Citizenfour

When Edward Snowden, the now-infamous National Security Agency computer programmer turned whistleblower, decided to leak thousands of classified NSA documents, he wanted to start a conversation about the legality and morality of the American government's surveillance of private citizens. But he did not want the conversation to be all about him, nor to be the only person responsible for vetting the documents and determining what should remain classified for national security purposes and what should become public knowledge. So he chose two people to help him: the journalist and blogger Glenn Greenwald, and the documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras.  In June 2013, Greenwald began publishing stories about Snowden's documents in the British newspaper The Guardian, and since then he has become a sort of public surrogate for Snowden, both through his newspaper articles and in many public and media appearances. We’ve heard a lot from Greenwald, but very little from Poitras, who has been quietly working on a film called Citizenfour.

Regardless of what I think about Edward Snowden, I admire him for choosing a respected journalist and an acclaimed documentarian as his confidants. After all, journalism is the first draft of history, providing an informed and democratic society with immediate, relatively unfiltered facts, the so-called  “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” and “how.” Good documentary features, by contrast, are contemplative and contextualized--they focus more on the “why.”  When Poitras (Flag Wars, The Oath, My Country, My Country) began working on a documentary about government surveillance in the post-9/11 age, her original intent was not to make a film about Snowden; like everyone else in the world, she'd never even heard of him. Her initial subjects were William Binney, the NSA whistleblower who resigned in October 2001 after more than thirty years with the agency, and Greenwald, a constitutional and civil rights litigator working as a columnist and blogger for Salon.com. But once Snowden began sending her encrypted e-mails, under the handle “Citizenfour,” her focus shifted to this once-mysterious, now-controversial figure, and the film at once became more intense, urgent, and high-profile. 

Two things set Citizenfour apart from typical political documentaries: first, the filmmaker’s technique, and second, the almost accidental nature of her involvement in one of the largest news events of the year, or even the decade. In terms of technique, Citizenfour is not a work of journalism that purports to adopt the fair-and balanced approach that's expected of most responsible news reporters. Nor is it a work of cinematic activism or inflammatory propaganda, like the films of Michael Moore and far too many other recent political documentaries. Instead, Citizenfour is a unique blend of cinéma vérité and personal narrative. Poitras has no choice but to include herself as part of the story she’s telling, but she stays so far in the background that we barely sense her presence as the film unfolds. The picture has a linear narrative, the first third of which consists of exposition and background about legal challenges to NSA programs, the Occupy Wall Street movement, Binney’s whistleblowing, and Greenwald’s journalism. But when Snowden makes his entrance, the film shifts into its middle section, the heart of the picture. It’s a distillation of footage shot during the eight days Poitras spent with Snowden in a Hong Kong hotel room, along with Greenwald the Guardian’s defense and intelligence expert Ewen MacAskill. During these calm but intense days, the four confederates sift through Snowden’s documents, determining the best ways to begin making them public. The film’s final act focuses on the world's reaction to Snowden’s leaks, and on the consequences for him and his collaborators.

There’s no question that Poitras's story is vitally important, and that she has done a great service to the current debate over government surveillance by adding several critical and informed perspectives. Her story is a gripping, real-life spy thriller, with a distinctive eyewitness-to-history quality, and a fascinating protagonist. But I came away from the film wishing Poitras had waited longer before completing it. The final act, in which Snowden must flee from Hong Kong to asylum in Russia, has the potential to be the film's most riveting and revealing sequence, but it lacks the context and the drama of the first two thirds. Everything builds to an anti-climax because the information revealed at the end is still classified. It’s exciting to see Greenwald visit Snowden in Russia to share new revelations from another anonymous leaker, but its frustrating that their discussion unfolds via scribbling notes to each other so as to avoid detection by Russian surveillance. We get only the briefest glimpse of these notes, which don’t seem to contain anything more shocking than what we’ve already come to expect.

Of course, Citizenfour’s subject is Snowden, not the specific information he provided. So seeing his reactions to new leaks from an as-yet-unknown whistleblower inspired by his actions is meant to provide a sense of closure to the film. The fact that it doesn’t create a satisfactory conclusion reveals how little we end up learning about Snowden from the film. It’s disappointing that Poitras doesn't impart a deeper understanding of the relatable and unguarded character at the center of her movie. While I don't expect Poitras to paint a total picture of the man in a two-hour film, I wanted more insights into what was going on in his mind during the Hong Kong hotel room debriefing sessions. The film strongly suggests that Snowden didn't expect to live very long after he went public, but now that the information is out and he's still alive, it's unclear what he thinks of his new reality. If he viewed himself as a sacrificial lamb willing to give his life to help protect his fellow citizens’ civil liberties, did something change during those eight days?  Does he feel a renewed will to survive? Has he come to believe he can do even more? What does he think about having to live in Russia indefinitely, and what might it take to get him back to the US? The film leaves these questions unanswered. 

In the end, Citizenfour is not a definitive explanation or contextualization of the NSA revelations or the international debate they ignited, but it is an extremely valuable contribution to our understanding of this vital issue. By personalizing the man behind the leaks, and exploring his history and motivation, Poitras is actually able to make the overriding story less about him. The question of whether Snowden should be viewed as a traitor or a patriot becomes practically irrelevant while watching Citizenfour. The film could return the focus of this political conversation to where it should be: our collective responsibility to shape our country’s policies.