Documentaries & Biopics To Stream In The New Year: At The Movies With Kasey
I hope that your year is off to a good start. One of my resolutions is to consume more print media, including local papers such as our wonderful Waynedale News, so the Netflix documentary about investigative journalist Seymour Hersh caught my attention.
Cover-Up takes a look at Hersh’s long and eventful career, during which he broke stories about the My Lai Massacre, Watergate, secret bombings in Cambodia, and torture at Abu Ghraib. Off the bat, Hersh seems so salty, but as the documentary unpacks the shocking and tragic stories he reported, it becomes clear that his crusty attitude was hard-earned. The documentary weaves stories of Hersh’s personal life and his development as a reporter with those of his work, finding sources and chasing big cover-ups. Through interviews with other journalists such as Bob Woodward, Jeff Gerth, and Amy Davidson Sorkin, the documentary puts Hersh’s career in the context of how investigative journalism can change the course of history. At times, I wished that the film had pushed more on journalistic ethics and the controversy over using confidential sources, but it goes hard on the role of reporters in holding people and systems of power accountable.
If, like me, you rarely got past the Kennedy Administration in history class because your teachers got caught up on World War II, Cover-Up contains plenty of shocking and important history delivered by the voices of those who initially reported it.
Cover-Up was directed by Mark Obenhaus and Laura Poitras. It runs 117 minutes and is rated R.
If you enjoy Cover-Up, a fitting next movie would be Good Night and Good Luck on Broadway, the filmed version of the play starring George Clooney as the famed reporter Edward R. Murrow in his stand against McCarthyism. The production also stars Mac Brandt, Will Dagger, Glenn Fleshler, Ilana Glazer, and Clark Gregg.
Filmed versions of stage productions can be hard to pull off. If not done well, they remind me of those tapes parents make of school plays, and performances for a theater audience are different than those for the camera. Good Night and Good Luck does sometimes showcase acting that is clearly designed for the in-person audience, but it balances it with the use of video, both archival interviews and the production of stylized news broadcasts.
Clooney brings his characteristic gravitas to the role, reproducing Murrow’s cadence and demeanor without caricature. The ensemble cast creates fun banter and the buzz of a newsroom, especially in scenes anchored by Glazer. For those who can’t make it to the theater, Good Night and Good Luck maintains the feeling of seeing a good play while making it accessible to a broader audience.
Good Night and Good Luck on Broadway was directed by Micah Bickham and David Cromer. It runs 94 minutes.
On HBO Max, The Alabama Solution uses interviews and covert reporting from men incarcerated in Alabama’s prisons to uncover the corruption and abuses of the most dangerous and deadly state prison system in the United States. From the makers of The Jinx, the documentary uses an investigation into the death of Steven Davis at the hands of corrections officers to dig into deeper issues about overcrowding, understaffing, inhumane conditions, and violence in the prisons. Collaborating with incarcerated men, especially those who studied law using prison programming and library books, allows the filmmakers to get information that would not otherwise be available and a fascinating variety of perspectives. The use of contraband cellphone footage is an especially gripping creative choice because it provides so much visual content of life inside the prison while also highlighting the tension between the lack of resources in the prisons and the desire for control of the narrative by prison administration.
The Alabama Solution is at times shocking, tragic, and infuriating, but the voices of the incarcerated men add much-needed humanity to the story. The film is an incredible work of collaboration and investigative journalism from Jarecki and Kaufman.
The Alabama Solution was written and directed by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman. It runs 117 minutes and is rated TV-MA.
If you are interested in something less heady, Netflix also has Murder in Monaco, a salacious true crime doc that looks into the 1999 death of billionaire Edmond Safra, who perished in a fire at his 10,000 square-foot penthouse in Monaco, a place renowned for its security. One of Safra’s nurses, Ted Maher, was convicted of murdering his boss, but has long maintained his innocence.
Using interviews with Maher, Lady Colin Campbell, and others associated with the case, Murder in Monaco lays out the differing accounts of what happened in the Safra penthouse and then turns them upside down. Although this documentary uses flashy production techniques, including teasing montages and exciting music, it is rife with unreliable narrators. As much fun as it was to watch, by the end of the film, I did not feel like I had a good sense of who was telling the truth or even what really happened to the Safras.
Murder in Monaco was directed by Hodges Usry and written by Sam Hobkinson. It runs 90 minutes and is rated TV-MA.
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