Fighting for Freedom of Speech: DATELINE-SAIGON

By Olga Nazarenko

“But I mean, they’re impossible, aren't they?” asks John. F Kennedy inquisitively about the press reporting news from the war in Vietnam

.“Terribly difficult. Halberstam and Sheehan are the ones that are just causing a lot of trouble. They’re allowing an idealistic philosophy to color all their writing,” Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara replies to the 35th President of the United States haughtily.

This conversation from October 1963, captured in a declassified White House tape recently released to the JFK Library, is incorporated into the documentary film DATELINE-SAIGON. It illustrates the hardships that reporters faced to honestly depict the truth of what was happening during the Vietnam War, even when the government opposed it.

The film DATELINE-SAIGON, produced and directed by Thomas Herman, chronicles the stories of five young Pulitzer-Prize winning journalists who challenged the status quo in media and went against the grain —and government, by honestly reporting the war in Vietnam. The five men represented in the film include David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, Malcolm Browne, Peter Arnett, and Horst Faas.

David Halberstam was a 29-year-old reporter covering stories on the civil rights struggle in Mississippi when the New York Times offered him the job as Saigon correspondent. As a man who desired a ticket to history by being in the center of action, he jumped on the opportunity. Neil Sheehan, who was in his mid-20s, was the youngest of the five journalists featured in the film DATELINE-SAIGON. He was sent to Saigon within weeks of joining United Press International. Although originally planning to be a chemist, Malcolm Browne switched careers to journalism after being assigned to write articles while serving in the U.S. Army in Korea. At the age of 30 he was recruited to join the Saigon Associated Press office from Baltimore, where he had been working as a desk reporter. Originally from New Zealand, Peter Arnett worked in Southeast Asia as a freelance journalist before being hired at the age of 28 by Associated Press in Saigon. In 1962 when the United States began to intensify their involvement in the war, Berlin born photographer Horst Faas joined the Associated Press's Saigon team as chief photographer. DATELINE-SAIGON vividly narrates the passion and dedication that fueled these five journalists to endanger their lives to report the facts during the early years of the Vietnam War.

At the beginning of the war, many questioned America's involvement in the land of elephants and tigers, Vietnam. The premise of the war depended on the domino theory: if South Vietnam fell to communism, the entire region of Southeast Asia would be sure to follow. Then America would have no option but to fight communism closer to home, on American land in Hawaii or California. At the beginning of the war, a black and white mentality cornered John F. Kennedy into denying a United States involvement in combat in Vietnam. However, the journalists could see that this was clearly not the case. They reported the truth, often choosing to follow American generals and troops straight into the gunfire-filled rice paddies of Saigon to get the full scoop on the story.

The five journalists confronted dangers unflinchingly and were subjected to such terrors as threats of being fired, a ban on correspondence initiated by government officials, censorship and oppression by the United States government, beatings by the Saigon government's secret police, and even near death experiences at sites of warfare.

“David Halberstam’s running the most political campaign. Every sentence there is an effort that causes us to do something,” exasperates John F. Kennedy in a declassified audio excerpt from August 1963.

Assistant Secretary of State, Roger Hilsman, zealously replies in the taped conversation, “Halberstam is the one correspondent that is in, that fears for his own personal safety, as well he might.”

Halberstam, Sheehan, Browne, Arnett, and Faas stuck to their convictions and were ready to die to report the truth. Their legacy and contributions to American history continue to live on as present-day journalists, news reporters, radio and television correspondents, and historians pick up where they left off in the fight for freedom of speech.

Thomas Herman on the making ofDATELINE-SAIGON:

Thomas D. Herman is a Boston-based filmmaker, as well as a practicing lawyer. According to Herman, he practices law to fund his bad habits (making films). Herman was the Co-Producer of the Emmy-award winning feature film Life From Baghdad starring Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham-Carter. Herman spent twelve years researching, documenting, filming, interviewing, and bonding with over 50 reporters, photojournalists, radio and television correspondents, historians, and government officials to create the film DATELINE-SAIGON Herman speaks with Salem Film Fest's Olga Nazarenko about the making of DATELINE-SAIGON.ON: What sparked your interest in creating DATELINE-SAIGON?

TH: I first became aware of the controversy surrounding reporters in the Vietnam War after reading David Halberstam's groundbreaking book, The Best and the Brightest. Some reporters take it as the bible; they ask themselves "What Would Halberstam Do"? In 2000, I was a CNN field producer in Vietnam covering a story on the anniversary of the end of the war. I met a number of journalists that had covered the war and listened to their compelling stories. I set out to interview as many reporters, radio correspondences, and historians as possible. Captivating stories from the most important chapters in American history emerged, this one included.

