Gorillas in the Mist

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Gorillas in the Mist (1988), which has similar themes to another film analyzed on this blog, Instinct, begins with Dian Fossey (Sigourney Weaver) arriving late for a lecture on the possible extinction of the Mountain Gorilla in central Africa. Poachers have dwindled the population of the animal, an example of short-sighted human selfishness that endangers the environment for all. The lecturer, Dr. Louis Leakey (Iain Cuthbertson), says interest in these gorillas is important because we should want to know who we are and “what it was that made” us “that way,” since we evolved from these creatures. He believes it is important to see how they adapted to their environment to give us a clue as to how humans did so.

Fossey wrote to Leakey six times asking about working in Africa and shows up here to physically get in touch with the man to plead her case. Since she is a physical therapist who works with handicapped children who don’t like anyone getting near them, she believes she is qualified to use her skills to approach and study the gorillas. She convinces him with her passionate plea that she can take a census of the animals for six months in the wild.

The mission is complicated by civil war where she is going. The residents there tell Leakey that a woman living alone in the jungle must be “mad,” which shows a sexist attitude prevalent for the time. One of the men, Sembagare (John Omirah Miluwi) becomes her tracker. A priest taught him how to speak English. That fact also explains why he wears a St. Christopher’s medal, the patron saint of travelers. The implication here is that maybe a spiritual element is necessary to embark on Fossey’s mission.

She has traveled thirty-five hours, and Leakey wants her to leave immediately for a four-hour drive to her destination. She even must figure out how to drive a four-wheel-drive stick-shift Land Rover immediately. She wants to at least take a shower. He says she doesn’t need one here. This scene shows the immediate need to transition to a much more primitive world. But she says she left her job and fiancée. She even had her appendix removed since a previous adventurer suffered from appendicitis, so she wanted to be preventive. That dedication she argues is enough to have at least her luggage containing her personal items accompany her. She says, “if they don’t go, I don’t go.” Again, her persistence convinces Leakey. However, he flies off to Tanzania to do his work, leaving her to figure out how she can accomplish her goals, including writing weekly reports and contributing to National Geographic. There is no easing into her new job, and she must use all her personal skills to succeed.

The terrain she passes through shows us the remote, rugged, and primal territory where she must live and do her work. The contrast to the Western version of civilization is stark. Leaving their vehicle behind she and her guide and porters must go into the jungle up a steep hill. Sembagare says she can rest since even buffalo must stop on their journey. She is driven by her dedication and possibly her arrogance, so she refuses to quit hiking.

She finally rests when they arrive at the cabin where she will stay. She learns of the death of Sembagare’s family which occurred when his tribe was “wiped out.” The film stresses the ferocious nature of her surroundings here.

The film depicts another problem Fossey encounters in a humorous way. She travels four hours with Sembagare supposedly looking for gorilla night nests so they can take a census. Fossey thinks her tracker knows what to do but it turns out he doesn’t and says he was waiting for her to show him!

Six weeks have passed and they have not seen any gorillas, which adds to Fossey’s frustration and fatigue. One day she slips in gorilla excrement which points to the animals being close by. The implication is that sometimes one must go through unsavory hurdles to reach the desired goal. It pays off here as Fossey spots a gorilla and her response is ecstatic.

They find a troop of gorillas but the process of approaching them poses another challenge. The leader spots them and charges, causing Fossey to roll down a hill after she runs. When Sembagare asks what her book on gorillas advises in such a situation, she says it’s not to run, the exact opposite of what is instinctual. So, one must even question one’s first impulse in this alien environment.

An even more frightening incident occurs next. The local military tosses her written work out of her shelter. They say that they don’t want white people there. It is most likely because outsiders pose a risk to their authoritarian control, so they call Fossey a spy and want her out of the country. She is defiant as always as the soldiers roughly put her in a jeep. The opposing forces in the civil war fire their rifles near the vehicle. She is caught in the middle of the opposing factions. There are camera shots from her perspective showing the horrific acts of the soldiers. We are seeing events through her eyes. Her noble goals of helping save the almost extinct gorillas come up against the darker aspects of humans.

