MOVIE
BIASES: Hmm. Jayson Blair’s inspiration…
MAJOR PLAYERS: Hayden Christensen (Star Wars: Attack of the
Clones), Peter Sarsgaard (Boys Don’t Cry), and writer/director
Billy Ray (screenplay, Hart’s War).
Ever
want to be a journalist? Yeah, neither did I. For career day
in fifth grade, instead of tailing the author-mother of a
fellow student, I was sent on a tour of the Seattle Times
– and I was PISSED. But after seeing “Shattered
Glass,” a take on the 1998 real-life downfall of New
Republic journalist/fabulist Stephen Glass, I truly have respect
for the rigors of the fact-telling profession. With journalism
as the backdrop for a good old-fashioned treatise on honesty,
integrity, professionalism, and the art of charm via pathological
lying, the truth behind “Glass” is anything but
shattered – it is startlingly crystal clear.
Youngest associate editor at the New Republic, one of the
snootiest political magazines in the country, 24 year-old
Stephen Glass (Christensen) is a white hot up-and-coming star.
What makes him burn brightest is his insatiable knack for
finding the outrageous story and telling it in a way that’s
even more entertaining. As the self-effacing, eager-to-please
Glass slides through life on sheer ambitious talent couched
in innocuous charm, his favorite superior (Hank Azaria) is
replaced by a colleague as editor, Chuck Lane (Sarsgaard).
Whereas Glass was once able to glibly cover up his mistakes
with an earnest “Are you mad at me?” his very
journalistic professionalism comes into question as the straight
arrow Lane slowly builds to a conclusion that could cost Stephen
his career and the vaunted reputation of the New Republic.
Even if you didn’t know the widely publicized facts
behind the Stephen Glass infamy (he fabricated parts of 27
of his 41 pieces for the magazine), watching “Shattered
Glass” is like watching a train wreck in “Matrix”
bullet time. The script, written by longtime scribe but first
time director Billy Ray, has a wildly effective framing device
of Glass talking to what appears to be a journalism class
at his old high school on – what else – journalistic
ethics as he flashbacks into his infamous spring of 1998 at
the New Republic. As with everything associated with Glass,
the ending proves this to be the greatest fiction of all.
Ray wisely employs a fairly straightforward directing style,
allowing the facts (and the fictions) to speak for themselves
with one of Glass’ stories getting picked to pieces
by Forbes journalists (a nice dash of Rosario Dawson and Steve
Zahn) to a Mychael Danna minimalist piano score.
And it is so eminently watchable. At its core is Hayden Christensen,
in a role so revelatory, it
completely erases his wooden dialogue in “Attack of
the Clones” from your memory. Combining an endearing,
constant sense of self-apology, a seductive, elephantlike
attention to detail (he alphabetizes his beers for crying
out loud), and pure conviction in the truth of his lies, Christensen’s
Glass is the definition of pathological. He simply cannot
help himself from trying to make everyone around him like
him and be entertained, to the point his only defining characteristic
is the belief in his lies (Is he in law school? Is he gay?
Is he a Canadian actor playing an American???). When watching
him mentor other reporters through their pieces and on journalistic
ethics, it’s not just watching the blind lead the blind;
it’s like watching the world’s best magician crying
to be found out on the world’s biggest stage. Sarsgaard’s
Lane is the perfectly not-too-righteous foil for Glass, wanting
desperately to believe the star reporter in order to stave
off an office insurrection, but not nearly enough to betray
his own journalistic ethics (“I want you to tell me
the truth. Can you do that, Stephen?”). If journalism
truly is the “art of capturing human behavior”
as Glass claims it to be, then watching Lane read off a list
of tainted pieces to a vaguely distant Glass is the equivalent
of a journalistic firing squad.
As a writer, this movie left me aghast. As a perennial seeker
of truth, this movie left me breathtaken. You don’t
feel sorry for him, you don’t hate him. You just wonder
in amazement at how far some people (with powder blue collared
shirts and thin, dorky glasses) can coast through life expecting
“sorry” and “It’s probably nothing”
to cure all and satisfy their inner-Libras (we’re pleasers,
I’m told). When I first heard about Jayson Blair, besides
being horrified for the way it made the race look, I was shocked
that so many smart people could have been made to look so
stupid. Now, I know how. Didn’t Stephen Glass get his
own tour of the Seattle Times in fifth grade?!?
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