History on the Run: The Media and the '79 Election
1979 · 56m · Canada
Directed by Peter Raymont
Genres: documentary, historical
Tones: contemplative, provocative
Journalists covering Canada's May 1979 federal election are observed over three weeks as politicians try to shape media coverage.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A procedural about media gatekeeping during an election sounds like the worst kind of civics-class doc, but Raymont's actually interested in the *friction* — how journalists negotiate power in real time, not retrospectively. Still, it's a film that trusts its subject maybe too much.
Raymont positions this squarely in the Direct Cinema tradition while asking urgent questions about journalistic autonomy that feel as relevant now as they did in '79; the three-week structure and observed restraint demonstrate classical documentary rigor applied to a genuinely political premise.
The real move here is Raymont's decision to stay *with* the reporters rather than the politicians — a single editorial choice that reframes the entire power dynamic and lets you feel the daily compromise of trying to report honestly under institutional pressure.