We get information by way of Fossey vocalizing her letters to Leakey. Thrown out of the country and losing her research information, she at least reunites with Sembagare on her way to find Roz Carr (Julie Harris), who Leakey said would help her. She says she will resign and go back to her fiancée. Playing it safe is not really in her nature. Carr loves the African people but recognizes the suffering there is constant. It raises the question, why is that so, and perhaps the fault is due to both domestic and foreign reasons.

When Fossey views majestic mountains nearby she believes mountain gorillas would live there. Carr says the peaks are on the other side of the border. Fossey’s meaningful words are, “gorillas don’t know borders.” Animals don’t restrict freedom, only humans do that. She realizes she shouldn’t have sent her resignation letter. However, Carr may have insight into Fossey’s passion, so she still has the letter.

Fossey now is in Rwanda where there is no civil war. However, her aggressive side is apparent since she now has a gun and is ready to battle anyone who tries to deter her from her mission. She has porters and Sembagare but she approaches the gorillas alone to lessen any feelings of threat on the part of the animals. The use of voiced letters back and forth to Leakey help to express thoughts even though they can’t have an in-person dialogue. He warns her of getting too close, but she is able to approach close enough that the gorillas jump over her and the young ones climb on her as if wanting to play. The leader, the silverback, watches attentively, allowing Fossey access while still staying vigilant. The terrible news is that the number of gorillas has decreased even worse than expected.

Fossey mimics hand and facial movements of the gorillas and they become fascinated by her, which allows her to get close to them. Then a tribe of natives who are threatening appear because they believe Fossey has disturbed the gravesite of one of their members. The leader touches Fossey’s hair and decides that its reddish color makes her a witch, so they depart most likely out of fear. Fossey uses the witch idea to scare the Batwa away from interfering with her. The acceptance by the animals contrasts with the hostile approach of the humans.

At the marketplace, a woman tries to sell Fossey a gorilla hand. Fossey is outraged and chases the woman, who escapes. Fossey realizes that despite the claim that the animals are safe in the area, the facts show otherwise. There are several animal traps placed there by the Batwa, a hunter group. Fossey dismantles many of these traps in defiance of the local hunters.

As she records gorilla sounds and imitates their noises and movements, she becomes more apelike, which distances her from the worse aspects of humans. Bob Campbell (Bryan Brown) shows up, a photographer for National Geographic, and says he thought he heard a real animal before entering her cabin. Fossey is not thrilled about having a photographer there, probably for fear of scaring the gorillas. He goes with her and Sembagare to look for the gorillas. Campbell says that the Batwa are hired by doctors, who always have copies of National Geographic in their offices. He says the Batwa just want to earn a living so they can eat. It’s those who hire them that get animal parts as souvenirs.

The silverback, whom Fossey has named Digit because of webbed fingers, charges Campbell as he photographs. Fossey tells Campbell to look submissive and pretend to eat leaves. She approaches Digit, and puts her hand next to the gorilla, who holds her hand. It is a moving moment that Campbell’s face reflects.

Fossey and Campbell have chemistry and become romantically involved. She knew from the first night he was married because he shook the rain off his parka before coming in, suggesting that a single man wouldn’t care about getting the inside area wet. He asks if his being married matters. She answers, “apparently not.” Could her defiance of human social codes derive from her becoming more attached to the animal world?

As the gorillas become used to Campbell’s presence, they allow him more access, and he feels happy. The scene shows how these relatives of people can connect to humans, maybe even better than how people accept one another.

The next scene shows the ugliness of humans as poachers attack and kill four of the gorillas Fossey was studying to capture a baby to sell to a zoo. She captures a child who is part of the poachers’ group and uses superstitious fear, a primitive human feeling, since she is dealing with baser instincts. She dons a mask and hair of a witch and frightens information out of the child. She this learns where the poachers were taking the chimp.

She finds the chimp whining in a box in the van of the person who paid for the poaching. She saves the animal and confronts the culprit, Claude Van Veeten (Konstantin Alexesandrov). He is at a swank dining spot which stresses how the rich can sometimes use their power to harm the powerless. He has a letter from the government that allows him to acquire the baby gorilla. She is defiant while he threatens to have Fossey arrested. The scene shows an unholy alliance between the affluent and the government.

Fossey makes a deal with a government official to acquire anti-poaching rangers to help protect, as she says, “her gorillas.” But she must eventually give up the chimp. It shows her protectiveness, but maybe also her possessiveness regarding the animals. She nurses the chimp back to help, showing her maternal instinct.

