Oscar-winning Alex Gibney’s complex and expository film, We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, has opened amid controversy and accusations from Wikileaks themselves. The documentary sets out to detail the story behind the publication of thousands of U.S. government documents, a.k.a. the largest security breach in U.S. history.
In a predictable move, Wikileaks obtained and leaked an annotated copy of the transcript before the film’s release yesterday on Twitter. Their review is bad: The script is rich with “factual errors and speculation,” beginning with the very notion that Wikileaks stole secrets. A post on justice4assange.com claims that the quotation on which the film’s title is based was “made by former CIA/NSA director Michael Hayden in relation to the activities of American government spies, not in relation to Wikileaks.”
Disapproval of the story’s representation has already been an issue for Gibney, who was refused an appearance in the film by a suspicious Julian Assange. On Assange, Gibney said: “He likens himself as the puppet master, the one who’s pulling the strings on the media. I think he took some offense at the idea that I was independent.” After attempting to persuade him into an on-screen interview to no avail, Gibney laughed, “[Assange] mentioned that the market rate for an interview with him was a million dollars. I didn’t inquire what market that was.” The film moved forward using archival footage of Assange, depicting a personality composed from Gibney’s interactions with Assange off-screen.
Gibney nailed it with his last films, offering a brilliant and critical perspective in Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) and Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), so we won’t judge this one without having seen it. The film leaks fully in theatres today.
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Farrah Khaled is an intern at the Toronto Standard. Follow her on twitter at @farkhaly.
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