Powerhouse of a movie. I'm starting to wonder if Clint Eastwood is even capable of making a bad movie. The story sheds light on a time in America that I can only wonder at. People had manners back then, even when they were being bad. Leo plays J. Edgar Hoover from a young to old man complete with liver spots, bushy eyebrows, and expanding waistline.
What struck me in the movie?
The idealistic zeal of a young J. Eedgar.
The relationship between J. Edgar and his mother
The relationship between J. Edgar and Miss Gandy
The relationship between J. Edgar and Clyde Tolson, his protege and maybe more? The movie certainly intimates at it.
J. Edgar's seeming need for attention and glory.
The movie was a study of a man filled with complexities, a need for a love that he repressed for most of his adult life, a ruthless and callus ability to get what he wanted, and a blind, driven devotion to his country.
According to Wikipedia, "Hoover made changes, such as expanding and combining fingerprint files in the Identification Division to compile the largest collection of fingerprints to date.[12][13] Hoover also helped to expand the FBI's recruitment and create the FBI Laboratory, a division established in 1932 to examine evidence found by the FBI."
The movie touched on this and were facts that I was unaware of.
Wikipedia also writes, "
In 1956, Hoover was becoming increasingly frustrated by Supreme Court decisions that limited the Justice Department's ability to prosecute people for their political opinions, most notably communists. At this time he formalized a covert "dirty tricks" program under the name COINTELPRO.[18]
This program remained in place until it was revealed to the public in 1971, after the theft of many internal documents stolen from an office in Media Pennsylvania, and was the cause of some of the harshest criticism of Hoover and the FBI. COINTELPRO was first used to disrupt the Communist Party, and later organizations such as the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s SCLC and others. Its methods included infiltration, burglaries, illegal wiretaps, planting forged documents and spreading false rumors about key members of target organizations."
The movie provides a tantalizing glimpse of this as well.
One tidbit I will close on....at one point (towards the end) when Nixon takes office, Miss Gandy finds J. Edgar crying in his office. I believe he is seeing the beginning of the end. He asks Miss Gandy if anything ever happens to him will his private thoughts be safe? Miss Gandy assures him no one will ever find his private files. Fast forward to when Nixon finds out J. Edgar has died, his men storm J. Edgar's office only to find all the file cabinets empty..... I'd like to think that Miss Gandy hid his files in the Library of Congress. I do not believe she shredded them as portrayed in the movie. Why? Back at the beginning of the movie, J. Edgar and Miss Gandy had a date at the Library of Congress where he revealed he assisted in developing the filing system. I'd like to think those files are secreted away still just waiting to be revealed.....
