'The price of truth': why the film about the Holodomor caused a heated discussion in the USA - ForumDaily
The article has been automatically translated into English by Google Translate from Russian and has not been edited.
Переклад цього матеріалу українською мовою з російської було автоматично здійснено сервісом Google Translate, без подальшого редагування тексту.
Bu məqalə Google Translate servisi vasitəsi ilə avtomatik olaraq rus dilindən azərbaycan dilinə tərcümə olunmuşdur. Bundan sonra mətn redaktə edilməmişdir.

'The Price of Truth': why the Holodomor film sparked heated discussion in the USA

Directed by Agnieszka Holland, The Price of Truth (original worldwide title: Mr. Jones) is now available on Amazon and other platforms after premiering in the US this spring. Recently, more and more reviews of the film have appeared in the Western press, which helps the film itself in terms of gaining a wider audience, but also sheds light on a little-known tragic page of world history - the Ukrainian Holodomor, writes "Voice of America".

Photo: video frame YouTube / FilmSelect Trailer

The site of the Atlantic Council Research Center in the United States has published an article by Harvard historian Sergei Plokhiy titled “Film“ Mr. Jones "exposes fake news campaign around Stalin's Ukrainian genocide."

According to Plokhy, the film is an important new historical drama with a very modern context. It sheds light on one of Stalin's worst crimes, "while serving as a reminder that today's talk of fake news is not really new."

“With its focus on the journalistic duel to control the narrative surrounding Stalin's famine, the film resonates with many of the themes that define today's media battlefield. In the current era of fake news and alternative facts, “Mr. Jones" shows that previous generations also faced similar challenges. It illustrates the deadly responsibility of the media to report events accurately, while at the same time revealing the constant authoritarian impulse to conceal and distort,” writes Sergei Plokhy.

The film is also important, as the Harvard professor notes, that it sheds light on the Stalinist Holodomor by showing for the first time the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 to an international audience.

“The famine was one of the worst crimes of the 20th century, but it has yet to enter the global consciousness in a way that reflects its scale and the consequences of that tragedy,” the Atlantic Council says on its website.

That long “whitewashing” of the Stalinist famine in Ukraine, which was carried out by the Moscow correspondent of The New York Times newspaper Walter Duranty, turned out to be convenient for an international audience, Plokhy notes. In his opinion, the world was then more concerned with Hitler's rise to power in Germany and the economic consequences of the Great Depression - so there was little demand for confrontation with the Kremlin in the early 1930s.

“There may not be a Hollywood-style happy ending in films about the Holodomor, but at least in the end (the film) told a story,” Plokhy notes.

Photo: video frame YouTube / FilmSelect Trailer

In influential newspaper The Wall Street Journal, journalist James Freeman collected reviews in the American press on the film "The Price of Truth", in particular, citing The First Thing: "The words" you must see "are grotesquely abused in film reviews, but in this case they are successful. "

In many reviews of the film “The Price of Truth” (“Mr. Jones”), film critics also note that it is especially relevant in the current “time when lies, bullying and violence seem to be returning in place of progress, equality and justice,” and the film “ "is a useful lesson in consequences—an opportunity to watch and learn," notes Frances Meyer in her review for The First Thing.

Reviews of the film also say that the film sheds light on a little-known theme of the Holodomor of 1932-33, when, according to current estimates, almost 4 million Ukrainians died of an artificial famine.

“They did not die naturally... That famine was a deliberate policy adopted by Stalin, with crops and other food taken away and widespread persecution, deportation and even execution of dissenters,” writes Anthony Lane in The New Yorker.

“His (Stalin’s) great scheme for the collectivization of agriculture failed... but ideologically it could not be a failure. Who better than the Ukrainians—often mistrusted and demonized by Moscow—to be cast as scapegoats and saboteurs?” Lane asks.

In the influential National Review, Kylie Smith recalls that for the Polish director Agnieszka Holland, the topic of the crimes of the communist regime is not something distant, because she was arrested by the communists during the suppression of Soviet tanks in the Prague Spring of 1968.

On the subject: Mr. Jones: the story of a journalist who told the world about the Holodomor and interviewed Stalin

In the review we read that the film is portrayed as a duel between Welsh journalist Gareth Jones and the New York Times' Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty, who wrote positively about the Stalinist Soviet Union and denied famine in Ukraine.

Smith calls Duranty "The New York Times's man in Moscow—or rather, The New York Times's Moscow man."

A very positive review from the reviewer is caused by the play of actor Peter Sarsgaard, who played Duranty, this actor is good at the role of negative characters in films.

In reviews of the film in American publications, a phrase is quoted from one of Duranty's articles, which was included in the script of the film (American Andrea Chalupa worked on the script). Duranty says about Stalin's excesses: “You cannot cook eggs, not breaking eggs” ... But the terrible truth was that during the Holodomor human lives were broken.

One of the reviews indicates that Russia still does not recognize the Holodomor, and Dmitry Medvedev, as president of Russia, called the Holodomor in 2008 "so-called" and stated that portraying Ukrainians as victims of this Stalinist crime is "cynical and immoral" ...

In an interview with the New York Daily News, director Agnieszka Holland noted that after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, "humanity is quickly forgetting the crimes of communism."

Photo: video frame YouTube / FilmSelect Trailer

But “some crimes against humanity are unbearable,” the director says, adding that people know little about the events that are reflected in the film, and even the real number of victims of the Stalinist Holodomor is still not known.

“Nobody talks about this. Nobody knows about this. So I thought I was somehow obligated to shed light on this,” Holland told the reporter.

Among those who published a review of the film is The New York Times, for which Walter Duranty worked as a Moscow correspondent. Reviewer Manolo Dargis writes that the film is "a political thriller with an unwavering, unrelenting pulse."

On the subject: American businessman has assembled the world's largest collection of paintings about the Holodomor in Ukraine

“Holland is one of the filmmakers who doesn't require dialogue to convey content, and some of the most powerful scenes in Mr. Jones" are silent or almost wordless. When Gareth travels to Ukraine, the film moves into an increasingly eerie, other-worldly peace. In this frozen world, there is a touch of danger when the other train passengers in Gareth’s carriage look at him, at the way he eats, with enormous psychological intensity,” we read in Manolo Dargis’s review.

“The moment he escaped from his escort, walking through snowy, deserted countryside, he appeared to be walking through a wide cemetery,” The New York Times writes.

And The Wall Street Journal, calling the film "brilliant", says it will help make sure "neither the crimes of the Marxist regime, nor its victims in that wide cemetery will be forgotten."

Read also on ForumDaily:

American businessman has assembled the world's largest collection of paintings about the Holodomor in Ukraine

'Sadist', 'executioner', 'Nazi criminal': a series about a Ukrainian who served in death camps appeared on Netflix

Our borsch: how the Russian Foreign Ministry used the Ukrainian dish for military propaganda of the Russian Federation

'They read my mother's letters to me': stories of those who saved Jews from the Holocaust, risking their lives

In the U.S. cinema The Holodomor Leisure
Subscribe to ForumDaily on Google News

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis. 



 
1074 requests in 1,271 seconds.