Oliver Stone has, by most accounts, produced his best movie
in quite a while in Snowden, a biopic of Edward Snowden. Mr. Snowden, of
course, is the whistleblower/document leaker who, in June 2013 released a trove
of NSA (US National Security Agency) documents revealing the American
government’s widespread, secret global and domestic electronic surveillance
programs. Much of this surveillance - which included most of our emails, social
media posts, phone calls, and more - was hitherto unknown, and a good deal of
it was warrantless, probably illegal, and had been falsely denied by government
officials in testimony before the US Congress. The disclosure of the scope and
seemingly unconstrained nature of this electronic spying sent shockwaves
through the body politic.
The story of how
these revelations came about and the drama of Mr. Snowden’s secret, tension-filled
contacts with journalist Glenn Greenwald and documentary filmmaker Laura
Poitras were portrayed in Poitras’ brilliant, engrossing Academy Award winning 2014
documentary, Citizenfour, reviewed
here in November of that year. That film provided the first in depth
public view of this young, bright, committed, highly knowledgeable, and idealistic
young man (he was just thirty when he broke this story). Documentaries rarely
get much traction at the box office however, and, awards and other accolades
notwithstanding, very few moviegoers saw Citizenfour on the big screen.
So, although Snowden’s big reveal got a fair amount of press,
with pundits and commentators freely sharing their (often vituperative)
opinions about the guy, not much actually was known about him. This was true even
for those of us who saw the documentary; in front of Poitras’ camera, Mr.
Snowden divulged little about himself apart from his public interest
justifications for leaking the information. He did not want to be the story.
But who he is and how he came to become our most famous whistleblower IS
important. A current political question, for example, is whether Snowden should
be pardoned or prosecuted for his actions. (He has been charged with theft of
public property and violation of the Espionage Act of 1917.) How we judge him may
well depend on his motivation – was it money? Fame? Patriotism? Who was Edward Snowden, really?
How could such a young guy have gained access to so much confidential and
incendiary information? Did he have help, and if so from who?
Stone’s new movie seeks to answer these questions, to fill
in Snowden’s backstory, to humanize him, and, significantly, to reach a mainstream audience. It has already been seen by far more moviegoers than Citizenfour
- with US box office receipts in just its first ten days that are eight times
greater than Citizenfour’s $2.8 million
total take.
Snowden the movie is not a documentary, but a rich dramatization,
starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Looper, The Walk) as Ed; Shailene
Woodley (The Descendants) as Lindsay Mills, his long-term girlfriend;
Melissa Leo (Frozen River, The Fighter) as Poitras, and Zachary
Quinto (Star Trek series) as Greenwald. The film is structured as a string
of recollections, with the “present” being the sequence featured in Citizenfour when, in June 2013, Ed reveals all to Greenwald, Poitras and journalist Ewan
MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson [Shakespeare In Love, Selma]) in a fraught
Hong Kong hotel room. Snowden’s past life is chronologically revealed in multiple
flashbacks.
Early on, Ed trains as an army ranger, but when this career
is foreclosed by a devastating injury, his doctor advises that “there are other
ways you can serve your country.”
Following this, Ed applies to and is accepted by the CIA in its cyber
war division, acing the entry tests and excelling at electronic security
assignments. As depicted in Snowden, Ed rose pretty rapidly as a whiz
kid expert, eventually leaving The Company to continue his security work on a
consulting basis through private companies. As Ed learns about the extent of
the government’s surveillance capacities
and programs and, over time, how these programs are being used domestically, we
share his incredulity and developing concerns. When he asks questions about the
legitimacy and legality of this stuff, he’s essentially told that security
trumps all other considerations and to just do his job. Rhys Ifans (Notting
Hill, The Amazing Spiderman) does a neat job as Corbin O’Brian, Ed’s
omnipresent, kind-of creepy mentor and the stand-in for undoubtedly many such
authority figures encountered by Snowden during his career. (Literary note:
O’Brien is the name of the treacherous government agent in 1984)
Gordon-Levitt inhabits Snowden’s character credibly, beautifully
and subtly, in a mostly low key performance. He sounds like him, looks like
him, carries himself like him. He is in every scene, and remains not only watchable
but intriguing throughout. This is quite an accomplishment in a story about an
information analyst/computer programmer, a guy who spends most of his time
typing on a keyboard and staring at a monitor. But as the story moves along,
Gordon-Levitt is able to convey the anxiety that envelopes Ed as he comes to
understand that a choice must be made, resolves what he feels he must do, and painfully
realizes what his decision will mean for him personally and for Lindsay. There’s
also a nifty sequence at the end, as the credits begin, showing Ed in his
Moscow apartment, which shifts seamlessly from Gordon-Levitt to the real Ed
Snowden – emphasizing the realism of the previous portrayal.
The story is also gripping and fascinating in its depiction
and explication of the data gathering programs Ed is accessing, how these work,
and why such massive surveillance is so potentially threatening for a free
society. Much credit must be given to the creative minds of the art and visual
effects team for coming up with arresting visual displays to graphically show
us what this stuff is all about and how it works.
The pacing of Snowden is steady and methodical; and
some might even find it a bit slow. Yet, some reviewers have characterized the
move as “galvanizing”, “fascinating”, and thrilling. It is certainly a well made movie. I’d call it intelligent.
Is this picture objective or is it just some propaganda
piece? Well, It’s by Oliver Stone whose films always have a point of view. Stone
clearly admires Edward Snowden for his courage, sees him as highly patriotic,
and believes that his actions were justified and valuable; and there is a
hagiographic tone to the story. But I’d argue that this is well deserved.
Edward Snowden did, in fact, provide a great public service in exposing
government deceit and electronic surveillance practices that many, on both
sides of the political spectrum, believe to be egregious and unlawful. Snowden
tried to do so in a most responsible way, by providing his material to
knowledgeable, responsible journalists - unlike, say, Chelsea Manning, who
simply handed mountains of highly classified and sensitive military and
diplomatic material to Wikileaks, which then posted these documents, largely
un-reviewed and unredacted, onto the internet. In this respect Snowden seems to
me more like Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon papers to the New York
Times, the Washington Post and other papers in 1971, exposing proof of
government mendacity and misinformation relative to the Vietnam war. As to the
question of whether Ed Snowden was aided by or working for Russia (or other hostile
state or entity) as he gathered the documents he eventually released, there is
no suggestion of this in the film (nor has any credible evidence of this charge
ever emerged, notwithstanding insinuations to this effect by unnamed security “sources”
and a couple of right wing congressmen).
I’d encourage you to check out Snowden. Regardless of what
you think of his actions, Edward Snowden is a major figure of our time who has
brought public attention to an important issue for democratic societies. Watch
the film, follow up with some further reading if you are aroused to do so, then
make up your own mind. At a very minimum
you’ll be entertained.
In wide release.
