The lineup of "Hoover" is extraordinary. Not only is the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award winner and two-time Oscar best director Clint Eastwood as the director, but the script is also written by the 2008 Oscar-winning gay film "The Best Actor Award". Dustin Lance Black of Milk" starred, and Hoover played the lead role of Leonardo Decca, the innocent young man in "Titanic" and now the middle-aged man of "acting school". Prio, but his acting isn't much different from the frowning, neurotic characters in Shutter Island and Inception.
In "Shutter Island" and "Inception", Leonardo's character's wife is always brutally killed, and in this film, Hoover simply never married. It seems that Xiao Lizi's acting career is getting wider. But there are fewer and fewer women in the play. But it's not surprising that Clint Eastwood chose the screenwriter of "Milk" to write the script. It's hard not to remind people of the legendary Hoover's homosexual tendencies, and his relationship with his disciple Tolson. 50 years of underground romance. But in an interview with GQ magazine a few days ago, both DiCaprio and Eastwood emphasized: This is not a gay movie! In Eastwood's words: "They are inseparable partners. It is up to the audience to judge whether they are gay or not. But the film is not about two gay people, it is about one man, how he manipulates everyone around him, through 8 years The story of the president of the United States still in power. I don't care if he is gay or not."
From this point of view, the old man did not lie. Although there are some ambiguous scenes in the whole film, it mainly focuses on Hoover's more than 50 years of career in the FBI, including 48 years as director! This is not only unprecedented, but also destined to be unprecedented, because the post of FBI director will not exceed 10 years under new legislation after him, which is not unrelated to the fear of Hoover by officials in various branches of the United States.
The rise of Hoover lies in the fear of anarchism in American society after the First World War. Hoover was born in Washington on January 1, 1895. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from George Washington University Law School in 1915 and 1917, respectively. After graduation, he entered the Department of Justice. In 1919, when he was 24 years old, he was promoted to the director of the newly established intelligence department of the Bureau of Investigation of the Ministry of Justice, and carried out investigation and intelligence work on the infiltration of the United States by foreign political forces. In 1919, the home of US Attorney General Mitchell Palmer was booby-trapped by anarchists. Young Hoover was the first to arrive at the scene on a bicycle, and then launched an investigation, successfully capturing the then-American anarchists. spiritual mentor Emma Goldman and the perpetrators of violence. Hoover was promoted to deputy director of the Bureau of Investigation in 1921, and became acting director in 1924, and was immediately appointed director by President Coolidge at the age of 29. This has nothing to do with Hoover's meticulous reasoning and investigation, as well as his ruthless attack on anarchism.
The main body of this film is strung together by another "Lindbergh" kidnapping case that caused a sensation in the United States and even the world. Charles Augustus Lindbergh, an American pilot who took 33 hours from New York to Paris in 1927, became the first person to fly a single transatlantic flight without landing. He also became a national hero of the United States. After that, his fame brought him great fortune, but also unforeseen bad luck. On the night of March 1, 1932, the kidnappers kidnapped his 20-month-old son from his New Jersey mansion and demanded a ransom of $50,000. Despite the ransom, the body of Charles Lindbergh Jr. was found 11 days later in bushes not far from his home. The incident was a sensation, and the investigation alone took two years. Taking into account the scientific methods at the time, it was even more difficult to solve than the Simpson case today. Hoover skillfully turned the public's criticism of the investigation into a bargaining chip, pushed Congress to pass the Lindbergh Act, and won a far-reaching principle for the FBI established by him: once a criminal crosses the state, it is a federal crime, and the federal investigation The bureau would replace state troopers as the main body of law enforcement (although that seems a bit self-evident today). This principle is the first red line of decentralization of federal and local functions, and it is also the key to the rapid rise of the FBI.
Hoover moved quickly to formalize, modernize, and mediate the FBI. He won the power to carry guns for federal agents; required employees to be college graduates; established the first national fingerprint archive; established a federal criminal research laboratory. The establishment of the laboratory, and its analysis of the incriminating evidence, eventually became the main basis for the conviction of the Lindenberg kidnapping suspect, whose main incriminating evidence was a handcrafted ladder used by the suspect, whose saw marks were distinctive like fingerprints. At the same time, he also vigorously dealt with the media, trying to highlight the positive image of federal agents in movies and comics. American society has slowly turned from a grandiose admiration of criminals to a cult of G-Man (short for Government Man, which became the nickname of an FBI agent).