Campbell returns from his excursion and tells her that her campaign to save the gorillas has become well known. He also asked his wife for a divorce. She says she is scared. His humorous response is, “You’re scared? I’m about to marry a girl who’s liable to have gorillas for bridesmaids.” It’s the funniest line in the film, but it stresses how committed Fossey has become to the animals. She is traumatized on the day she does have to release the chimp. She later learns that the chimp died one year later. She says it’s good for the chimp, implying it’s worse to live a captive life among humans.

Her dedication to the gorillas outweighs her need for human connection. Campbell has work offers to be a photographer elsewhere and wants her to come with him on those jobs. However, Fossey can’t conceive of leaving her new family even for a day, so they part ways. She cries with her new family, sharing her loss with the gorillas.

At this point, Leakey has passed away. She has research assistants now and has not had a poaching in ten months. An unknow gorilla confronts her and her group aggressively. Fossey is so knowledgeable at this point that she tells them to stay still while she glares threateningly at the gorilla. She wards off the threat and says it was, “Just a bluff.” She has become one with the jungle.

The tranquility does not last while human greediness exists. The group that the gorilla Digit rules is attacked by poachers and they kill Digit, taking his head and his hands, as he defends his family. The guards capture two poachers. Fossey scares one poacher by staging a mock hanging. She has the poachers arrested. Her new researchers do not have the stomach for what Fossey is doing as she becomes more aggressive, more animal-like.

She raids the camp of poachers with her rangers and Sembagare. She sniffs around like a feral animal and then in an outrage burns the camp. She fires the research assistants who have sex by stating that place is not a “summer camp.” She tells them to get off “my mountain.” She is engulfed in rage and acts as if she oversees that part of the jungle.

She finds Digit’s troop which brings her immense joy to know that they have survived, even the pregnant gorilla, who has now given birth. And the members of the troop remember her and accept her the way a family should greet one of its members. She threatens the man hiring the poachers, Claude Van Veeten (Konstantin Alexesandrov) by saying if he sends more men to kill and capture gorillas, she’ll cut off his hand and use it as an ashtray, referring to what some of the buyers of gorilla body parts have done.

Sembagare warns her that she is making dangerous enemies, including those in the Rwandan government. She scares off tourists, telling them they can catch typhus, and she actually shot over their heads at one point. Sembagare says that means less money spent in the country. She says that she received a new work permit that extends her time there by three years. Of course, that makes her more of a target for those who want her gone.

At night, the time when cowardly evil deeds take place, the camera moves, imitating a threatening presence, and we only see the shadow of the attacker which makes the evil more general. Fossey is vulnerable, thinking she is safe in her bed, holding a picture of her beloved chimp as she falls asleep. The shadow of a machete reflects the deadly downward movement of the blade. Afterwards, we see Fossey’s blood dripping on the photo, both she and her animal child joined in death.

Fossey is buried next to her beloved Digit. The camera shows their family of gorillas enjoying their jungle home. The end notes state that Fossey saved many gorillas from poachers and her actions led to the repopulation of the species.

Denial

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Denial (2016), which is based on a trial revolving around a claim that the Nazi Holocaust did not take place, speaks to us today because in a world with deep fake technology and the difficulty to determine fake information in social media from fact, it has become increasingly difficult to determine what is true and what is a lie.

The movie is based on the book, History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier by Deborah E. Lipstadt, who is played by Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz. Lipstadt is an American professor whose specialty is The Holocaust. The film opens with a grainy clip that implies authenticity showing a sarcastic and dismissive David Irving (Timothy Spall), who writes about Nazi Germany. He states that “more women died in the back seat of Senator Edward Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz.” That there is laughter from the audience giving agreement to the man’s words is very chilling.

The story begins in 1994 at Emory University. The movie shows that although we know the Holocaust occurred through the existence of mass graves and testimonies, it is difficult to prove details of the horrors. For instance, Lipstadt tells her class that the Nazis made sure that there was no evidence of killings in gas chambers because they blew them up.

The camera shows Lipstadt running, gathering materials, basically in constant motion which establishes her as a person of action.

