Mr. Hoover and I
Screening on Film
Directed by Emile de Antonio.
US, 1989, 35mm, color and b&w, 90 min.
US, 1989, 35mm, color and b&w, 90 min.
Although most of his films are noted by the absence of the director’s voice, de Antonio’s final film is his most personal. Using both his own life stories and those of J. Edgar Hoover, de Antonio constructs a fitting coda to a life on the Left. Directly addressing the camera, he reflects on his years of surveillance by the FBI’s top gun and on Hoover’s contemptuous acts in leading America’s “secret police.” The film’s political elements are tempered by very human scenes of de Antonio receiving a haircut from his wife Nancy and watching his friend John Cage bake a loaf of bread. De Antonio passed away not long after the film was completed.