Word: isaacsons
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...Ethel Rosenberg, members of the Communist Party executed for selling bomb secrets to the Soviets. Their guilt or innocence of espionage remains a subject of debate today, fueled by the appearances of several books about the case this summer. Daniel tells the story of the fictional Paul and Rochelle Isaacson (Mandy Patinkin and Lindsay Crouse), 1940's Communists executed for the same charges, and under the same ambiguous circumstances, as the Rosenbergs. The story is told by Daniel, the Isaacsons' son (Timothy Hutton), through a series of flashbacks interspersed with his own attempts to uncover his parents guilt or innocence...
Scenes such as the Isaacsons' execution, the demonstrations to free them (complete with Daniel and his sister. Susan, standing fear-fully at the podium with their parents lawyer), and the seemingly unwarranted descent of a swarm of FBI officials upon the Isaacson home are understandable as evocations of Daniel's emotional perspective. But if one is searching for a statement on the Rosenberg case, such scenes come off as manipulative powerplays intended to win over the audience's sympathy for the Rosenbergs/Isaacsons using emotional rather than rational or factual devices...
...VIEWER who can accept this dichotomy, though, Daniel packs a stunning impact in both emotional intensity and social and political commentary. The 1940's scenes offer personal and touching glimpses of the Isaacsons family life and of the importance of Paul and Rochelle Isaacson's politics as a motivating force within the family. The Isaacsons' trial and execution, depicted without any clarification of their guilt or innocence, serves to focus attention upon questions of the validity of their political activism and the validity of a judicial system which was so easily swayed by the social paranoia of the Cold...
...tragedy shows how difficult it is for a President to break off all dealings, or impose a significant punishment, on the planet's other superpower. "We've learned," says Marshall Goldman of Harvard's Russian Research Center, "not to burn all our bridges." -By Walter Isaacson. Reported by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow and Johanna McGeary/Washington with other bureaus
...Walter Isaacson...