Shattered Glass: Made-up facts!

Truth is sacrosanct in journalism. It is the thread that holds the very fabric of the journalistic world together. But what happens when the facts of a published story, the revered 5 Ws (who, what, when, where, why) and 1 H (how), are just fictional? The whole journalistic medium comes apart at the seams.

Director: Billy Ray

Film Clip

Shattered Glass is a film that captures the unravelling of this scenario by detailing the life of a reporter who concocts tall tales in the guise of truth. Based on the real life of the infamous print journalist Stephen Glass, the movie is a lesson in media ethics and a cautionary story for media professionals. 

Directed by Billy Ray, the movie plays out like a suspenseful thriller. The movie is set in the late 90s, at a time when Stephen Glass, played by Hayden Christensen, was at the height of his career. This young, ambitious and affable reporter was a rising star at The New Republic, a magazine known for its strong political analysis and commentary. The movie depicts how Glass circumvented the editorial process of fact-checking and source verification. The editor at the magazine, played by Peter Sarsgaard exposes Glass’ tenuous web of lies. We watch as Glass’ meteoric rise to fame comes crashing down in a devastating fall from grace.

The story of Stephen Glass is not an isolated one. In 2003, Jayson Blair from the New York Times was also convicted in a similar scandal for manufacturing stories. Renowned Indian journalists have also been accused of breeching journalistic ethics. Numerous reporters have been accused of plagiarism, having a close mutually-beneficial nexus to politicians and corporates, and partaking in paid news.

Journalists have a responsibility to uphold the integrity of their position as the fourth estate. But the abuse of this power, as evidenced in the film, has catastrophic consequences.

- Parinitha Shinde

12 Years A Slave: Value of freedom

Well, as expected 12 Years A Slave has won the best film award at Oscars 2014. Not that the other films were not competitive enough. What made the difference perhaps was the human touch of the film and the way the director has handled the narration, without allowing the subject to become a heightened melodrama, despite the story lending itself to it.

 

Director: Steve McQueen

Film Clip

The film is apparently based on a real life story and loosely hewed on the book of the same title. The events occur in the mid-19^th century when slavery was considered normal in the US. However, the protagonist in the story had to face a double whammy as he was kidnapped and forcefully made a slave and he remained in that state for 12 years. More than the physical pain, it is the humiliation and sheer helplessness he went through which make the audience resonate sympathetically with the theme. That is when one realises how precious freedom is and how devastating it is when freedom is robbed from people who are born free and who believe that they are born ‘in the image and likeness of God’.

There have been several films that deal with the theme of slavery. In fact this film reminds of another classical Amistad which was a poignant tale of slave trade and had a much bigger canvas. (Incidentally, the  protagonist Chiwetel Ejiofor had played a role in Amistad). However, 12 Years A Slave stands out for its straight forwardness sans glamour and for not making it a spectacle of brutality that slavery was, even while conveying the message powerfully.

Full marks to director Steve McQueen. Lupita Nyong'o rightly  deserved the award for the Best Actress in a supporting role. 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

The Accused: Victim is the accused!

The recent verdict of death sentence by the Fast Track court in Delhi slapped on the rapists brings back memories of this 1988 film The Accused. The situation seems somewhat similar, except that the real incident that inspired this film had a victim who survived the gang rape and fought till the end in the court and ensure that the rapists got their punishment, unlike the Delhi gang rape victim who succumbed to her gruesome injuries.

Director: Jonathan Kaplan

Film Clip

The film brings forth many issues related to legal system that handles rape cases. It is not easy at all for a rape victim to narrate her horror stories in the court, especially when the other party (the accused) is out to insensitively destroy her. That is exactly what happens to Sarah Tobias when the lawyer of the accused asks her whether ‘she is sure who were witnessing her being raped at a time when there was such a big noise in the bar’. As though that was highly important when the issue at hand was violence against a hapless victim!

The legal system all over the world has a history of being very insensitive to the victims. And India is no exception. And when the perpetrators of crime are powerful and influential, they can even buy the judges and what you have is just a travesty of justice. But for public outcry, even the Delhi rape case too would have turned out to be just another ‘incident’. While there are discussions whether death sentence to rapists would bring down the rate of crime in the country, the protagonist of the film Sarah Tobias sets the standards for the victims and for all those who care not to give up fighting till the end for justice. Jodie Foster as the rape victim does justice to her character. The title The Accused is indeed a misnomer as it actually refers to the victim who is made to look like an accused.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: Cruelty and irony of war!

