Reagan

To mark the 100th birthday of President Reagan HBO just recently showed a doc titled "Reagan" and I must say director Eugene Jarecki made the film rich and moving with footage from the entire life of Ronald both personal and political. The film chronicles from his 1911 birth till his 2004 death from Alzheimer's.

A friend in Paris, France, and fellow filmmaker sent me a copy of this new Reagan documentary. Not a great fan of Reagan or his presidency, I set it aside.

Ronald Reagan has become such a mythologised figure by the American right that it's hard for a documentary to present a balanced view. Moreover, Americans in general tend to treat their Presidents with a respect that is wholly absent from British politics; although Eugene Jarecki's documentary is actually not bad in challenging the myths (both that everything Reagan did was good, and also that he did everything that has been attributed to him), in it's tone, it can't help but add to them.

Reagan (2011) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Very good HBO documentary from director Eugene Jarecki takes a look at the life and career of Ronald Reagan. The documentary follows him from his childhood all the way up to his death and covers just about everything one could hope for.

You can get a good idea of the film from the other reviews. If you are a liberal or progressive, you'll think it's a good film.

This film is very bias! It was created by a liberal filmmaker who is trying to make Reagan look horrible.

This documentary was shown with a leftist viewpoint. Since I was born in 1949 and lived through 12 presidents I have more knowledge gained through experience than those who read about things.

I watched this on Link TV, a liberal cable channel specializing in those such as Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, so I expected it to be scathing. It certainly stripped away many illusions, but while strongly critical the results of trickle down, and the limits of his grasp of complexity of issues; it defined his positions fairly.

The first half of "Reagan" is fairly objective, to disguise the fact that this is simply another predictable hit-piece on Reagan, and on conservatism in general.All of the seemingly positive narrators in the first half turn out to be very anti-Reagan in the second half.