jmm@bonnie.UUCP (Joe Mcghee) (10/02/84)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Within the past couple of weeks two "made-for-television" films about the Nicaraguan Revolution have appeared. The films show two starkly contrasting views of the revolution. The first, "Last Plane Out", portrays Anastasio Samoza as a pro-American good guy who is just trying to save his country by rounding up and shooting every Sandinista he can find. While jogging with an American reporter, he says something like: "If I just could have shot more of them in the beginning, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now." The film portrays the Sandinistas as cynical murderers and it ends with a doomsday atmosphere of gloom when the last American news reporter leaves. This film doesn't even attempt to deal with the event which must be regarded as the coup de grace to the Samoza regime, the murdering of a well known American news reporter by the Nicaraguan National Guard. The second film, "Under Fire", portrays the Sandinistas in a more sympathetic light and seems to have captured more realism throughout the entire story. It shows the Sandinistas frequently as young teenagers or younger children in arms which is the way they often appeared in actual news photographs during the revolution. The murder of the American reporter is depicted in this film, but in an annoying way they have altered some of the minor details of the incident for no apparently good reason. The photographer who films the murder is depicted as using a still camera with which he records the events in a rapid sequence of still photos. In the actual event the photographer used a video camera to record the event on video tape. This may seem like a minor point, but in my book any altering of the actual facts which is not unavoidable harms the credibility of those who are telling the story. On the whole I rate "Under Fire" as being the much more believable version. Both films should be seen by everyone as an lesson in the use of the media for the purpose of selling a particular political viewpoint (read propaganda) to the American public. From the notebook of Winston Smith Ministry of Truth Airstrip One (in real life J. M. McGhee, bonnie!jmm)