Customer Reviews

Landslide - A Portrait of President Herbert Hoover

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This is the best DVD I have seen and used on Herbert Hoover in my college American Government and Recent American History classes. It is a good representation of his whole life. He was a great humanitarian as demonstrated in this documentary. I especially liked the narrative provided by a good cross section of the speakers of different political views who placed Herbert Hoover into historical perspective. Robert Reich, David Kennedy, Margaret Hoover and Timothy Walch among others presented both a historical and personal view of Hoover. Topics covered included Iowa childhood, Stanford education, mining career, W.W.I relief, Commerce Secretary, 1928 election, Presidency, 1932 campaign & W.W.II relief plus Government Reform Commissions under Truman & Eisenhower. He was an activist through-out all of his government service especially very innovated contrary to common beliefs. The Mississippi Flood relief led by him in 1927 juxtaposed with Katrina relief was a great piece of commentary. More information on Herbert Hoover and fly fishing and reference to the Rapidan presidential retreat would of been appreciated although both subjects given ample coverage in Richard Norton Smith's excellent C-Span DVD on the Hoover Presidential library which makes both DVD's complementary.

This is an excellent well-rounded portrait of Hoover's life. The film's length is just under 1 HR. The production quality and attention to detail are all very high. Various experts and academics are interviewed on camera - interwoven successfully with images and footage from Hoover's life. The production, editing, music, etc. are all excellent - this is a quality production.
The whole of Hoover's life is touched upon, from childhood through his years in office, even including a brief discussion of his 30+ years after he left the White House until his death in 1964.
I couldn't ask for a better 1 HR documentary film on the life of Herbert Hoover. Recommended.

If your goal is to learn something about Hoover and his significance or insignificance on American History in under an hour this will work. As part of the bargain you will have to endure a brief diversion while the filmakers criticize the Bush Administrations response to Katrina. When budgeting 51 minutes for a biopic on an American president, one might think that unnecessary and distracting diversions would hit the editing room floor. Not so in the case of "Landslide". When discussing the Mississippi flood of 1927 we learn that Herbert Hoover was great. Compare that to the Bush Administrations response to Katrina and, pay close attention boys and girls, Bush Bad. We don't get the context of the response to Katrina. We don't really get the context of the Mississippi flood either because we don't have time for that. But we do have time to reinforce a negative political view of George Bush. Even if we all agree that George Bush is Satan does it really seem appropriate to raise that here? If it really were good technique to produce a biopic in this manner, then why not compare Hoover's support for Smoot Hawley to say Bill Clintons support for NAFTA? You wouldn't. It's a wholly unnecessary diversion and the decision to include it raises some doubt about the objectivity of the filmmakers. Perhaps the hope is that this film will be shown to school kids where they can learn that, among other things, Bush Bad.

This biopic also suffers from too many talking heads. Do we really need to hear from Herbert Hoover's great granddaughter? She is cute and vivacious and even kind of looks like him but it seems her only true qualification is that the she is cute, vivacious and kind of looks like him. She does add some sex appeal though. That is probably the point.

Why not stick with the acknowledged experts on the subject, which thankfully we seem to have a few. Robert Reich is not an acknowledged expert. He has never produced any critically acclaimed work on this subject. He is a noted liberal though and that is perhaps qualification enough.

By having a proliferation of talking heads we lose the individual character of their thought and ability to express it. The idea of verbal prosody as an art is lost on the filmmakers. This production puts more importance on jumping quickly from expert to expert as if staying in one place would cause the production to stagnate. Or, in the vernacular of the apparent target audience, high school kids, boring. This seems like the technique of a action film or maybe even reality TV. And in many cases one expert simply reiterates what another said. Appropriate for learning I suppose, if you are a high school kid.

Guests that add sex appeal; action film and reality TV techniques! It truly seems to have been made by and perhaps for High School kids, which is really disturbing given the filmakers taste for propaganda.