ON: What was your biggest challenge while making DATELINE-SAIGON?

TH: This film took more than ten years to make. We had to stop periodically to make more money for the film, and finding time to make the film was difficult, since I had a day job. Another major challenge was maintaining a rigorous focus on the story of these five men, which was challenging because there had been so many courageous men and women sacrificing their safety and their lives to report on the Vietnam War. It was difficult not to veer off and create side stories. I had a very disciplined Editor.

ON: How did you become interested in historical documentary films?

TH: Before studying law, I spent three years in graduate school for history. I love history and story telling. I'm a lover of character-driven films. This film, DATELINE-SAIGON, is not a history channel film. It's dynamic. It's based on those five characters and their crises of conscience during the Vietnam War. Throughout the film, the five reporters progress and dynamically change as the war progresses and these five men make a direct impact on the war itself.

ON: DATELINE-SAIGON elucidates the themes of censorship and freedom of speech through the lens of five journalists in the Vietnam War era. How do you think the challenges that the protagonists faced during the war parallel the obstacles in freedom of speech that today's journalists, as well as the general public, face in our current political climate?

TH: All of us in our lives feel some pressure to adhere to the opinions and conclusions of others, whether it be family, friends, or teachers. It’s essential to stand up for what we believe in. That is a lesson that resonates throughout this film.

The story of these young men was largely unknown. These journalists arrived in Vietnam as inexperienced, patriotic, children of the Cold War with expectations that they would be writing positive, favorable reports on the American involvement in the war. Once the five journalists saw that what was really happening in Vietnam was at odds with what the government was conveying to the American public, they stuck to their beliefs and reported critically.

At the end of the day, these men were proven to be right; however, it was a number of years before people realized these journalists were documenting the truth and they faced extensive criticism up to that point.

Following the government’s backlash at honest reporting during the Vietnam era, there are barriers to obtaining information in the present day. At one time reporters could go anywhere they wanted to. There was little censorship. Conflicts between the government and media involvement following the Vietnam War resulted in reporters being cut off. One of the biggest challenges that journalists face today is the government silencing reporters and even discrediting reporters.

Press freedom is not a given right. It is a continuous struggle. Freedoms are precious. The truth is not just a point of view. It does not adhere to those that are the most powerful or those shouting the loudest. When creating this film, I felt a responsibility to all five journalists to tell the story as truthfully as I could. These men risked their lives to report the facts so I do feel a responsibility to gather all of the evidence. This has guided me through the entire filmmaking process.

DATELINE-SAIGON screens Monday, March 6th at 8PM at CinemaSalem. 

WRESTLING ALLIGATORS: More from director Andrew Shea

Now that WRESTLING ALLIGATORS has screened, here is the rest of of my conversation with Andrew Shea, as promised. Here he discusses an upcoming project, a recent development in the Seminole tribe's efforts to reach an agreement with the state of Florida, as well as the origin of the film's excellent title. Enjoy!

KCS: I noticed that you are working on a documentary called BUZZED?

AS: Yes, that’s my newest project. It’s also a documentary. That film is about the writer and journalist Buzz Bissinger who’s my oldest friend—we grew up in New York City together. The film is about me trying to understand all the changes in his life. Because he’s become a well-known writer—he’s just finishing a year that he’s spent with Caitlin Jenner because he’s collaborating with Jenner on her new memoir. So the film is about my friendship with Buzz but also about Buzz’s professional relationship with Jenner. It’s a pretty interesting story.

KCS: That does sound interesting. Maybe a good segue—I recently read on the news that Donald Trump has reversed President Obama’s mandate allowing transgender students to use the bathrooms of the gender they identify with. Can you talk a little bit about how documentaries might become even more important in this unique political climate?

AS: Sure I guess I can. I mean, I don’t teach documentary. You know, I actually came here to teach narrative filmmaking. So I’m actually working with actors. I teach an acting for filmmaking class, so in a funny way, my work on documentaries has been a little bit of a tangent in relationship to what I teach, so I don't talk about documentary that much even though I’m making them.

KCS: Right, right.

AS: I do think documentarians, some of us at least, are working, loosely speaking, or sometimes not so loosely, as journalists as well, and I do think this is a critical time for journalists, I think for obvious reasons. Obviously a lot of journalists and media outlets are under attack at the moment, and I do think it’s an important time for journalists to continue to tell the truth and to tell difficult complex stories. And I think documentary filmmakers fit into that group. But not all documentary filmmakers. Some of us are making personal stories that really don’t touch on the broader political scene. But a lot of documentary film does intersect with journalism. And in that respect I do think it’s a pivotal time for documentary.

