Anghus Houvouras asks whether anyone cares about The Fifth Estate….
There was a day and age where breaches of trust perpetrated by Governments believing themselves to be above the law would have felt more like fiction than fact. The kind of stuff you’d find in a Tom Clancy novel or the plot to the latest James Bond adventure.
Recently I came across the trailer for the new film The Fifth Estate, the cinematic adaptation of Julian Assange and the rise of WikiLeaks. It’s a gripping bit of promotion complete with espionage, high drama, and the stark realization that there are horrible things going on around us. Secrets that our Government doesn’t want us to know. And as I watched this trailer with all it’s very relevant themes, only one thought crossed my mind:
No one cares.
That is in no way an indoctrination of Assange, Wikileaks, of the people behind the film. Merely a sobering realization that America has no interest in a movie like The Fifth Estate. The ‘war on terror’ has not been well received at the cineplex. Last year’s Zero Dark Thirty was the first crossover mainstream film chronicling America’s never ending battle against the nebulous terrorist threat. And even that only succeeded because Kathryn Bigelow was smart enough to leave the politics out of the film and shoot it in such a rigid, procedural style that it was completely devoid of emotion.
Before Zero Dark Thirty, there was a seemingly endless stream of movies that attempted to provide perspective on the subject. The box office gutter is lined with movies like Stop-Loss, Lions for Lambs, Rendition, The Hurt Locker, Redacted, Home of the Brave, In the Valley of Elah, Body of Lies, Brothers, Green Zone… None of them making much of an impression. Critics and industry insiders showered Hurt Locker with awards and platitudes, but audiences showed no interest, even after endless nominations and a theatrical re-release.
The message was clear: America doesn’t want to watch a movie about the war on terror. The atrophy actually goes deeper. America doesn’t want to acknowledge the war on terror.
It’s a weird time in America. Bradley Manning, the soldier who gave WikiLeaks the information that propelled them to relevance, just received a sentence of thirty five years in prison just before making a declaration that he would now like to live as a woman. Every day you see a story about citizens being spied on that fails to gain any real traction in the public consciousness. Even the media seems oddly detached. Senior Time Magazine correspondent Mike Grunwald sent out this baffling tweet over the weekend:
If you ever needed a more salient example of just how apathetic America is towards journalists like Assange, you only need to read tweets like this. The fourth estate has declared war on the fifth estate, eagerly waiting for truth seekers like Assange and whistle blowers like Edward Swonden to be executed for their actions. And even when the supposedly objective media exhibits blood lust, it hardly even warrants a mention. It’s tough to try and reconcile the idea that people don’t give a damn about any of it. But they don’t. Ten years into the debacle and the nation has already forgiven the mistakes, forgotten the transgressions, and are all too eager to sweep whatever remains under the rug, no matter how tragic or reprehensible.
No matter how good The Fifth Estate, it doesn’t stand a chance. Why would you expect anyone to buy a ticket for a movie with Benedict Cumberbatch playing Julian Assange when they don’t even have the concern or the attention span to acknowledge the real Julian Assange?
They say truth is stranger than fiction. That feels very much the case here. An apathetic nation unable to wrap their head around the largess of a decade long war on an enemy they don’t understand with names they can’t even muster the enthusiasm to try and pronounce.
The Fifth Estate may be the best film of 2013 that no one sees. Audiences won’t show up. History has proven this subject matter it tantamount to box office poison. It seems a far cry since a movie like All the President’s Men electrified a nation taking a relatively small scandal (comparatively speaking) and turning it into a thrilling nail biter of a drama. In this current bizarro landscape, journalists would have no doubt excused Nixon’s actions and called for Deep Throat’s execution. I can imagine if they had drones back then the parking deck where they met would have been leveled with a MOAB.
I try to avoid politics whenever possible. Simply because there is no joy in it. I’m a film writer who enjoys distraction as much as the next person. But as I watched the trailer for The Fifth Estate, I fought the urge to chuckle the entire time. Not at the content or the performances, but the idea that somebody thought there was an audience for this movie in a country that seems so comfortable in a blissfully ignorant state. You can’t get people to care for free in five minute news segment increments. Will a two hour movie at $10 a ticket fare any better?
There are more people in this country upset over Ben Affleck being cast as Batman than care about the potential for their liberties being subverted by an overzealous government. That’s not a judgement, merely a frustrating observation.
Maybe I’m wrong. I’d like to be. I’d like to think that The Fifth Estate is a movie that would interest people and that those who seek out the truth would be cast as the heroes rather than the villains. I’m not sure if America has that much resolve left.
The Fifth Estate is in theaters October 18th.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon.
