Well, dear readers, as if the documentary I watched Saturday wasn’t scary enough, I watched some equally scary documentaries yesterday. In fact, it was an all-documentary day – some excellent, some eh, and one horrifying. Starting with the excellent, we had Citizenfour, a documentary about Edward Snowden that is really good, and shocking and also like a real-time thriller since it was filmed as the stories were breaking. Whatever one thinks of Mr. Snowden and what he did, what is most clear after watching this documentary is that Mr. Orwell has once again proved most prescient – Big Brother IS Watching You and don’t you think he isn’t. There is no privacy anymore. None. Those days are over. But the fact that agencies of the government can act with impunity and gather all the records and information they want without people knowing about it (well, thanks to Mr. Snowden, they know about it now), in the guise of security, is appalling. Yes, the security of a nation is important, but that doesn’t give the government the right to arbitrarily have access to all kinds of things and information about people who are not risks. That is just, well, Orwellian. Anyway, it’s a really good movie and I recommend it highly.
The next documentary was entitled The Cheshire Murders, about a 2007 triple murder in Cheshire, Connecticut. Two scumbags do an In Cold Blood on a family, although even worse. That they are guilty is never in question. That they are scumbags is never in question. There are interesting things brought up along the way, involving religion, the police and what they did and didn’t do, and, of course, the death penalty. Right away, they are willing to plead guilty right away and serve a life sentence without possibility of parole. That way, no trial, no millions of dollars, no appeals, no decades going by during which neither will most likely be put to death. But the family wants the trial and so there is a trial – over two years later. Of course they’re found guilty and of course they are sentenced to death and of course there are the usual appeals. But this year, Connecticut outlawed the death penalty and so the two scumbags get what they could have gotten originally – life without parole. But it’s a powerful documentary for those, like me, who weren’t even aware of the crime.
The next documentary wasn’t well done, but was certainly interesting thanks to its feisty old woman at its center. At seventy-six this woman is raped by a young man, who then goes to sleep in her bed. She escapes, goes next door to her son’s house, he gets a baseball bat and waits until the police arrive. They do, they arrest the guy but there is a plea bargain and she doesn’t want that – she wants to go to trial. In the end, they don’t feel there’s enough evidence (yeah, right) and he goes to jail from seven to ten years. She’s very unhappy with the justice system, advocates and gets a tougher law passed so that anyone caught will now have to serve more time. The film is bookended with this guy’s parole hearing. She’s there, she’s feisty, and he’s playacting, and is denied. It’s a perfunctory film in terms of its craft, of which there isn’t any, but I liked the woman.
Then it was onto the most horrifying of the documentaries, entitled Night Will Fall, which is about a movie being made as a bunch of concentration camps were being liberated, the prime purpose of which was to show in excruciating detail what was found, so that no one anywhere could ever deny the holocaust happened. The film is being edited, Alfred Hitchcock is brought on to supervise it and structure it, and in the end it’s decided that because the powers that be think we might need Germany as an ally against Russia the film is put away and never released. In fact, a much shorter film is released, supervised by Billy Wilder, but it doesn’t have the power that this other film would have had. The seventy-year-old film was finished in London, although I wonder if it’s actually been shown anywhere. This film has lots of the footage though and I am here to tell you it is the most horrifying imagery you can ever imagine seeing – in fact, I have never seen anything worse on film. I cannot recommend it unless you have a strong stomach – it’s shocking, disgusting, and reprehensible and proof of the depths to which people will sink in the name of their government.
After all those, I needed something light, so on the Flix of Net they had a new Back to the Future puff piece, a ninety minute retrospective thing that I’m sure is on the new Blu-ray release of the trilogy (the transfers on the new release are the same as the previous release). It was very enjoyable.
Prior to that marathon of viewing, I’d slept eight hours, answered e-mails, worked at the piano, eaten two tuna sandwiches on onion bagels (they were really good), ate some carrots and two apples, and just sat here like so much fish watching all this stuff on the computer, which is not the way I like to watch stuff.
After all that, I decided to make the tuna pasta salad, which I did and that’s now in the refrigerator and will be ready for eating tomorrow and Tuesday.
Today, I’m meeting with my editor and giving him the Welcome to My World hard drive and some notes to use that will help him. After that, I’ll have a bagel to tide me over until I get home later. Then I’ve got a two-hour meeting but happily it’s only about seven minutes from here. Once I get home, I’ll eat tuna pasta salad for my meal o’ the day.
The rest of the week is meetings, meals, choosing songs, and we still need a musical director, then on Friday I’m going to a very famous steak house somewhere for Jenna Lea Rosen’s birthday, Saturday is, of course, Halloween and I’ll be here giving out lots of candies to lots of kiddies, and then on Sunday I’m seeing a play.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, meet with my editor, have a bagel, hopefully pick up some packages, attend a meeting and then eat. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your opinions on all of this Big Brother is Watching you stuff and what Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers do? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, having had my fill of the documentary day.