{"id":5928,"date":"2019-08-03T21:33:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-03T21:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/?p=5928"},"modified":"2019-08-03T21:53:47","modified_gmt":"2019-08-03T21:53:47","slug":"mike-wallace-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/mike-wallace-is-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Wallace is Here"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Reporter Mike Wallace was driven to expose his subjects by literally interrogating them. This documentary also exposes this crusty correspondent driven to prove himself as good as his idol, CBS\u2019s best aggressive investigative reporter, Edward R. Murrow.<\/p>\n

Avi Belkin is an award-winning Israeli producer\/director we Skyped with at Chicago\u2019s Doc 10 Festival earlier this year. He told us he watched more than 1700 hours of tapes and that his first edit of the film was 9 hours long. That\u2019s how much of Mike Wallace\u2019s work exists. He was a prolific journalist who spent over 50 years on TV; 40 of which on \u201c60 minutes.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Belkin reveals reasons why Wallace was insecure next to other working journalists. He didn\u2019t start out as a reporter. Earlier attempts at TV began by hosting a game show, advertising products in commercials and tasks he deemed menial in the eyes of bona fide journalists. He had acne as a kid that left scars and was once told he had a face for radio which left another mark on his ego which only made him try harder.\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”5930″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”5940″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”5932″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]We asked producer Belkin why there was little mention of his family life in the movie. There is just one about his being proud of his son, Chris, the also hard-hitting host of \u201cFox News Sunday.\u201d Belkin asked Chris what he thought of the film. He said he loved it and that he knows his father would have loved it, too. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is little about his 3 wives, but the film does detail the death of his eldest son in a mountain climbing accident in Greece. You see how it tore him apart. The film reveals that Mike Wallace suffered severe bouts of\u00a0 <\/span>depression throughout his career, even being hospitalized for it. He even talks about having considered suicide.<\/p>\n

Wallace attacked every interview with knowledge and passion which Belkin has captured and edited into a riveting hour and 13 minutes. He was a \u201ctough as nails\u201d reporter who had no fear when it came to going after the truth. He was aggressive, exciting and impressive. He asked the questions no one else had the guts to ask of such uncooperative celebrities including Bette Davis, and Barbara Streisand (who called him an SOB), political leaders, from Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy, John McCain, Donald Trump, Richard Nixon and even John Erlichman who nervously sweats profusely being questioned by Wallace.<\/p>\n

There is footage of him also going after Vladimir Putin and Ayatollah Khomeini under nerve-wracking conditions and circumstances. It\u2019s fascinating to watch him take his interrogation to the limit. We have seen what happens when a subject may be about to boil over\u00a0 <\/span>having worked in TV news ourselves. He knew what to do and how far he could go. You can literally feel the tension in the room as he continues to carefully ask questions through an interpreter to get specific answers.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”5935″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”5931″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”5936″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Belkin is so thorough, he gets interviews about Wallace from many of his colleagues, including the friend and \u201c60 Minutes\u201d co-worker who knew him best, Morley Safer who asks of Wallace, smiling all the while , \u201cWhy are you sometimes such a prick?\u201d But there is more archive footage from Edward R. Murrow, Bill O\u2019Reilly, Dan Rather, Steve Kroft, and an interview of Larry King that reveals personal information about the talk show personality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wallace believed, \u201cWhat we\u2019re defending is the peoples\u2019 right to know.\u201d Belkin makes Wallace’s passion for truth evident in this monumental work. \u00a0We can only guess what he would do in today\u2019s political climate.\u00a0<\/span>This film is not only a lesson for journalism students and working reporters. It\u2019s exciting and inspiring to watch.<\/p>\n

Magnolia Pictures \u00a0 <\/span>1 hour 30 minutes \u00a0 <\/span>PG-13[\/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dDSq2fF9flk” el_width=”80″ align=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Reporter Mike Wallace was driven to expose his subjects by literally interrogating them. This documentary also exposes this crusty correspondent driven to prove himself as good as his idol, CBS\u2019s best aggressive investigative reporter, Edward R. Murrow. Avi Belkin is an award-winning Israeli producer\/director we Skyped with at Chicago\u2019s Doc 10 Festival earlier this year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5937,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5928"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5949,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928\/revisions\/5949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}