On TCM just watched “A Face in the Crowd”

Summary

GUEST PROGRAMMERS: JONAH GOLDBERG & LEON WIESELTIER - 10/5
This month TCM welcomes two Guest Programmers—writer/editors Jonah Goldberg and Leon Wieseltier—who choose their films with an eye toward “Ideology in Movies.” Goldberg is a syndicated columnist who writes about politics and culture for National Review, where he is also a senior editor. Wieseltier is a scholar, critic and contributing editor to The Atlantic, and former literary editor of The New Republic.

In alternating segments with host Ben Mankiewicz, the pair presents four movies. Wieseltier, a staunch liberal, chooses Elia Kazan’s America America (1963), because it leads to a discussion of today’s “widespread vilification of immigrants.” His second pick is Fritz Lang’s Fury (1936), which Wieseltier links to the current “ascendancy of demagoguery in our politics.” Goldberg picks Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd (1957), noting that he comes “from a branch of conservatism that is nervous about excessive political enthusiasm”; and Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) in part because he considers its crusading hero to be “the first Tea-Partier.”

America America is starting now.