We get immediate evidence of the story’s conflict when Irving, lurking in the shadows exhibiting a demonic face, interrupts a speech by Lipstadt in Atlanta Georgia. She is stating that she will not “debate facts” with a Holocaust denier. It is ironic that is exactly what she must do because Irving sues her in 1996 for libel for calling him a Holocaust denier in her writing. The extent to which denial of The Holocaust is accepted is shown by the fact that Irving has done his own extensive biased research and has been published by prominent publishing institutions. Irving films his stunt so he can use the media to promote himself and his fake argument.

Lipstadt watches the news and her sad face shows her reaction to seeing Irving speaking to Neo-Nazis in Germany, saying they have nothing to feel ashamed about in their past. His audience responds by giving the Nazi salute. It is frightening to realize that some people find community in shared hatred of others. (It is notable that just recently there has been a resurgence of extreme right-wing political forces in Germany and other European nations).

The trial takes place in England where rules are a bit reversed compared to the United States. There a defendant is considered guilty until proven innocent. The same goes for a libel case. Irving deliberately chose England because it makes Lipstadt appear guilty from the start. It is another way of stacking the deck against truth. The film details the legal strategies that Lipstadt’s lawyers, Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott) and Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) use. Julius points out that Irving wants to gain scholastic respect by defeating Lipstadt, and many scholars don’t see the fact that Irving is an anti-Semite to be a disqualifier. Julius is reading a book about how the renowned poet T. S. Eliot was anti-Semitic. Indeed, he was, yet he wrote great poetry. Sometimes the person deserves condemnation, but that individual’s work is laudable. Irving is no Eliot, but he aspires to gain scholarly recognition.

Lipstadt says her mother’s name means “warrior,” and she always felt that her daughter was meant to fight a great battle. She sees that the confrontation with Irving is the war she was destined to fight. Here we see that the battle against evil is a generational one. IMDb points out that while running Lipstadt stops to observe the statue of “Boadicea and her Daughters.” She was a warrior who led a failed uprising against the Romans. That image links to Lipstadt and her mother, but it implies a warning that a noble fight can still be lost.

The story jumps to 1998. Lipstadt’s legal team delivers discovery information to Irving, who tries to gain sympathy for his cause by depicting himself as a David against the Goliath-sized law firm representing his adversary. Irving is charming, smart, and mannerly. He plays with his granddaughter. What Hamlet says fits here: “that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” The legal team wants Irving’s personal diary for discovery evidence. They find that one must be careful what one wishes for. The diary consists of volumes which fill a whole room, making it an immense undertaking to plow through.

It is raining heavily and there is thunder outside the London law firm as Lipstadt arrives, symbolizing the storm to be weathered in the courtroom. What might seem an obvious defense is not necessarily what works in an actual courtroom. Lipstadt thinks it should be necessary to have holocaust victims testify to substantiate her remarks about Irving distorting the facts. But Julius points out that Irving will attack the victims if he gets the chance to question them because he will represent himself. Julius says the survivors do not “remember every detail. They forget something. They say the door was on the left when it was on the right.” Irving will say that they are liars and can’t be trusted. It’s like looking at the tiniest flaw in a work of art and condemning the whole painting.

Lipstadt tries to raise money for the defense team from the Jewish community in London. She encounters another argument among those Jews she dines with. One says that instead of giving Irving a spotlight it would be better to settle. She uses the words “appeasement” which brings up bad memories among the British because that is what Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was accused of in giving into Nazi demands at the beginning of WWII.

Lipstadt is frustrated by others shutting her out of what she wants to accomplish, telling her what she can do and say, or not say. Legal finesse and roundabout ways of dealing with the situation are out of sync with her straightforward way of confronting the situation.

Lawyer Rampton, who will argue the case, travels with Lipstadt to Auschwitz. Rampton takes pictures and the audience gets shots of the misty, hushed place that looks haunted. The moisture that drips from an iron structure implies droppings of blood. There are huge piles of survivors’ belongings with names on them and dates which resemble grave markers. Lipstadt seems tentative as she walks on what remains of the killing factories.

Those who tried to discredit the existence of the Holocaust attributed the cyanide present at Auschwitz to killing of lice. The area where that was done had evidence of high concentrations of the poison. Lipstadt points out that residue was higher at that location because it takes twenty times more cyanide to kill the lice than it does to kill humans. But for Rampton that does not prove that cyanide was used on people. He is outraged that in-depth scientific studies were not made of the area after all this time. One possibility is that it would have seemed disrespectful to assault the shrine-like area with investigators.

