We go to the movies to be entertained and not necessarily for history lessons. That hasn't stopped writers and filmmakers from making countless films that chronicle historical events since the beginning of the mediums inception. Even D.W. Griffith's
The Birth of a Nation which is credited as one of the first motion pictures and innovating several techniques that shaped modern filmmaking is a story revolving around the Civil War and reconstruction-era America. The majority of the time though there seems reason to bring these stories and settings to the big screen by way of there being an inspirational, harrowing, unbelievable, or simply engaging story that deserves to be told and expressed to the largest audience possible. That something engaging about the story would likely be the key element were you to talk to any writer or filmmaker and it is easy to see how writer Josh Singer who has written for several credible TV shows such as
The West Wing and
Law & Order, and
Lie to Me and director Bill Condon (
Dreamgirls,
Kinsey and yes, the last two
Twilight films) saw the inherent drama and, to use that word again, engaging elements of the story of Julian Assange, the Australian activist who began the website WikiLeaks which publishes secret information that has been submitted to his website as he claims to protect his sources who would otherwise be too afraid to come forward with said information. There is naturally a human element to this story as Assange is an intriguing public figure that has received plenty of press coverage over the past few years as his name and image might very well be more popular or recognizable than the reasons why this is so, but there is also a cultural aspect of Assange's story that addresses the changing of the tide on how the world receives information and this aspect, while I didn't see it coming as a part of the narrative, has a very interesting idea to it that could have been taken advantage of and conveyed in a much more interesting way while the human element is simply left to the performers trying to make the drama function while having nothing solid to work with. They are left to trying to make staring intently at a monitor and typing ferociously as intense as possible rather than backing up and dealing with the actual emotions that come with the weight of what they're typing on their laptops. It isn't so much engaging as it is facts being stated with nothing for us to be moved, shocked, or entertained by.
