It has been an amazing Toronto International Film Festival so far. Highlights for me include one of my new favorite science fiction films (ARRIVAL), my favorite film of the fest, Nacho Vigalando’s COLOSSAL, and Ewan McGregor’s directorial debut, AMERICAN PASTORAL. But the most important film I’ve seen by far is Oliver Stone’s SNOWDEN.
FIrst, a bit of background. I have friends and family members who work or have worked for the US State Department, and the State Department has funded some of my activities overseas. I even have a close family member who works for for a government contractor responsible for forms of surveillance. I’ve also worked in the National Laboratory system in the US and have many friends there, some doing classified research. Having said that, I think Edward Snowden is a true American hero — the greatest I’ve seen in my lifetime. I understand the need for security, but I think privacy and the informed consent of the people in a democracy are critical. I believe that we have to make decisions about tradeoffs like these based on evidence, not fear and clandestine politics. That can only happen when citizens know what is being done in their name. Edward Snowden risked his life, relationship, and well-being for these principles.
As such, I’m a bit of a Snowden junkie — I’ve read dozens of articles about his revelations, and the man himself. I follow him and Glenn Greenwald on Twitter, and I love Laura Poitras’ documentary CITIZENFOUR. But when I heard Oliver Stone was making an Edward Snowden film, I had decidedly mixed feelings. On the one hand, Snowden’s story is highly cinematic and important, and demands to be told in a narrative form. This caries orders of magnitude more gravitas than just another blockbuster — a successful film can start a national conversation, and potentially even help stop forms of illegal surveillance. But on the other hand, it is Oliver Stone. While I respect him as a filmmaker, I don’t respect him as someone who can effectively separate truth from wild-assed conspiracy. He has demonstrated repeatedly that he lets his mistrust of government cloud his judgement, causing him to elevate crackpot ideas over authoritative determinations of fact. And let’s face it, the man hasn’t made a great movie in years.
But I’m happy to report, with SNOWDEN, Oliver Stone has far surpassed my expectations. It is my favorite Oliver Stone film by far — it is successful as art, as a compelling and truthful narrative, and I believe it will be successful as a national conversation starter. In retrospect, Stone may have been the perfect man for the job. He’s spent decades honing his craft and navigating the tricky global film funding environment. And in this case the truth went far beyond the imagination of the wildest conspiracy theories. The paranoia was justified. America’s tinfoil hat auteur actually had to reign himself in to tell this one.
There are several keys to the success of SNOWDEN — it is thoroughly researched and sticks close to the facts; it paints a humanizing, emotional, picture of Edward Snowden the man; it has an interleaved flashback structure that drives the narrative forward, while effortlessly explaining technical details; and at its core it is driven by an outstanding performance by Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as Snowden himself.
The research that went into SNOWDEN was extensive — the filmmakers licensed two books, and talked to many of the principles of the story, including flying to Moscow nine times to meet with Snowden himself. If you care about some of the backstory, and nitty gritty politics about this, the New York Times Magazine had a fascinating article about this. I’m not sure every detail in the film is as it happened in real life — I’d guess that some of the non-public-figure characters shown inside the CIA and NSA may well be made up, as well as some of the details about the agencies’ inner workings. But if that’s the case, it is perfectly acceptable — you can’t go outing possibly clandestine operations and people just to tell a better story. The important thing here is that the huge revelations are presented truthfully, and the details of Snowden’s life are factually correct where it counts, and emotionally true in broad strokes.
I’ve seen articles focusing on Snowden’s life, but I didn’t know an incredible amount about his relationship. Here his girlfriend Lindsay Mills (Shailene Woodley) is a major character, and their relationship plays strongly in the film. Like so many technical people (myself included), Snowden would prefer that stories focus on the facts of the case, not the person revealing them. But in this case, showing him to be a loving, thoughtful, and conscientious man is a critical element of humanizing and redeeming him as a person. This has to be done, since so many have gone to ridiculous lengths to attempt character assassination.
The structure of SNOWDEN it what really makes the film work as a narrative and not just an assemblage of facts or a political screed. It begins with the meeting between Poitras, Greenwald and Snowden in Hong Kong, as detailed in CITIZENFOUR, but then flashes back to Snowden’s meeting of Mills. It then intercuts between the two timelines, escalating the tension between the news reveal of the spying and the relationship and career drama. In the Hong Kong timeline, Snowden filling in the journalists does double duty of explaining technical details to the audience. Meanwhile, the history is shown dramatically, as Snowden and Mills traipse around the globe, while he goes deeper down the rabbit hole of the US intelligence community. It all works together to push the story forward, and keep the audience engaged. That’s no small feat for a story that has received as much public attention as this one. The structure of the film is no doubt thanks to screenwriter Kieran Fitzgerald, who also deserves kudos for distilling difficult to explain technical details without dumbing them down.
The film would not have worked at all without a strong performance at its core. I like Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as an actor, but I was a little upset when he was cast. Alexander Skarsgard has such an uncanny resemblance to Edward Snowden, that he was my first choice. But I’ve changed my mind. Gordon-Leavitt nails the voice and mannerisms of Snowden to such a degree, that when the film cuts to the real Snowden at the end, the result is nearly seamless. I hope Joseph Gordon-Leavitt gets nominated for an Academy Award here — he deserves it.
Finally, the biggest surprise of SNOWDEN is the outstanding direction of Oliver Stone. He’s taken care to deliver a story that doesn’t dumb down complex realities. The film never lapses into a political insanity— instead it authentically presents the balanced voice of its main character. And yet it pack the emotional wallop necessary to kick the audience out of their complacency. This is all a delicate juggling act, but Stone has pulled it off better than I thought possible.
Go see SNOWDEN. I can’t imagine a more important film this year.
