Feature films are the most powerful and insidious shapers of public perception, because
they fly under the radar of conscious exclusion.
Julian
Assange
Journalists refer to the
media as “the fourth estate,” since they presumably serve as a
check on the integrity of the three branches of government—executive,
legislative and judicial. But it is apparent—as shown by the
propaganda buildup to the invasion of Iraq—that the corporate media
serve primarily as “stenographers to power,” passing along
without evaluation false statements from politicians and passively
maintaining state censorship. Julian Assange proposed that, since
the “fourth estate” wasn't doing its job, a “fifth estate”
was needed to expose important information withheld from the public
by governmental and corporate censorship.
I went to this film with low
expectations. It is based on two books hostile to Assange. Inside Wiki-Leaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous
Website, by Daniel
Domscheit-Berg, is the memoirs of the former Wiki-Leaks volunteer who
became Assange's second-in-command, and whose falling out with
Assange supplies the personal drama of the film. Wiki-Leaks:
Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy,
is by David Leigh and Luke Harding, two Guardian reporters
whose newspaper prospered when it released information obtained by
Wiki-Leaks, but who later broke with him for the same reason
as Domscheit-Berg. They contend that Assange was reckless in
releasing unredacted versions of documents leaked by Bradley (now
Chelsea) Manning. With these two books lined up against him, it is
not surprising that Assange assumed the worst and refused to
cooperate with actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who portrays him in the
film. (The quote above is from Assange's letter to Cumberbatch,
which deserves to be read in its entirety.) The fact that the film
was produced by Dreamworks, a division of the Disney corporation, was
hardly reassuring.
I went into the film with two concerns.
First, I was afraid it would turn into a character assassination of
Julian Assange, which would turn the audience against him and
distract from the substantive issues raised by Wiki-Leaks.
Secondly, when debating whether governments should be allowed to keep vast numbers of classified documents,
including evidence of war crimes, secret from the public, I was
afraid the film would come down firmly on the side of the US
government.
My first concern was not entirely
justified. Assange is portrayed as an eccentric, but his character
is sympathetic in many ways. Benedict Cumberbatch has an uncanny
resemblance to Assange, an accomplished Aussie accent, and brings
real complexity to the role. He deserves an Oscar nomination,
although he probably won't get it. Daniel Bruhl, fresh from his role
as Formula-1 driver Niki Lauda in Rush,
provides stalwart support as the dedicated introvert, Domscheit-Berg. The film is at its best when conveying the excitement
of Wikileaks' early successes in releasing a variety of secrets, such
as the records of the Swiss bank Julius Baer, than embarrassed and
sometimes incriminated corporations and governments.
Cumberbatch presents Assange as so
completely driven by his mission of transparency that he is
insensitive to the feelings of those around him. This is dramatized,
for example, in a painful scene in which he insults Domscheit-Berg's
well-meaning parents when they invite him to dinner. At one point,
Assange diagnoses himself as falling “somewhere along the autism
spectrum,” which seems like a reasonable possibility. The film goes off
the deep end, however, when it speculates about childhood origins of
his behavior. The film rightly ignores recent allegations of sexual misconduct made against Assange.
Assange is shown to be concerned about
the safety of his whistleblowers. In a foreshadowing of the film's
central theme, two Kenyan men whose expose of their
government's corruption was released by Wiki-Leaks are murdered. Assange is extremely
upset despite the fact that the men chose to sign their names to
the document. This dramatic scene sets up an expectation in the
audience that when Wiki-Leaks releases documents, people are going to
be killed. There is some danger that the audience may conflate this
incident with later events.
The central dilemma of the film is the
disagreement between Assange and Domscheit-Berg, The Guardian, and the US government over the costs and
benefits of releasing the Manning files. The government painted
a dire picture of their potential impact, arguing that the lives of American troops and informants working undercover for the US would be
endangered. Assange refers to this as a “canard” that has been
used for over 50 years to justify government secrecy. He counters by
saying that the release of the documents could do significant good. They
reveal evidence of US war crimes, such as the infamous “Collateral
Murder” video showing the aerial killing of innocent civilians in
Iraq, and the “Afghan War Logs,” documenting the extent of
civilian deaths in that country. Assange argues that these
revelations might ultimately save lives, since governments might
hesitiate to behave so heinously if they knew such incidents might
become public knowledge.
To the film's credit, both sides are
given opportunities to state their case. (The government is
represented by Laura Linney and Stanley Tucci as two anonymous CIA or
State Department operatives.) The central question then becomes:
Are the arguments presented fairly, or is the playing field tilted to
favor one side? This is a subjective judgment, no doubt influenced
by my general agreement with Assange. I think the script subtly favors the
government position.
The film dramatizes the danger to US
agents by creating the composite character of a Libyan spy working
undercover to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. Of all US undercover operations
around the world, this is one that might have had the most public approval. Both the character and his American handler (Linney)
are presented sympathetically. Early in the film, he is offered a
chance to come to America, but he chooses to remain in Tripoli, since
it is his home. Later in the film, when it's known that Assange may
release the documents, he and his family are forced to leave Libya on
short notice. This leads to a mini-thriller as they pass through a
border checkpoint.
The people Assange
claims might be helped by the release of the Manning files are largely abstract subjects of dialogue. The "Collateral Murder" footage (featured prominently in the official trailer) is the only case in which American wrongdoing is shown. How different would this film have
been if one of its recurrent themes had been a dramatization of the fate
of an Afghan village in which civilians were killed by American
bombing?
It was revealed at Bradley Manning's
trial by retired Gen. Robert Carr, head of the $6.2 million,
125-person Information Release Task Force, that the government was not aware of any American or foreign national who had been harmed by
the release of the documents. (There was some talk of an Afghan man
who was killed, but he was not mentioned in the Manning files.) The film
makes this point, but it is presented as a claim made by Assange
rather than an admission by the government, which may lead the
audience to discount it.
I think the film
subtly lowers the bar for what potential consequences might justify
censorship. Unable to present evidence of anyone having been killed
or injured, the filmmakers seem to argue that Wiki-Leaks should not have
published the papers if there was a chance that someone, such as a semi-fictitious Libyan informant, might be seriously inconvenienced by their
release.
What
counts as a “harm” serious enough to send Manning—and
potentially, Assange—to jail for decades for releasing classified
documents? Why should they be sent to jail, while the perpetrators of
the rampant torture and assassination they revealed go free? The
Fifth Estate raises these
questions, but in order to give an informed answer, you have to seek out more than is revealed in this film.
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