When Lipstadt and Rampton share a drink afterwards he admits to feeling shame. He worries that if he were a soldier at the camp he might have carried out orders given to him. He says that the world is full of cowards. His statement suggests that people, out of fear, will not stand up against tyranny. He quotes the poet Goethe who said, “The coward only threatens when he feels secure.” The implication is that it’s easy to be courageous when there is no threat to oneself for opposing what is wrong.

Other decisions that seem logical to Lipstadt are not practical in the courtroom against a manipulator like Irving. The lawyers want the case to be tried by a judge, not a jury. They don’t want Lipstadt to testify. They later get Irving to agree to a judge hearing the case by appealing to his massive ego, saying the regular juror couldn’t comprehend his scholarship. Rampton wants to keep the focus on Irving and “starve” him of any attempt to shift the argument away from his misrepresentations. Lipstadt is afraid that she will look like a coward for not taking the stand. He says it’s the “price” she must pay for “winning.” What seems right may not be so in the long run. And, the question of when to be brave depends on the circumstances.

Lipstadt has support from celebrities, but she also receives threats from onlookers in the crowd on the way to the courtroom. Julius warns her to alter her jogging route, which implies enemies could be tracking her. She must have courage in her fight against the fanatics who see her as a threat to their warped way of thinking.

Irving in his opening statement tries to connect being labeled a Holocaust “denier” to someone who wears a “verbal yellow star.” He is saying that being singled out to society as a “pariah” is what the Nazis did to the Jews. The implication here is that he, an anti-Semite, is comparing his plight to the Nazi discrimination against Jews. Lipstadt, and, of course, we, find the comparison loathsome, as well as being ironic. The film stresses the remark by focusing on the court recorder typing Irving’s words, making them part of the official record.

Rampton shows how historical books do not always show what really happened. He points out that in an earlier text, Irving included The Holocaust and then in a later volume, those references disappeared. He calls Irving not a historian, but a falsifier of history, a “liar.” Rampton said Irving embraced a report that nullified the idea that Hitler ordered the extermination at the camps. Rampton said Irving embraced this invalid report because “he wanted it to be true.” That statement is an accurate insight into how false conspiracy theories become accepted, how bigotry spreads. It’s a defiance of evidence to reinforce twisted notions that somehow give comfort to the believer, absolving him of the responsibility of his own actions and ideas. These warped beliefs may have been propagated among family and friends. The emphasis here is that we must perform due diligence, especially today, in verifying what we decide to accept as facts.

A female holocaust survivor confronts Lipstadt outside the courtroom, shows her numerical tattoo, and tells her that survivors should be allowed in court. Lipstadt already wanted that to happen, so she is torn. She promises the survivor that the stories will be heard, which is in direct contradiction to the defense’s strategy. She tells Julius about her meeting. He says the trial is not therapy for the victims to process their trauma. Lipstadt says it is not for them but for the families of those that did not survive. He is adamant and tells her she must break her promise to the survivor since his main goal is to win the case, while Lipstadt’s motives extend beyond the success of a personal verdict.

Irving interrogates a historian about Auschwitz’s gas chambers. He does what falsifiers do, he focuses on one aspect that doesn’t jive with the rest of the evidence to falsify an opposing argument entirely. There were supposedly columns that protruded through the roof of the gas chamber into which cyanide was deposited. Irving says there have been no observations of holes in the now dilapidated roof. Irving then escalates the rhetoric by calling those who claimed the openings were there are “liars!”

Irving orchestrated the latter testimony to occur at the end of the day so there would be no instant rebuttal. Despite photographs taken from airplanes that indicated openings on the roof, Irving will say that they do not verify holes. They could be shadows, or worse, forgeries. Lipstadt says Irving got his “viral” idea across, which definitely connects with how the internet works today. She says that Irving is suggesting that alternative views of history can be accepted. She wants to testify and wants the testimony of survivors to be part of the trial. Julius points to prior trials when those who were in Auschwitz were humiliated under interrogation, with Irving mockingly stating how a Jewish survivor made money over the years profiting from her tattoo. Julius is suggesting how character assassination undermines broader arguments.

