“The Tragedy of Martha is That Her Story Had Been Hijacked So Thoroughly by the White Men Around Her”: Anne Alvergue and Debra McClutchy on The Martha Mitchell Effect

Per Wikipedia, “The Martha Mitchell effect refers to the process by which a psychiatrist, psychologist, mental health clinician, or other medical professional labels a patient’s accurate perception of real events as delusional, resulting in misdiagnosis.” Per Sundance, Full Frame, Hot Docs, and ultimately Netflix, The Martha Mitchell Effect is one must-see doc. Running at just under a brisk 40 minutes, Anne Alvergue and Debra McClutchy’s all-archival short – which recently screened at the virtual Full Frame in the NEW DOCS section and is set to play in the Persister Shorts: Mother’s Day program at the hybrid Hot Docs – spotlights the titular figure, once only known to the public as the outspoken (read “out of bounds” when it came to the women of her day) wife of President Nixon’s attorney general (read criminally convicted henchman). The Arkansas-born, paparazzi-loving socialite was also a heck of a brave soul, whose inability to ignore her moral compass may have brought down the entire Nixon administration. (At least Tricky Dick thought so. Then again his many failed efforts to silence her – including drugging and kidnapping – may have played a role in that vitriol.) Her rectitude did, however, most assuredly bring down Martha Mitchell herself. It’s a tragic tale made all the more poignant by the filmmakers’ deft mixing of Mitchell’s many controlled interviews and television appearances with her off-the-cuff phone calls. (The UPI’s Helen Thomas was both a trusted confidant Mitchell could dial up at all hours and one of the few journalists to actually take her seriously.) With a face that belied an emotional truth deeper than words, Mitchell was equal parts media savvy and heartbreakingly honest. Someone whose trauma had always been hiding in plain painful sight. Fortunately for history, we now have a doc-making duo that bothered to look. The Martha Mitchell Effect debuts online April 28 at Hot Docs (geo-blocked to Canada, unfortunately) before heading to Netflix.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.