I saw a message on the Internet that the real name of the movie is "Truth Matters? 》
After watching the movie, I understood the meaning of this question mark.
Facing the pressure of the state and the conduct of reporters, the protagonist Rachel has only two choices: one is to compromise with the government and the court and reveal who the intelligence agent is, and then the government can prosecute the intelligence agent who leaked state secrets. No problem; the second is to insist not to reveal the identity of the intelligence officer. According to the function of the reporter, the reporter has the responsibility to report the facts and protect the source of the information, but Rachel will face constant pressure from the government, and even ruin her life.
Survival or Principle? This is a problem.
As Rachel said when questioned:
"A man, in order to uphold his principles,
left his family,
in jail,
Then people used his name as a holiday name;
A man left his children to go to war,
Then a monument was erected to him;
Now a woman does the same thing,
But they are regarded as monsters. …”
"But now that we've published the report,
has chosen our way,
Then there is no way back. …”
At the beginning, Rachel adhered to her principles very well. Even if she was detained in the detention center for a year, beaten by the inmates in the same room, and betrayed by her husband, she did not say who the intelligence agent was. But in the end, when the government put pressure on her again, she finally couldn't bear the torture of her body and mind, and she couldn't bear to stay away from her son, so she decided to reveal her identity as an intelligence agent.
Survival, or principle?
Rachel stuck to her principles for a long time and finally chose to survive. In fact, how many people can regard principles as something more important than survival?
Survival, or principle? This problem actually has another manifestation in the movie, that is, in the car full of kindergarten children, two children have a conflict, one of the children complained to the adults, Rachel's son Timmy said: "We can't snitch .", Rachel replied: "But you can't stand the bullying of others." We can see that such a trivial matter seems reasonable, but it is very difficult to expose the intelligence agent. chosen.
The film also addresses a big problem in the journalist industry, that is, the contradiction between the government and the truth of the media, or, in other words, the contradiction between the government and the truth of the news. The task of journalists is to report the truth to the masses regardless of its background or background. However, the government will interfere with the news for various reasons, resulting in the news being untrue, concealed, or biased. The government in the movie, after the reporter exposes a "truth" about the government, will only consider the fact that the leak of the intelligence agent is harmful to national security, and will not care whether the reporter should reveal the truth and protect the information source. Rachel's revelation means that the public knows the truth, but she also won't consider whether it is harmful to national security. The media is weaker than the government, so she ended up being treated unfairly. I think this shows that the relationship between the media and the government is complicated, and the media must take into account the government and many other aspects when releasing information in order to ensure their own "survival". There may be someone who insists on principle, then he must also be prepared to take risks.
In terms of principle, the media should put the truth first; in the face of oppression, the truth may also be abandoned.
In fact, there are a lot of other things to think about in this movie.
For example, should Rachel report this "fact"?
From the reporter's point of view, if you know a very important fact, you should let the public know. But Rachel did not consider how serious the consequences of revealing this fact would be, and did not consider that national security was greater than the facts in the eyes of the government.
Another consequence of this report is to put Erica, the informant closely related to the "facts", into a very dangerous situation, and even directly lead to her death. In the end, the absurd thing is that the informant who disclosed the information to Rachel turned out to be Erica's daughter, who she inadvertently revealed while chatting with Rachel. It is conceivable how painful it would be for her to know that she had killed her mother unintentionally.
In fact, Rachel did this more for her own benefit, namely winning the Pulitzer Prize. The thought of urgent work made her ignore many factors, which caused the tragedy of the two families. If Rachel had taken these factors into account when writing her report, then at least some tragedy could have been avoided.
Also, is what Rachel reports really "truth"?
The movie doesn't say whether it's the truth.
But it can be seen from the movie that it is not reasonable to say that it is the "truth", because Erica is only one of the informants, there are ten informants in total, and only she has come up with this "truth". So this "truth" is not necessarily true, although Rachel got top secret findings from CIA members and confirmed it to a former government official, she was not confirmed by the informant (Rachel tried and failed), and Without confirming whether the informant's investigation is reliable, it is unreliable to rush to get the "truth" result.
I'm not very good at analyzing the plot, editing, and pictures of a movie from a professional point of view. I can only say what I see and think. In my opinion, this is a very good movie that everyone should watch.
above.
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