KCS: I think WRESTLING ALLIGATORS does fall into that category.

AS: Oh, yeah. Definitely.

KCS: Can you talk a little bit about how you became interested in that subject and how you got started on that film?

AS: Sure. This project I was actually brought into—it wasn’t my idea. I was hired to direct it by the producers in Los Angeles, Udy Epstien and James Eowan. They had the idea to make this film. Udy in particular was working with David Cordish who had had a relationship with the Seminole tribe of Florida and had developed the Hard Rock Hotels in Tampa and Hollywood, Florida. He and Udy had a series of conversations with James Billie, the former Chairman of the Seminole Tribes of Florida about a film.

I think their initial discussions were actually about a fiction film. But eventually they decided on the documentary approach. When I was brought into it the first thing I did was go down to Florida to meet with the Chairman, and it was immediately clear that this was a very rich subject for a documentary film because he’s such an extraordinary person and political leader. and he’s such a lively larger-than-life character. We use that term loosely so often in film, but I think that Chairman Billie actually does fit that description of being larger-than-life with his background as an alligator wrestler and a musician and such an extraordinary political career. So many ups and downs. I don’t know if you know or not, but he was recently ousted from the tribe yet again. This happened about two, maybe three months ago.

KCS: I did actually read that he had been ousted again. I was curious to know how you think this will affect the tribe’s ability to finally come to an agreement with the state of Florida.

AS: You know, I just don’t know. The politics of these things are kept pretty private. So I’m not privy to what’s really happening internally with the tribe. Particularly since the film was finished I haven’t been in close contact. But I don’t really know the circumstances under which the Chairman was removed. I don’t know what the motivation was and what it had to do with the negotiations with the state. But I do know that since that happened that the tribe won a major victory in court, which puts them in the driver’s seat really, in terms of a new compact.

The tribe accused the state of violating the initial 2008 compact by allowing pari-mutuel facilities to have banked card games. The court in Florida agreed with the tribe, so the tribe was relieved of its obligation to continue paying the state and because the state had breached its obligations of the compact, the tribe can actually continue to offer these card games without reaching a new agreement with the state. Now, it’s in the tribe’s interest to maintain exclusivity, so the tribe wants to have a new agreement, but they’re really in the driver’s seat.

KCS: That’s a pretty significant development. You know, as I was watching the film the first time it really struck me how fantastic the title works as a metaphor for the relationship between the Seminole tribe and the state of Florida and even the federal government. As someone who writes, I find that title-making is sometimes very simple but it can also sometimes induce a little madness. How did you come up with it, or was it something you always had in mind?

AS: I wish I could take credit for it, but that was Udy’s idea. I do think it was a stroke of genius. I think it’s a very fitting title given the relationship between the tribe and the state as you say or between the tribe and the federal government. But also given James Billie’s personal relationship to the internal battles within the tribe, and given James’s history as an alligator wrestler. So it works on so many levels.

A big thanks again to Andrew for taking the time to chat with us about his film and his upcoming projects!

American Cinematographer announces Cinematography Award

Stephen Pizzello, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of American Cinematographer, has once again served as the jury for the American Cinematographer Award for Cinematography at Salem Film Fest.  Below is his statement regarding this year's nominees and the winner.

All of this year’s documentary contenders for Best Cinematography offer compelling visual interest and reflect excellent work by the projects’ directors of photography and additional camerapeople. Each of the entries is well-shot, with assured lighting, composition, close-ups, camera movement and continuity that enhance the storytelling objectives. Ultimately, the winner may have benefitted the most from the cinematographer’s format choice, which adds additional luster to the imagery.

Before announcing the winner, I’d like to comment on some of the qualities I admired in each of the entries.

In Death by a Thousand Cuts, cinematographer Juan Carlos Castañeda creates a strong sense of place in a true-life drama about the brutal murder of a Dominican park ranger, which stokes the already tense relationship between residents of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The camera provides emotionally charged perspectives from the key people involved in the dispute, as well as evocative glimpses of life on both sides of the island.

I Am the Blues, shot by John Price, also makes the most of its locations, taking viewers on a tour of Mississippi’s Chitlin Circuit, where aged but still charismatic blues musicians show off their homegrown skills while sharing lively and poignant memories. The film’s landscapes and the close-up portraiture of the musicians’ faces are equally evocative, reflecting hardscrabble lives that produced authentic, hard-earned artistry.