A young man who is proud of his ambitions, proud of his spring breeze, and has power and power, is a wonderful portrayal of Hoover at this time, but like any person who loves power, he also has a deep fear of losing power. It is hard to say that out of public interest, he began to collect secret files of powerful people, including the president and his family, and used it as a bargaining chip for power. In 48 years, the United States has changed 8 presidents and 16 attorney generals, but the FBI director has always been named J • Edgar • Hoover. He wielded powers that no FBI leader since then could surpass.
"Hoover knew how to keep secrets, and that's the real reason for his success. Not only did he know the secrets, but no one knew what secrets he knew," Richard Haiko wrote in "The Hoover Biography." A president dared to fire Hoover because no president knew exactly what Hoover knew. That was the greatest intimidation for the president.”
After the 1960s, due to the deepening of fear of Soviet power, Hoover gave a lot of attention to many organizations. Doubtful, use various means including infiltration, rumor, stealing, and monitoring to remote control. The biggest incident, of course, was the illegal wiretapping of the civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the final part of the film, Hoover blackmails him into rejecting the Nobel Peace Prize with the rosy information he has collected, only to be rejected. Ironically, Hoover's own shady relationship with his disciple Tolson made him a target for New York gangsters. In his later years, Hoover began to distrust anyone around him, became more ruthless, had a more bizarre temper, and told more and more lies.
On the morning of May 2, 1972, Hoover was found dead on the bedroom floor of his Washington home. That afternoon, President Nixon wrote in his personal diary: "He died at an opportune time: fortunately, he died while he was in office. If he had been forced to step down or voluntarily resign, he would have died. Likely to be killed." However, in an official address to the nation, Nixon said: "Today, all Americans are saddened by the passing of Mr. J. Edgar Hoover. As a federal The Director of the Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Hoover has sincere loyalty, remarkable ability and extraordinary dedication. It can be said that he is a legend in the era in which he lived." The
old and cunning Director Hu has just died, another Liars with different appearances appeared on the stage, and it must be said that it was a tragicomedy full of banter in that era.
Hoover's influence on American politics was profound, even after his death. After Nixon came to power, in order to restrain Hoover, he set up his own informal investigation team, "Pipemen", but his professional quality was really uncomplimentable. First of all, he investigated Dr. Ellsberg, the leaker of the "Pentagon Secret Files". There are many flaws in the middle, and the face is lost. He was later arrested by Washington, D.C. police during the Watergate scandal in the summer of 1972. Nixon then instructed his aides in secret recordings to have the CIA obstruct the FBI investigation into Watergate. Then, in the Washington Post's ongoing investigative reporting on the Watergate scandal, two reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, followed up the entire incident with a series of reports, It was the inside information they reported that exposed the connection between the White House and the Watergate scandal, which ultimately prompted Nixon's resignation. And the insider nicknamed "Deep Throat" who provided inside information to the two reporters was FBI deputy director Mark Felt at the time, Hoover's staff for more than 30 years. Leaked from dissatisfaction with the FBI's distrust and obstruction.
Nixon's resignation directly led to the political and social crisis in the United States in the 1970s, and the people's extreme distrust of the government. The first executive order of Nixon-appointed Vice President Ford after his succession was to pardon Nixon for possible crimes. This also led to his defeat in the 1976 election with Carter, and the failure of Carter's hostage rescue, which led to Reagan's victory in 1980, political neoconservatism and economic neoliberalism began to enter the American political arena, and the world pattern changed. .
So, without Hoover, or if Hoover wasn't someone so power-hungry and so tightly in control of the FBI, the president after Nixon would likely be a Republican, and the one who came to power in the crisis of 1980 would have been A Democratic president, and our world would not be what it is today.
Of course, history cannot be assumed, but the evaluation of historical figures can be varied. What kind of person do readers think of Hoover?
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