Court of Justice finally rejected the applications for the injunction against the Washington Post And the charges against Daniel Ellsberg were abandoned.
LA 5E COLLABORATION Tom Hanks it Steven Spielberg
Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks embody the two protagonists of Pentagon Papersrespectively Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee. This is only the second time that the actress has worked with Steven Spielberg. Their first film was AI Artificial Intelligence In 2001, in which she lent her voice to the blue fairy.
As for Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, they are in their fifth collaboration on date. They found themselves for the first time together on a set in 1998 for the tragic You have to save soldier Ryanthen in Stop me if you can (2002) in which he shared the poster with a young Leonardo DiCaprio, and Le terminal (2004). It will then be necessary to wait until the duo was working together again in The spy bridgea few years before Pentagon Papers.
