Saw this last night - an obvious must-watch for all CPunks. I think it was probably the most important documentary film of all time. As Roger Ebert said, "it’s as if Daniel Ellsberg had a friend with a movie camera who filmed his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers every step of the way. Or if the Watergate burglars had taken along a filmmaker who shot their crimes and the cover-up that followed. Except that the issues “Citizenfour” deals with are, arguably, a thousand times more potent than Vietnam or Watergate." Truly, this is the Snowden story we have been waiting for since 2013. The main revelation of the film, however, is what an incredible boob Glenn Greenwald is. I had some idea of this after seeing him give an extremely disappointing talk earlier this year, but I don't think I quite understood how useless this guy really is. He's constantly asking the wrong questions, displays a technical ineptness (to the point of deliberate ignorance) that obviously hampers the journalism, and at very step shows a very clear desire to keep the document cache to himself for careerist purposes. At one point Ewen MacAskill brings up the idea of there being a Wikileaks-esque document explorer, and Ed says that this would be the best outcome for the documents, and Greenwald quickly dismisses the idea to talk about his publishing schedule. I still have immense respect for him, but I found it very frustrating and quite cringey to watch him treat the whole event in news-cycle terms, while everybody around him is obviously thinking in historical context. For instance, there is a moment when they are prepping for Ed's first on-camera interview and he asks the reporters how much background he should give about himself, and they give different answers. Poitras asks for as much detail as possible, and Greenwald basically says that isn't important, just be short so we get a good soundbite. More importantly, I think the film also misses an opportunity to talk about *power*. This is something Edward himself has addressed, but it isn't really covered in Greenwald's reporting or books, and the only time it's mentioned in the film is when Jacob Appelbaum, while speaking before a European council of some sort, quite astutely comments that surveillance and control are one and the same. I think the film should probably have spent another hour or so investigating, naming and confronting those who profit from that control. Other than a few choice C-SPAN snippets, the enemy is completely faceless, which plays well for the pervading sense paranoia which envelops the film, but also leaves many questions unasked. Perhaps that's left as an exercise for the viewer, but I think the general take-away message from both the reporting and to a slightly lesser extent the film is that any "solution" will be token reform of policy and not dismantlement of power structures. Also, very nice of the Russian government to let Ed have his girlfriend back. I didn't know that had happened, and it gives a rather unexpected happy ending to a film which otherwise made me want to cry desperately. Anyway, I'd be very interested to hear what you lot thought of it. (JY, you should throw a torrent up ASAP! I'm sure people will be screenshotting and analyzing all of the new document shots the film contains.) R
Should've warned about spoilers ;) Interesting to read your critiques of it Rich, looking forward to rereading your email after seeing the film. Colin On October 24, 2014 2:58:22 PM EDT, Rich Jones <rich@openwatch.net> wrote:
Saw this last night - an obvious must-watch for all CPunks. I think it was probably the most important documentary film of all time. As Roger Ebert said, "it’s as if Daniel Ellsberg had a friend with a movie camera who filmed his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers every step of the way. Or if the Watergate burglars had taken along a filmmaker who shot their crimes and the cover-up that followed. Except that the issues “Citizenfour” deals with are, arguably, a thousand times more potent than Vietnam or Watergate." Truly, this is the Snowden story we have been waiting for since 2013.
The main revelation of the film, however, is what an incredible boob Glenn Greenwald is. I had some idea of this after seeing him give an extremely disappointing talk earlier this year, but I don't think I quite understood how useless this guy really is. He's constantly asking the wrong questions, displays a technical ineptness (to the point of deliberate ignorance) that obviously hampers the journalism, and at very step shows a very clear desire to keep the document cache to himself for careerist purposes. At one point Ewen MacAskill brings up the idea of there being a Wikileaks-esque document explorer, and Ed says that this would be the best outcome for the documents, and Greenwald quickly dismisses the idea to talk about his publishing schedule. I still have immense respect for him, but I found it very frustrating and quite cringey to watch him treat the whole event in news-cycle terms, while everybody around him is obviously thinking in historical context. For instance, there is a moment when they are prepping for Ed's first on-camera interview and he asks the reporters how much background he should give about himself, and they give different answers. Poitras asks for as much detail as possible, and Greenwald basically says that isn't important, just be short so we get a good soundbite.
