discussing documentaries, most of the time the public skips shooting techniques and artistic value, and directly enters the themes of the film’s attention and presentation. This is especially true in the Oscar-nominated documentary "Fourth Citizen". Because it almost "lived" Snowden and Prismgate incidents, it brought out "exciting stories" in which small people challenge great power, and it is very easy to trigger audiences to the film. The topic-the boundary between security surveillance and civil liberties-was a lively discussion.
Looking at the plot alone, the "Fourth Citizen" with a small and broad spirit of confrontation is indeed in line with the Hollywood appetite of the left-wing liberal stance. However, its zero screenwriter's presentation method may be accepted by audiences who have been spoiled for many years by the principle of "documentaries also tell stories" and the Oscar-style "good-looking documentaries". From "Dolphin Bay" to "Looking for the Sugar Man" to "Twenty Feet from the Superstar", people have become accustomed to the director's scripting skills at the expense of the original logic of the event to create suspense, and the editing of many award-winning documentaries has become more applicable. The broadcast mechanism of a TV station in which an advertisement is entered in 15 minutes. And with a critical attitude, director Laura Pertress, who is famous for producing many documentaries on US policy on the Middle East, initiated and participated in the documentary project since he first received an e-mail signed by the "Fourth Citizen", which belonged to 1960. The category of Cinéma Vérité (Cinéma Vérité) that emerged in French West Africa in the ages, that is, the camera is a "participating camera", appears in the form of interviews and affects the interaction between the photographer and the subject.
The movie, which is the real story of Laura Pertress and "Guardian" reporter Glenn Greenward, flew to Hong Kong in June 2013 under the guidance of the anonymous mail of the "Fourth Citizen", where he was in The Mira The hotel met and interviewed the whistleblower Edward Snowden for many days. In accordance with the order of publication insisted by the latter, on June 5th, the British "Guardian" dropped the first blockbuster: The National Security Agency (NSA) has a secret project code-named "Prism" that requires telecom giant Verisign Mori Company must turn in the call records of millions of users every day. On June 6, the US "Washington Post" relay disclosed: In the past six years, the National Security Agency and the FBI have monitored the e-mail, Secret information such as chat history, videos and photos. In the following months, the intelligence of Brazilian companies was monitored and the private telephone calls of dignitaries in Latin America and EU countries were monitored, which were further uncovered.
As an important participant in this famous history, Laura Patrice puts the largest part of the documentary in the cramped room of a high-rise building in Hong Kong. Snowden, who wears eyes under the lens, is also a technical otaku in line with popular imagination, curled up in bed all day long. , Two fingers scrolled quickly on the keyboard, and from nervous and shy to generous, to two important media and cameras, bravely confessed his identity and the cause of the breaking news behavior. Even in the process of interviews and presentations that have become the strongest plot tension, the director has not forgotten to add some montages that create a sense of crisis but are not easily detectable by the audience. For example, when Snowden is like a magician, covering himself and his laptop with a sheet before entering the password, the camera cuts to the depression angle of the observation room from the outdoor high altitude. Hovering in all corners"; another example, before the "fourth citizen" reveals the true face of Mount Lu, the camera shuttles through the Hong Kong tunnels in the dark, which is a metaphor for a kind of anxiety and excitement, but the anonymity that Lola received In the email, the fourth citizen wrote, "You asked why I chose you. I didn't, you did.", clearly stating that the director is a dissent The fact that molecules have been monitored long ago.
Of course, out of everyone’s worries about terrorist activities, such a documentary and the Prism Gate incident as the background will not receive the overwhelming support of the accusative "Dolphin Bay". To what extent should the country act as a nanny for citizens? Should there be a clear boundary for personal freedom? It has always been a difficult issue to discuss. Snowden in the documentary is like the kind of rebellious teenager who yells "I don't care about you", proclaiming that he "does not want to live in a world where every word and deed is recorded", and he firmly believes that nowadays, "the man who has nothing wrong, Maybe it’s just because you dialed the wrong phone number, you may become the subject of suspicion. Once connected to the Internet, you can be verified by the machine.” But Obama immediately defended after the incident was exposed: “You can’t have a 100% safe situation. At the same time, it has 100% privacy and 100% convenience", and insists that the purpose of this project is only to "counter terrorism and protect the safety of Americans, and it has been authorized by Congress and placed under the supervision of the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."
In fact. After 9.11, the United States did not suffer any serious terrorist attacks except for the Boston Marathon bombing. This is destined to be attributed to the security door set by the Prism project, but internally, it does violate the privacy of citizens without any control. Externally, with the help of social networking tools that everyone depends on, it plays a role in a series of chaos in North Africa and the Middle East. A role in the national interest of the United States. It may even make us, who have suffered from accessing normal information online, think more or less, can those Internet giants in the United States really operate independently without foreign policy interference?
Soon after Snowden’s passport was revoked by the Obama administration and he became stateless, it was revealed that since 2010, the National Security Agency used the collected data to analyze the “social connections of some American citizens and identify their contacts, Personal information such as the location at a specific time, who is traveling with, etc.". In fact, this is similar to the distribution of BMW, Vivo and Coca-Cola advertisements on WeChat Moments. In the era of big data, Americans, Chinese, Europeans, and Middle Easterners have become grasshoppers tied to a data line and become bits. Non-privacy data in the stream that can be easily intercepted and monitored. The contradictions and paradoxes between national security and individual freedom have never been more prominent.
At the end of the documentary, Snowden, who stayed in Russia as a political asylum, was having dinner with his girlfriend in a house on the outskirts of Moscow. The camera was presented with a paparazzily rough effect. After Snowden reunited with "Guardian" reporter Glenn Greenward, he wrote the key words of the conversation on paper and finally tore them to pieces. The director who criticized the country but received Pulitzer and Oscar awards one after another still clearly expressed his critical intent-surveillance is ubiquitous, and individuals have no freedom.
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