by Bruce E. Parry
I saw The Fifth Estate the other day because I consider Julian Assange a hero for creating WikiLeaks, exposing the secrets that our government is keeping and for generally fighting for an open and transparent society. The movie is a docu-drama. It contains a lot of actual footage of events, but the characters are played by actors and the story unfolds through a script. As such, it is part of a growing genre that will basically—if left unchallenged—present as factual our history for the children of today and future generations.
As the Julian Assange character says at the very end of the film, “No one can tell you the truth. They only tell you the truth from their perspective. If you want the truth, you have to go out and find it.” (I paraphrase). And therein lies the problem I have with the film. While it is never made explicit, the film is told from Daniel Berg’s point of view. He was the assistant (albeit a very integral part of the operation for some time) who broke with Assange and—according to the film—actually tried to shut down the WikiLeaks site. Berg wrote a book on the subject in 2011 and its seems to me it was a major source for the film.
As a film, I thought it very entertaining. There is a lot of character development and interaction. In fact it is a psychological thriller as much as anything else. It goes into detail about the relationship between Berg and Assange and between Berg and his girlfriend, Brigitta. The taut interaction is, in itself, a tale of complexity and nuance. Much of the technical aspect is treated with film analogy. For instance, the crashing of the site is shown in the film as a burned out wasteland. This technique can be both distracting and clarifying. There is little doubt what is meant, but it certainly comes across as jarring in comparison to other parts of the film.
The key to the film is the treatment of Assange. Assange comes across as driven, unfeeling, a survivor of complex childhood abuse and nearly sociopathic. I, of course, have no idea whether that is an accurate assessment of him or not. But, even assuming it is, he is also the one who put together WikiLeaks and kept it going. He is the one, in the final analysis, that released the documents unedited so the entire world could see behind the curtain of the governments of the major powers of the world, particularly that of the U.S. It was Assange, not Berg, who was able to stay the course and do what needed to be done. The movie presents Assange as having gone “too far” and Berg as being more balanced. I have no doubt Berg may be more balanced, but he wasn’t the heroic force behind WikiLeaks, no matter how much work he put in. Assange was and is.
My experience is that there are a lot of real leaders, people who emerge by the brilliance of their original ideas who are really eccentric. Steve Jobs appears to have been one, to pick a recent example. Assange appears to be one as well. His personal quirks are at the root of both his creativity—that he would dream up the idea in the first place—and the commitment that makes him maniacal about carrying out his mission. Assange says in the film that there are lots of ideas, it is commitment people lack to carry them out. Assange has that commitment, and if it is over the top, so are both the mission he is committed to and the forces arrayed against him.
The film rightly points out that the real danger to the world is the real violence—the real murder—committed by these governments that is exposed by the documents; it is not the hypothetical danger created by the release of the documents. In the film, Berg doesn’t seem to be able to handle that fact. He isn’t able to carry the mission through to its logical conclusion.
The film does not present that perspective and that is my major critique of it. Its strength is that if one is looking for that perspective, you can pry it from what the film does present. I think that everyone interested in and committed to real social change will find the film fascinating and well worth seeing. I did.
Copyright Bruce E. Parry
I saw The Fifth Estate the other day because I consider Julian Assange a hero for creating WikiLeaks, exposing the secrets that our government is keeping and for generally fighting for an open and transparent society. The movie is a docu-drama. It contains a lot of actual footage of events, but the characters are played by actors and the story unfolds through a script. As such, it is part of a growing genre that will basically—if left unchallenged—present as factual our history for the children of today and future generations.
As the Julian Assange character says at the very end of the film, “No one can tell you the truth. They only tell you the truth from their perspective. If you want the truth, you have to go out and find it.” (I paraphrase). And therein lies the problem I have with the film. While it is never made explicit, the film is told from Daniel Berg’s point of view. He was the assistant (albeit a very integral part of the operation for some time) who broke with Assange and—according to the film—actually tried to shut down the WikiLeaks site. Berg wrote a book on the subject in 2011 and its seems to me it was a major source for the film.
As a film, I thought it very entertaining. There is a lot of character development and interaction. In fact it is a psychological thriller as much as anything else. It goes into detail about the relationship between Berg and Assange and between Berg and his girlfriend, Brigitta. The taut interaction is, in itself, a tale of complexity and nuance. Much of the technical aspect is treated with film analogy. For instance, the crashing of the site is shown in the film as a burned out wasteland. This technique can be both distracting and clarifying. There is little doubt what is meant, but it certainly comes across as jarring in comparison to other parts of the film.
The key to the film is the treatment of Assange. Assange comes across as driven, unfeeling, a survivor of complex childhood abuse and nearly sociopathic. I, of course, have no idea whether that is an accurate assessment of him or not. But, even assuming it is, he is also the one who put together WikiLeaks and kept it going. He is the one, in the final analysis, that released the documents unedited so the entire world could see behind the curtain of the governments of the major powers of the world, particularly that of the U.S. It was Assange, not Berg, who was able to stay the course and do what needed to be done. The movie presents Assange as having gone “too far” and Berg as being more balanced. I have no doubt Berg may be more balanced, but he wasn’t the heroic force behind WikiLeaks, no matter how much work he put in. Assange was and is.
My experience is that there are a lot of real leaders, people who emerge by the brilliance of their original ideas who are really eccentric. Steve Jobs appears to have been one, to pick a recent example. Assange appears to be one as well. His personal quirks are at the root of both his creativity—that he would dream up the idea in the first place—and the commitment that makes him maniacal about carrying out his mission. Assange says in the film that there are lots of ideas, it is commitment people lack to carry them out. Assange has that commitment, and if it is over the top, so are both the mission he is committed to and the forces arrayed against him.
The film rightly points out that the real danger to the world is the real violence—the real murder—committed by these governments that is exposed by the documents; it is not the hypothetical danger created by the release of the documents. In the film, Berg doesn’t seem to be able to handle that fact. He isn’t able to carry the mission through to its logical conclusion.
The film does not present that perspective and that is my major critique of it. Its strength is that if one is looking for that perspective, you can pry it from what the film does present. I think that everyone interested in and committed to real social change will find the film fascinating and well worth seeing. I did.
Copyright Bruce E. Parry
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