The Fifth Estate--Journo-nerds and historians alike may sit at the edge of their seats for this informative bio-pic, but the commonwealth may find this one to be a bore.
“The Fifth Estate” begins with Assange and Berg speaking via a very 90s-looking closed chat room, its' archaic nature stemming from the need for secrecy and privacy between what some may call the two greatest leaders of the transparency movement to date. Absolute freedom of information is Assange's goal, and the movie does a good job of showing that. In fact, when it comes to delivery of information the movie is a bit of a journalistic gold mine.
Founder Julian Assange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the film, created the site with the intent of releasing unabridged and unedited information. The film is an interpretation of the book “Inside WiiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website,” written by WikiLeaks co-founder Daniel Domscheit-Berg. The film is shot from Domscheit-Berg’s perspective, and at times portrays the man, played by Daniel Bruhl, as being bullied and manipulated by Assange in seemingly exaggerated displays. Not exaggerated in the sense that they could never happen, but the story doesn’t look deep enough into the backgrounds and characters of the two men enough to accurately describe the dynamic between the two.
With almost each on-screen appearance, Assange's character seems to be a slightly exaggerated version of the real thing, and it has everything to do with editing, and how it can show bias.
The story is a slice of life film, but at the same time it wants to condense an enormous amount of time data into the span of a few hours. Again, the movie is loaded with information, but Hollywood’s attempt to bring the verbosely complex relationship between Assange and Berg, their backgrounds and what they meant to one another was more information than the film could give in the time it allotted.
The first thing one must remember upon entering the theatre is that this is Hollywood. The movie is a bore. Seriously, without the quick-witted personality that Cumberbatch actually did do a good job of portraying, this film was like watching Warhol’s “Empire” in its’ entirety.
What Hollywood realized was, that this is a biographic picture. So, a compromise was made to “Hollywood” the acting up a bit, and in exchange Assange would be able to take a moment to defend himself without a filter.
Ultimately, however it is left up to the viewer to decide how they feel about the characters involved personally. What the film did best was detailing the information released by the website WikiLeaks like showing the “Collateral Murder” video which gained popularity after an edited version was released on YouTube in 2010.
The site, which now features editorials and op-ed pieces about the movie, released formally classified documents, like those submitted by Manning, in their purest form, unedited and unabridged, although the film shows Berg to have personally vetted every one by travelling to the supposed sources of the information uploaded to the site and discover if the information could have actually come from the destination.
“The Fifth Estate is an ironically stylized piece chronicling the period of WikiLeaks from its' founding up to its' temporary shutdown after the Pvt. Bradley Manning papers. Is it one of the best films of all time? No, but should it be seen by everyone? It most definitely should. Why? Activist Robin Morgan said, “Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.”
“The Fifth Estate” begins with Assange and Berg speaking via a very 90s-looking closed chat room, its' archaic nature stemming from the need for secrecy and privacy between what some may call the two greatest leaders of the transparency movement to date. Absolute freedom of information is Assange's goal, and the movie does a good job of showing that. In fact, when it comes to delivery of information the movie is a bit of a journalistic gold mine.
Founder Julian Assange, played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the film, created the site with the intent of releasing unabridged and unedited information. The film is an interpretation of the book “Inside WiiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website,” written by WikiLeaks co-founder Daniel Domscheit-Berg. The film is shot from Domscheit-Berg’s perspective, and at times portrays the man, played by Daniel Bruhl, as being bullied and manipulated by Assange in seemingly exaggerated displays. Not exaggerated in the sense that they could never happen, but the story doesn’t look deep enough into the backgrounds and characters of the two men enough to accurately describe the dynamic between the two.
With almost each on-screen appearance, Assange's character seems to be a slightly exaggerated version of the real thing, and it has everything to do with editing, and how it can show bias.
The story is a slice of life film, but at the same time it wants to condense an enormous amount of time data into the span of a few hours. Again, the movie is loaded with information, but Hollywood’s attempt to bring the verbosely complex relationship between Assange and Berg, their backgrounds and what they meant to one another was more information than the film could give in the time it allotted.
The first thing one must remember upon entering the theatre is that this is Hollywood. The movie is a bore. Seriously, without the quick-witted personality that Cumberbatch actually did do a good job of portraying, this film was like watching Warhol’s “Empire” in its’ entirety.
What Hollywood realized was, that this is a biographic picture. So, a compromise was made to “Hollywood” the acting up a bit, and in exchange Assange would be able to take a moment to defend himself without a filter.
Ultimately, however it is left up to the viewer to decide how they feel about the characters involved personally. What the film did best was detailing the information released by the website WikiLeaks like showing the “Collateral Murder” video which gained popularity after an edited version was released on YouTube in 2010.
The site, which now features editorials and op-ed pieces about the movie, released formally classified documents, like those submitted by Manning, in their purest form, unedited and unabridged, although the film shows Berg to have personally vetted every one by travelling to the supposed sources of the information uploaded to the site and discover if the information could have actually come from the destination.
“The Fifth Estate is an ironically stylized piece chronicling the period of WikiLeaks from its' founding up to its' temporary shutdown after the Pvt. Bradley Manning papers. Is it one of the best films of all time? No, but should it be seen by everyone? It most definitely should. Why? Activist Robin Morgan said, “Knowledge is power. Information is power. The secreting or hoarding of knowledge or information may be an act of tyranny camouflaged as humility.”