Winter at Westbeth, directed and shot by Rohan Spong (with additional cinematography by Duncan Hewitt and Bart Mastronardi), offers a moving, life-affirming visit with the elderly residents of an artists’ community in New York’s West Village. Spong’s observant eye and cinematic aesthetics lend the images a poetic realism; his unconventional style of coverage and creative compositions capture the subjects’ vibrant personalities and effectively convey the inner spark that drives their artistic ambitions.

The Happy Film uses a whimsical mixture of techniques — including stick puppetry, high-speed photography and stop motion —while following its protagonist, Austrian designer Stefan Sagmeier, through a three-stage “life experiment” to see if meditation, therapy or drugs can help make him a happier person. Director of photography Ben Wolf, Sagmeier and additional cinematographers Julia Dengel and Ben Nabors lend the journey a playful but also melancholic tone that makes Sagmeier’s very personal experiences both engaging and entertaining.

Ultimately, however, I was most impressed by the cinematography in God Knows Where I Am. Shot by Gerardo Puglia, this haunting doc blends film (16mm, Super 16 and 35mm) with digital formats (captured with the Arri Alexa camera and Canon’s C300) in a way that produces very rich, almost painterly images. Beautiful landscapes blend with shots that roam through an abandoned New Hampshire farmhouse where a mentally ill woman found shelter before tragically starving to death — a downward spiral she faithfully recorded in her diary. These daily reflections on her dire situation are presented in voiceover, but the imagery creates an eerie embodiment of the subject’s lonely final days. Puglia’s atmospheric use of natural light lends interior compositions the quality of still-life canvases that would not look out of place on museum walls, and the visuals place the viewer in the dead woman’s mindset while also approximating her POV. God Knows Where I Am meets the considerable challenge of showing a story driven by an absent protagonist while also encouraging the viewer to feel the pain of her plight; it’s a triumph of visual narrative that engenders enormous empathy, and a very worthy winner of this year’s prize.

Stephen Pizzello
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher
American Cinematographer

Filmmaker Spotlight: A Conversation with Sara Taksler

One of this year’s most topical films, TICKLING GIANTS follows Bassem Youssef, often dubbed the Egyptian Jon Stewart, as he transitions from surgeon to full-time political satirist during the tumultuous Arab Spring. The Daily Show inspired Youssef, whose work was at turns legitimately dangerous and revolutionary in a way that Jon Stewart’s work, protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, was not. In the era of fake news and “alternative facts,” Youssef’s work may in turn become a roadmap for journalists in a time when legitimate journalism is being actively subverted and vilified. Director Sara Taksler took the time to chat with us about how she got into filmmaking and what filming in Egypt was like. 

KCS: Can you talk a bit about your background and how you got into television and film?

ST: I recently found an email from 2001, where I'm talking about what kind of job I'd like to find. I wrote that I wanted to figure out how to combine entertainment and social justice—so it's worked out pretty well. My first job was as a receptionist for Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, which used to follow The Daily Show. That was on for a couple seasons and then I freelanced for a little while. During that time, I started making a documentary with my friend Naomi Greenfield, called TWISTED: A Balloonamentary, about people whose lives change when they go to balloon twisting conventions. In 2005, a friend told me about an opening at The Daily Show. I applied and have been here ever since.

KCS: What shows/films were early influences for you?

ST: I've always loved comedy. As a kid I used to secretly stay up late and watch Evening at The Improv and Caroline's Comedy Hour. I'd watch re-runs of I Love Lucy, Laverne and Shirley and "What's Happening!!". My favorite show as a teenager was My So-Called Life. At a film festival, I once got to briefly meet Claire Danes and tell her how much I loved that show, which I'm sure totally changed her life. As far as movies, I loved Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Annie Hall, and Cinema Paradiso. The first documentary I remember watching was in a class at Washington University in St. Louis. We watched The War Room and I loved it!

KCS: What attracts you to a project? 

ST: When I'm working on a project, I know I will be talking about it every single day for years. So, it's hard to find something you're that interested in. I seem to really like social justice stories with a sense of humor.

KCS: You really get a feel from the film exactly how Youssef's show is produced. How different or similar is it to the Daily Show?

ST: Al Bernameg's office was based on the culture of The Daily Show --- open both in physical space and in the collaborative atmosphere of the office.

KCS: What was it like filming in Egypt? Was that your first experience filming in that kind of charged political climate?

ST: Filming was a challenge. On the one hand, I loved it. The people I met were open, kind and funny. In Bassem's office, everyone felt familiar and like the people I am friends with at home. But, filming in Egypt outside of the office was not easy. I am a white women and obviously not Egyptian. Some people were skeptical of my intentions and a few people thought I was a spy. We filmed most of our outdoor footage from a moving car, after one of our camera people was beaten up to get his footage.