Rampton confronts Irving in the courtroom with evidence of the grating over the gas chambers that contained cyanide residue. Irving says the only gassing was fumigation of cadavers to kill “typhus-bearing lice.” Rampton counters by saying then what was the need to have a secure door with a viewing portal. Corpses don’t have to be viewed or secured in a mortuary. There is a shot of the people inside the gas chamber looking terrified, which is what Lipstadt sees in her mind, the truth compared to what Irving describes. Rampton notes the ridiculousness of gassing corpses and then incinerating them, undermining Irving’s testimony. Why must these obvious contradictions be pointed out? Same answer as before, because truth can be a threat to closed minded beliefs.

Rampton has a private meeting in Lipstadt’s flat. She sees that what appeared from her perspective as coldness at Auschwitz was, as he puts it, checking out “the crime scene.” Her emotionalism must give way to a logical way of handling the problem in a legal manner. It has been difficult for her to give up autonomy. She says, “I have never trusted anyone to do anything on my behalf since I was a child. All I have is my voice and my conscience.” She has had to compromise. As Rampton says, “What feels best isn’t necessarily what works best.” She must engage in “self-denial” and hand over her conscience to another to “win.”

The defense presents a historian who shows that an order came from the German High Command that ordered to not have an individual train carrying Jews be liquidated. Irving altered the translation to say that Hitler himself ordered that no Jews at all were to be killed. The testimony shows how just the alteration of a few words can distort fact.

Rampton in court shows speeches that Irving gave that are bigoted and misogynistic. Irving argues sarcastically that there should be important news on the TV, and that nobody cares about The Holocaust which took place so long ago. Yet, he says, the Jews keep dwelling on it. He says that important news should be read by a man, less important new by a woman, and that a referenced Black newscaster should read about the muggings and other inner-city crimes. He is announcing the hierarchy of his prejudicial ranking. What is frightening is how many in the audience laugh at his ridiculing.

Irving brought the legal action because he believes he was labeled a racist incorrectly. But Rampton reads from the man’s diaries that show he told his own child a bigoted ditty that labels anyone who is not Aryan as being subhuman. Indoctrination into hate and derogatory attitudes towards others starts early on.

The point about leeway in historical texts is raised in court. Rampton argues that there is a difference between “negligence, which is random in its effect, and a deliberateness, which is far more one-sided.” He is saying that Irving intentionally falsified what actually happened in history in a textbook that is supposed to be taken as factual. However, the judge questions that if Irving believes in his antisemitism, then the implication is that he is being honest by saying what he believes. The defense maintains that belief in something should not condone altering the facts of what actually happened.

We get more bad weather. Well, it is England, and it is not ominous at this point. The judge announces that the defense wins the case. Those who refuse to change their slanted beliefs say Lipstadt is guilty anyway and shout out “Filthy Jew” as she walks through the streets with her lawyers. Bystanders also harass Irving, pelting him with an egg, but he receives cheers as well, which is very disturbing.

In a news conference Lipstadt says free speech means you can give your opinions, but you can’t lie and then expect not to be held accountable for those falsifications. Later Lipstadt watches Irving on TV, and the man acts like the judge was incapable of understanding his argument. To the bigot, all contrasting beliefs are invalid from the start. Everything must fit into the warped world view. Lipstadt says of Irving, “he used to be a Holocaust denier, and now he is a verdict denier.”

The movie warns us to be on guard against those who appeal to our unfounded fears and the hatred they spawn.

Spotlight

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Spotlight (2015) won the Best Picture Oscar for its story based on actual events involving widespread child abuse by Boston Catholic priests and the cover-up perpetrated by the Catholic Church. It builds tension and outrage as the revelation of the horrors become real for the reporters, and thus also the audience.

The film begins in Boston in 1976 at a police precinct. The police and the District Attorney’s office are trying to keep secret the child molesting incident by a priest of small children. They are keeping the press away. One of the cops says about an arraignment, “What arraignment?” Obviously, there will be none. A representative makes affirmations to the victim’s family about all the good that the Catholic Church does and that the offending priest will be transferred, as if that is supposed to lessen the effect of the abuse. The film then shows the conspiracy to cover up the atrocity.

We jump to 2001, which shows the length of time that the crimes have endured. Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton) heads up the Bostone Globe’s Spotlight division which does in-depth investigative reporting. He tells the new editor of the newspaper, a somber Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) that it takes several months to find a story the four-member team will work on and publish, which points to the thoroughness of the work. (Schreiber’s Marty is a quiet, deliberative speaker and is described sarcastically as “a barrel of laughs).