The boy in the striped pyjamas (2008) is a compelling and painful tale of the horrors of world war II. The unique feature of this film is that it tells the brutality of the war without actually showing it in as many images. The whole film is narrated through the eyes of an 8-year old Bruno (Asa Butterfield), son of a German Nazi soldier. Even before Bruno understands what the war is all about and why Jews are not ‘People’ as his father tries to tell him, he is consumed, ironically, by its cruelty.

Director: Mark Hermon

Film Clip

The film is based on a famous novel of the same name written by the Irish novelist John Boyne. The film is directed by Mark Herman.

The film raises many questions about war. In fact, the most important aspect that the film tries to send across is that war originates and is fought first in the mind. What we see outside is just the expression of the brutalities caused by the mind for no gain. Even as six million Jews were killed in the war (the film has a reminiscence of it), the Nazis tried to convince people that the Jews had to be killed as they were subhuman and a threat to the greater nationhood of Germany. Bruno, the protagonist, however, finds it extremely difficult to fathom this ‘reality’ and hence becomes an ironic victim of sorts of the same war.

The film has been narrated with a touch masterly craftsmanship with brilliant performances by the actors, especially Asa Butterfield as Bruno and Jack Scanlon who acts as the little Jew, Shmuel. The friendship that these two build up in their brief period of meeting, makes one sit back and reflect whether breaking barriers after all is such a big difficulty at all! 

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Patch Adams: Healing more important than cure

This may be an old comedy, but its relevance is timeless. The message this film sends across is that love, laughter and affection can go a long distance in healing a person more than the usual doses of medicine. Well, there is a great difference between ‘cure’ and ‘healing’. A physical disease may be cured by the medicines prescribed by the physician. However, there is no guarantee that the person is healed. Healing has to do with the whole person and not just his or her physical ailment. Even a person with multiple physical ailments can be a completely healed person when he/she is completely free from within.

Director: Tom Shadyac

Film Clip

That is where love, laughter and affection come into play. Here is Hunter Adams, nicknamed Patch Adams (Robin Williams) who learns a great lesson that the only way to forget one’s problems is to get involved in the lives of others and bring them happiness and joy. Hence, he makes a life decision to become a doctor so that he can come closer to those suffering and in pain and ‘heal’ them. Of course, the traditionalists at the medical college and hospital where he is studying have a problem. However, Adams pursues his goal with a single-minded devotion to bring about and spread healing.

The film, no doubt, stirs us to think about the present-day medication system which focuses largely on the disease rather than the person. For most doctors, the patient is just another ‘case’ and no more a person. Such treatment can only make the person sicker than bring about healing. The ‘great lesson’ medical students learn in hospitals that they must be detached from their patients and treat them just as cases with diseases, is unfortunate. This way you create doctors who are robots and not human beings.

Great film! Well, Munna Bai MBBS has been inspired by this film.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ

Life of Pi: Living with beast!

What could be the reason that these days there are increasing number of 3D films coming out? Well, one might say, it is the in-thing - as technology evolves, films are supposed to evolve with them as well. Whether a story requires 3D or not, the craze these days seems to be to make 3D films. One of the reasons for a such trend could be to fight piracy that has become a universal phenomenon. With 3D, film-makers succeed in drawing crowds to the theatres. Of course, there are films where the theme of the film would look very dry without the 3D effect. Avatar was one such film and now Life of Pi. In fact, it is this 3D effect that carries the film forward.

Director: Ang Lee

Film Clip

The story of the film Life of Pi may not have anything spectacular about it. It is about how a human being lives with the beast for a while, fighting all odds. And one day when he thinks that he has made friends with the beast, it just disappears without even paying him one last obeisance. How cruel! Well, some might say that was very ungrateful of the tiger to just leave Pi without even a last glance. But the tiger did the best possible thing. He knew he could not live close to human beings longer, for if it did one day it might devour the same human being. The tiger did not want to stoop to that level perhaps! So it did the most charitable thing under the circumstances by just walking away.

Tiger’s walking away towards the fag end of the story indeed looks not just sensible and charitable; it has a touch of detachment in it. It could not be attached to Pi any longer.

The film is stunning in its effects. The debut of Suraj Sharma has been a memorable one. Irrfan Khan and Tabu are as usual their natural best. Full marks to Ang Lee.

- Melwyn Pinto SJ