In the mid 1940s, the committee on un-american activities was looking for members of the communist party in hollywood. Some talked. Some did not. Those who refused to co-operate were blocked from working in hollywood for many years. As we know, senator mccarthy himself was censured in the mid 1950s (for the second time) and the huac committee was losing its power. Here, deniro is "merrill", a liberal minded director, but doesn't want any part of the huac hearings. Which was changed from the original author's screenplay. Reading the trivia items will help one understand this film better. There are so many scenes of merrill spending time with his son. We get it... he's a good father. Most of the film is leading up to the date of the hearing. I really don't think baxter would have asked permission to name merrill if he were questioned... pretty unrealistic. He might have done it on the spur of the moment, but I don't think anyone could ask a person to their face. Especially someone who wasn't even a communist. Near the start, scorsese spoke so fast, I had to turn on captions to figure out what he was saying. It's okay. De niro had already won both of his oscars. Written and directed by irwin winkler. Won the oscar for rocky. To learn the details, there's plenty of info on joseph mccarthy and the huac in wikipedia dot org.
Review of Guilty by Suspicion