The fact that many reporters are from Boston and some are Catholic makes the following revelations even more upsetting. They report to Ben Bradlee, Jr. (John Slattery), who has the investigative gene since his father was Ben Bradlee who was the executive editor of the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal. Unfortunately, the newspaper’s circulation is down and there may be more cuts, already showing the impact of online news.

 Marty wants to explore why there hasn’t been an attempt to get sealed documents that show priest John Geoghan molested eighty children and Cardinal Law (Len Cariou) did nothing about it.

Spotlight reporter Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo, in a Supporting Oscar nominated performance) is a passionate and sometimes annoying character as he constantly questions everyone, even fellow reporters, about what’s going on. He says he runs to blow off steam, but Robby points out that he “runs to work,” so even his leisure time meshes with his job. He is interested in furthering the investigation. However, they all know there is going to be considerable blowback, including from the wide Catholic subscribership.

Mike meets the loud lawyer Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci) who is not a diplomatic guy. He is also paranoid, rightfully so. The Church has tried to get him disbarred. He’s concerned about Mike wearing a wire and doesn’t even want him to take notes.

Robby and journalist Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) meet with attorney Eric McLeish (Billy Crudup). Eric reveals how difficult it is to prosecute the priest. It’s not a class action suit, which makes any adverse action a nightmare to handle given how each case is handled separately. There is a time limit of three years on bringing charges, and most victims don’t want to admit what happened until long after, since they were from tough neighborhoods and Catholic. Also, there is a cap of only $20,000 in a child molestation case which creates a lack of motivation to engage.

The Spotlight team digs and finds stories about abusive priests who were accused and being moved around by the Church. There is also the existence of a survivors’ organization. However, the newspaper must get solid evidence given the sensitivity of the issue, so they are resistant to move without solid evidence. The Church’s advocates stress the importance of faith, but here it is used to evade responsibility, to believe in something no matter the negatives.

As a tradition, Marty, a new editor, meets Cardinal Law (an ironic name given the situation). More irony in that the cardinal was once an editor. He gives Marty a copy of a book detailing Catholic catechism, as if to indoctrinate him?

The reporters meet with Phil Saviano (Neal Huff), who runs the survivor group, SNAP. He says, “when you’re a poor kid from a poor family, religion means a lot. And when a priest pays attention to you, it’s a big deal.” Phil is trying to get these lapsed Catholic reporters (and also the audience) to empathize with the victims and understand the context of the situation. He says, “It’s like God asking for help,” when the priest wants favors. When the priest pushes for sexual favors, “how do you say ‘no’ to God?” Phil says. He says it isn’t just physical rape, it’s also “spiritual” violation. The priest here, “robs you of your faith.” Victims will turn to alcohol, drugs, commit suicide, and some are survivors who are in SNAP. Phil says he sent information five years prior and he is angry because even the Boston Globe didn’t pursue the story earlier.

Mike’s persistence makes him a good reporter, and he gets the lawyer Garabedian to let him interview Patrick (Jimmy LeBlanc), a victim in one of the cases. He doesn’t want Mike to use his name because he has a child now, and he wants to keep the story hidden out of shame. His father committed suicide and his mother was schizophrenic. Here we have a vulnerable person that can be groomed at the age of twelve. The priest took him for ice cream and then started touching the boy. Mike observes that there are needle marks on Patrick’s arm, which verifies what Phil said about the effects on victims. Patrick here confesses to a journalist instead of a priest, and it is cathartic. He then allows Mike to use his name and says to get “these assholes.”

Mike’s interview alternates with Sacha talking to Joe (Michael Cyril Creighton), who realized he was gay at a young age, and when the priest urged him to have sex with him, Joe felt it was like a holy man was saying it was okay to be gay. Later in life the realization that he was abused selfishly by the priest traumatized associations he had with men, even though it was his sexual orientation. Just walking by his neighborhood’s Catholic church brings back awful memories, showing how he can’t escape the pain of the past. She also finds out that Joe talked to lawyer Eric McLeish who discouraged lawsuits, which he didn’t mention before. More covering up the truth.