KCS: Was he okay and did he continue to shoot with you? Were there measures other than filming from a moving car that you and your crew took to protect yourselves? 

ST: Thanks for asking. He was okay, but shaken up. We continued to work together. He was someone who only shot for us occasionally, and that continued. I followed the lead of the local crew, if they thought something was or was not safe.

KCS: The Trump administration appears to be subverting the integrity of legitimate journalism. Do you think the risk of danger to journalists is increasing here in our own country?

ST: Declaring the press your enemy can't be good for democracy.

At turns funny, tense, and thought-provoking, TICKLING GIANTS screens March 3, 8:10pm at PEM Morse Auditorium. 

Filmmaker Spotlight: Catching up with SFF Alum Maite Alberdi

Maite Alberdi's film TEA TIME was shown at SFF 2015, this year she returns with THE GROWN-UPS.  SFF program director Jeff Schmidt caught up with the Chilean based filmmaker to talk about her work as a documentary filmmaker.

JS: How did you first get into filmmaking?

MA: In film school, it was very weird to make documentaries, everybody wanted to make fiction films. Before entering the film academy, I studied art history, aesthetics and social media, so I have other interests, not only cinema. When I had to make films in school I felt a little trapped by reality, I think that all the stories that I created already existed in reality, the challenge was to find them.

JS: We were first introduced to you when we screened TEA TIME at SFF 2015.  Can you talk about filming that documentary and give us any updates on what has happened to your film subjects since we screened the film?

MA: TEA TIME had different challenges. The greatest challenge I faced in making TEA TIME was being constant and patient. For me, filming this documentary was an exercise in patience - waiting for things to happen in reality, without hurrying or pushing them, trusting that if one chose the places and situations well, they would provide what you needed. But the right time is more up to life than up to the director. I think it’s complex to impose a timeframe in the characters’ development. In this film I knew that I wanted to portray the last years of this ritual, but didn’t really know exactly how long it was going to take. We shot once a month, for five years in a row. Films have to tell stories and in real life stories don’t happen overnight. That’s the challenge of a documentary in general and of this film in particular. Living the reality of these characters, however long it may take to tell their story and have it move forward, have things happen - that is the journey.After the screenings of the film in different parts of the world, my greatest satisfaction was to realize that it worked everywhere, this film is something which started out as a personal attraction to my grandmother and her friends, was able to become a totally universal story that people could relate to anywhere in the world. I believe that cinema must have something that seems familiar. It must involve the individual and the universal. Unique characters or singular stories with universal emotions that touch us all. The characters in the film had all this beyond my personal relation with them.About the characters, in Chile they are famous, the people recognize them in the street, they sign autographs in different places, and they are invited to many TV programs, they travel to festivals. They say that they never thought that they would live a new life after having already lived for 80 years.

JS: This year, we'll be showing your most recent film, THE GROWN-UPS.  In TEA TIME, one of the women in the film had a daughter with Down Syndrome, in THE GROWN-UPS we visit a school for Down Syndrome children who are entering middle age.  Was this coincidence or did this project evolve in some way from that film?

MA: It is not a coincidence, the woman that appears in TEA TIME with Down Syndrome was my aunt. And a big concern of my grandmother, one of the main characters of TEA TIME, was: What is going to happen to my aunt when my grandmother passes away? So that question was in my life, and I started the research of trying to find adults with Down Syndrome that were living that situation.

JS: As a documentary filmmaker, what motivates and inspires you?

MA: Reality inspires me in general. I believe reality is larger than fiction. All the stories that we tell in documentary films already exist, we just have to find them. For me, films are like a factory of experiences for the spectator. One goes to the theater to share an experience, but documentaries have an added value, this experience already exists in the real world, so we feel even closer to the characters for that reason.Also, daily rituals inspire me. The documentary genre has often made an effort to pursue an event and a great historical and conceivable happening as the narrative axis, however, politics and idiosyncratic social portraits can be displayed from the microcosm. Small situations from daily life that become exceptional can be more moving than explicit political situations. Society is better represented from the intimate portrayal of microcosmic situations to convey what is happening in the world.

JS:  As we celebrate 10 years of Salem Film Fest, what do you think is the importance of documentary film in our daily lives and society?

MA: Documentary films give us the opportunity to think about the world in the present, and to see situations that we cannot live with our own eyes in another way. And for me, as it is important to me to be shooting the present, I believe that I am building the archive of the future, that documentaries are the representation of our world today, and it´s going to have an important value in the future.

THE GROWN-UPS screened on Sunday, March 5 at 12:40pm at CinemaSalem