More importantly, I think the film also misses an opportunity to talk about *power*. This is something Edward himself has addressed, but it isn't really covered in Greenwald's reporting or books, and the only time it's mentioned in the film is when Jacob Appelbaum, while speaking before a European council of some sort, quite astutely comments that surveillance and control are one and the same. I think the film should probably have spent another hour or so investigating, naming and confronting those who profit from that control. Other than a few choice C-SPAN snippets, the enemy is completely faceless, which plays well for the pervading sense paranoia which envelops the film, but also leaves many questions unasked. Perhaps that's left as an exercise for the viewer, but I think the general take-away message from both the reporting and to a slightly lesser extent the film is that any "solution" will be token reform of policy and not dismantlement of power structures.
Also, very nice of the Russian government to let Ed have his girlfriend back. I didn't know that had happened, and it gives a rather unexpected happy ending to a film which otherwise made me want to cry desperately.
Anyway, I'd be very interested to hear what you lot thought of it. (JY, you should throw a torrent up ASAP! I'm sure people will be screenshotting and analyzing all of the new document shots the film contains.)
R
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 11:58:22AM -0700, Rich Jones wrote:
At one point Ewen MacAskill brings up the idea of there being a Wikileaks-esque document explorer, and Ed says that this would be the best outcome for the documents, and Greenwald quickly dismisses the idea to talk about his publishing schedule.
I wasn't watching the scene with the intention of being able to recall it fully afterwards, but I remember it rather differently. I recall Ed saying releasing all of the documents Wikileaks-style would an ideal outcome, but because it included information that should be legitimately redacted, he instead wanted to filter the material through journalists who would make that judgement call. Also, Greenwald said he was under a deadline, and I think you'll agree it was in everyone's best interests to start to get the information out as quickly as possible. But, I could be misremembering. -mct
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 5:49 PM, Michael C. Toren <mct@toren.net> wrote:
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 11:58:22AM -0700, Rich Jones wrote:
At one point Ewen MacAskill brings up the idea of there being a Wikileaks-esque document explorer, and Ed says that this would be the best outcome for the documents, and Greenwald quickly dismisses the idea to talk about his publishing schedule.
I wasn't watching the scene with the intention of being able to recall it fully afterwards, but I remember it rather differently. I recall Ed saying releasing all of the documents Wikileaks-style would an ideal outcome, but because it included information that should be legitimately redacted, he instead wanted to filter the material through journalists who would make that judgement call. Also, Greenwald said he was under a deadline, and I think you'll agree it was in everyone's best interests to start to get the information out as quickly as possible.
But, I could be misremembering.
That's my memory as well. I also don't remember any cognitive dissonance between Poitras' and Greenwald's answers to Snowden's question about how much background to go into. The film doesn't portray a lot of daylight between Snowden and Greenwald in what they want to do, really. But that's what you should expect from the movie, I think, given a) how close Poitras and Greenwald are, and b) that the movie is clearly meant to tell Snowden's story and show his motives and impact, not amplify any drama between the people involved. The movie didn't cover, for example, Greenwald misleading the entire world on why David Miranda was detained at the Heathrow airport. Greenwald initially insisted it was simply the gov't applying pressure on Greenwald by harassing his family, lambasting the government as cruel despots, and didn't say anything about Miranda carrying an encrypted hard drive. You can still criticize the government for detaining him how they did, but lying about the reasons, to get an edge on defining how the news cycle talks about it -- that corrodes trust. But, you know, that's fine, that's for others to tell. CITIZENFOUR is about Snowden's decisions, not Greenwald's decisions, and it does a great job at communicating and humanizing them. -- Eric
-mct
-- konklone.com | @konklone <https://twitter.com/konklone>
participants (4)
-
Colin Mahns -
Eric Mill -
Michael C. Toren -
Rich Jones