As Robert Gregg notes, films "reflect both continuity and change in international relations." Some films are historical in nature and remind us of earlier times, earlier conflicts, earlier problems. Other films test our sense of a problem by depicting it in dramatic terms. One of the themes reflected in the films seen in Part I can be identified as relating to questions about tensions between the national interests and human interests at different times in our history.
This tension is depicted directly in American society both Citizen Cohn (Frank Pierson, 1992) and The Front (Martin Ritt, 1976) and directly in terms of Irish society in Michael Collins. In each of these films, the individual is faced with decisions about his behavior because of the demands placed upon him by national themes and interests, and the two clash when the government attempts to assert a national interest at the expense of individual rights. Citizen Cohn and The Front both deal with the McCarthy era in the 1950s when fears of possible Communist infiltration caused the government and other entities to assert national interests over individual rights in a number of ways related to employment in particular. Any hint that an individual had communist leanings or had ever had any involvement with Communism was sufficient to remove him or her form their job. The Front deals with this issue as it related specifically to Hollywood and the television and film industries and to ways in which writers in particular tried to get around the restrictions by using someone else's name while they could then continue to work secretly. Citizen Cohn addresses the life of one of the villains of the piece, Roy Cohn, who worked for Senator McCarthy and who is identified with both the blacklist that resulted and with the Army-McCarthy hearings that signaled the end of McCarthy but not the end of the so-called McCarthy era.
In Citizen Cohn, the way Cohn himself behaves su...