Thanks for the comments.
Screenshots most welcome. cryptome[at]earthlink.net or pointers.
Greenwald's mercenary greed is why only 97% of Snowden docs
have been released. His and cohorts criminal behavior puts citizens
in harms way to protect the natsec apparatus including natsec media.
At 02:58 PM 10/24/2014, you 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, "itâs 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
âCitizenfourâ 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
