WaPo Critic Hits ‘The Conspirator’ for Politically Distorting History, Then Turns Around to Smear Near-’Secessionist’ Tea Party
Robert Redford's “The Conspirator” is a thinly-veiled political allegory warning against the danger of trying terrorists in military tribunals. And that's why his movie about the military trial of Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Surratt is problematic. That's not me talking, that's Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday in her April 15 movie review: Although historians, including Surratt biographer Kate Clifford Larson, agree that Surratt was almost certainly guilty of conspiracy, Redford needs to court ambiguity in order for viewers to buy in to her plight, so rather than the keeper of “the nest that hatched the egg” of the would-be coup, he portrays her as a martyred mother, going to her grave rather than betray her likely culpable son (who was cooling his heels in Canada while his mother was tried and hanged).
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on April 15, 2011. Filed under