DAVID BOAZ WONDERS what happened to the anti-communist movies.
Well, there’s always Total Eclipse:
Total Eclipse is rated PG-13 for violence, particularly graphic in some of the mass murder scenes, images of starving infants from Stalin’s 1932 forced famine in the Ukraine, and the torture of dissidents. Director Steven Spielberg (Schindler’s List) deftly cuts from the Moscow trials to the torture chambers of the Lubyanka. More controversial are the portrayals of American communists during the period of the Pact. They are shown here picketing the White House, calling President Roosevelt a warmonger, and demanding that America stay out of the “capitalist war” in Europe. Harvey Keitel turns in a powerful performance as American Communist boss Earl Browder, and Linda Hunt brings depth to Lillian Hellman, who, when Hitler attacks the USSR in September of 1939, actually did cry out, “The motherland has been invaded.”
Painstakingly accurate and filled with historical surprises, this film is so refreshing, so remarkable, that even at 162 minutes it seems too short.
There’s only one problem.