In J.Edgar, Clint Eastwood's ponderous but quietly compelling new biopic of the founder of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) J. Edgar Hoover, Leonardo DiCaprio gives a towering performance as the man who blackmailed the Kennedy's.
One of the most powerful men of the 20 century, Hoover worked under the administrations of Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon - and he kept secret files on most of them (and their wives).
This last point is made clear in an early and electrifying scene between Hoover and the new attorney General Bobby Kennedy, whom he privately describes as a nitwit. When the red telephone light flashes in Hoover's office informing him Kennedy is on the line he contemptuously calls it the baby alarm.
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Eastwood's new film shows that Hoover never understood that the civil rights movement in the 1960's was a positive force of change in America. For Bobby Kennedy it was the most important and transformative issue of his tenure. But Hoover hated Martin Luther King and was convinced his organization was filled with communists bent on overthrowing the United States.
Unlike the elder statesman, Bobby Kennedy correctly understands that the communist threat came from abroad, whilst Hoover could only sees the enemy within. Hoover's obsessional pursuit of King - which included wiretapping and disguised threats - was driven by a personal and unrelenting hatred and the film makes this clear.
In his fervor to protect America from the communist threat, which he saw all around him, Hoover turned on his fellow Americans time and again, rather than looking outward to face the real threats.
Early on Hoover secures funding and the continued relevance of his bureau by informing Bobby Kennedy he has highly sensitive audio tapes of President Kennedy having sex with a woman he described as ‘an East German communist’ a year earlier. Knowing what's in everyone’s dirty laundry makes Hoover untouchable and Kennedy is forced to acknowledge this. Washington - the Kennedy's included - had grown terrified of calling Hoover’s bluff.
Later in the film, when JFK is assassinated Hoover picks up the phone and calls Bobby. 'The president has been shot,' he informs him tersely. Then he hangs up. The limitlessness contempt he had for the two Kennedy brothers is best expressed in his callousness in that short scene.
At all times Eastwood's film underlines the gulf between the myth Hoover crafted of himself and the reality. It turns out to be immensely poignant, that gulf. A deeply repressed and most likely gay man, Hoover's constant companion for decades was Clyde Tolson, but - the film makes clear - Hoover never allowed himself to give full expression to the relationship or to his own feelings.
In fact throughout his career Hoover discriminated against gays, African Americans and women. A tragic character, always feared more than loved, and one who punished others for shortcomings he often secretly shared, Eastwood has crafted an enormously fair but cautionary portrait.
Hoover was the head of the Bureau of Investigation from 1924 until he died in 1972.
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11 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.SingleDonald | Nov 14, 2011, 12:06 AM EST
J. Edgar Hoover wasn't the founder of the F.B.I. As the movie illustrated, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone offered him the job, in 1924. He was the acting director, shortly to become the Director of the Bureau of Investigation. In 1935, it became the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is my opinion that he was NOT gay! After all, he went out with Dorothy Lamour & Leia Rodgers, mother of Ginger. Mark Felt ("Deep Throat") claimed that Hoover & Tolson were merely like brothers. In his day, suspicion clouded many men who never got married. I read the book, "Young J. Edgar", which much of the movie is based on. Hoover had nude caricatures of women, on some furniture, I think lamps. This would hardly be the style of a gay men! The evidence of his homosexuality is only circumstantial.
seanomelbourne | Nov 10, 2011, 05:08 PM EST
obpiper I know he was gay but he ran anti gay campaigns and gave the appearance of been anti gay.He never came out of the cupboard.
mcdolan | Nov 10, 2011, 06:52 AM EST
I don't think J Edgar was evil, but he was sick!
VernonC | Nov 09, 2011, 08:44 PM EST
Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover, there wasn't someone with more a more serious mien to play the part, what was Clint Eastwood thinking? Put DiCaprio in Titanic type movies playing soft cute guys until he gets some lines of character in his face. And whatever fault Hoover had, he kept presidents in line, where's the man that could do that with the lowlife current president?
OBPiper | Nov 09, 2011, 07:25 PM EST
No, SeanOMelbourne, Hoover was gay. In fact, his Federal felonies should have landed him in Federal Prison housed with the women where he couldn't enjoy being forceably sodomized.
seanomelbourne | Nov 09, 2011, 04:25 PM EST
If only the Kennedys knew he was an anti gay cross dresser.
AengusOg | Nov 09, 2011, 03:38 PM EST
The blackmailing of the Kennedy's is a fine example of why strong moral character is so important in public officials. If the politicians are going to police the police, they had better have the moral base from which to do it.
hybernia | Nov 09, 2011, 02:10 PM EST
In his book, The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (1993), Anthony Summers claims that Hoover and Tolson became lovers. For the next forty years the two men were constant companions. In the FBI the couple were known as "J. Edna and Mother Tolson". Mafia boss, Meyer Lansky, obtained photographic evidence of Hoover's homosexuality and was able to use this to stop the FBI from looking too closely into his own criminal activities. When the journalist, Ray Tucker, hinted at Hoover's homosexuality in an article for Collier's Magazine, he was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Information about Tucker's private life was leaked to the media and when this became known, other journalists were frightened off from writing about this aspect of Hoover's life. Eastwood was also warned off.
Murph46 | Nov 09, 2011, 12:01 PM EST
How could Eastwood know that he never allowed himself to give full expression to the relationship?
muirisobric | Nov 09, 2011, 10:10 AM EST
Such a twit. Whenever he'd go to the track, his driver wasn't allowed to make a left turn (or maybe a right i forget which) as Hover considered it unlucky. So his driver had to plan his route accordingly. Ane he was charged with protecting our nation!
Suivness10 | Nov 09, 2011, 09:51 AM EST
He was evil, pure and simple.