With Medium Cool, Haskell Wexler had more on his mind than just the Democratic Convention.
by J.R. Jones
Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool (1969) is remembered as one of the great political films of its era—who could forget its climactic melding of fact and fiction, shot in the streets of Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention, in which Robert Forster's TV news cameraman is swept into the real-life chaos of police and protesters? Medium Cool is also recognized as a pointed early critique of the news media, noting the amoral detachment of TV journalists and the collusion between their corporate bosses and the government to shape a political narrative.…[ Read more ]