Mike and the others thoroughly research the information and realize there has been an epidemic of sexual assaults by priests on children who had “shame” in their lives, so the pedophiles knew the children would not want to add to that feeling by exposing their predators. Mike discovers that the Church began smear campaigns to discredit anyone who tried to expose these priests. In an archive that lists the priests by name and when they arrived and left parishes. Matt (Brian Darcy James) notes that the priests under investigation all were discharged on “sick leave,” or reassigned, blanket cover-up designations. There is a bad smell which turns out to be a dead rat in the room, a symbolic addition that comments on how the whole situation is rotten.

Sacha and Robby go back to McLeish and find out he was part of sweeping the abuse under the Church’s rug. He didn’t even file action in the court system but kept the meager settlements between his office and the archdiocese, who have the records that the Spotlight team can’t access. There were confidentiality agreements so McLeish can’t divulge names. As Sacha later says he received a third of all the settlements and the rest of the information was hidden by the Church.

Marty is treated like an alien when he goes to a Catholic Charities Appeal dinner. Pete Conley (Paul Guilfoyle), on the board of the Charities, vouches for his attendance there, trying to ingratiate himself and by extension, the Church. Robby is also there, and although he is not part of the organization, he has friends who are, and he went to the Catholic school across from the Boston Globe. The connection is ironic, showing the pull of the past versus the current outlook on those ties. Later Robby finds that a suspected priest was at his high school and molested a friend. Adding to this irony, Robby does investigating at this affair by interrogating Jim Sullivan (Jamey Sullivan) about his activity in helping a priest. Sullivan dismisses the questions and says that the people there in connection with the Church have done a great deal of good for the city. The film raises the question, without announcing it, does that good justify the atrocities that the priests perpetrated?

Mike meets with lawyer Garabedian, who is Armenian. Mike is Portuguese, but was born in Boston. Garabedian says that Marty is Jewish, and it takes an outsider in this case to investigate an entrenched, sacred institution. He also says that if it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes one to “abuse” that child. He sees this insulated Catholic Boston world as a fortress that must be attacked. When asked, Mike says that his wife does not like that he spends so much time working, and it turns out he is separated. The lawyer says he never married because what he does is “too important” to be distracted by a married life. Here we have the tradeoff between one’s own personal happiness and social purpose. Later, Garabedian tells Mike that he had a priest, who was threatened with exile to South America unless he kept quiet about abuse, who confessed to the lawyer. But the archdiocese stopped legal documents attesting to the cover-up to be made public, so powerful is the Church in Boston at this time. (Garabedian is eating often when he meets with Mike, attesting to how he must get nourishment on the run to fit his always busy work. And Mike is always running, which shows he has the same mindset).

On a telephone call, Richard Sipe (the voice of actor Richard Jenkins), a psychotherapist, gives statistics from a report as far back as 1985 that the Church knew about, including Cardinal Law, that there could be 90 priests (research indicates the number is 87) who are pedophiles in Boston. Sipes says he may not be a member of the Church anymore, but “the Church is an institution, Mike, made of men; it's passing. My faith is in the eternal. I try to separate the two.” The film implies that is the conclusion of many Catholics that keep their faith in their religion even if they have lost that faith in the Catholic Church.

To show how this abuse hits close to home, reporter Matt sees the address of one of the probable priests in treatment down the block from his house.

Robby confronts McLeish again and threatens by saying they could write a story about lawyers who made money off the settlements unless he gets the names of the priests and the victims. McLeish says he sent a list a while back to the Globe because he needed the newspaper’s backing if he was going to go public. Saviano, who heads up SNAP, also said he sent information to the Globe before. Apparently, the story was buried. So, the newspaper is not without sin in this story.

McLeish resends the list he forwarded before with 47 priests noted. Marty says it’s more important that they show the system is corrupt, that the cover-up was systemic, instead of just focusing on the individual priests. The implication here is that the problem will have a limited focus unless they expose the wider conspiracy.

A montage showing Sacha hitting the bricks, interviewing residents, including a policeman who says nobody wants to put “cuffs” on a priest. They show how it wasn’t just those in power who kept a lid on the abuse. Neighbors exerted peer pressure to keep things silent. One victim said his mother “put out cookies” for the clergy. The movie shows the darker side of religion when its grip on people’s lives becomes dark instead of enlightening.

Sacha has a breakthrough when she talks to one ex-priest, Ronald Paquin (Richard O’Rourke) who admits to “fooling around” with boys. But he says he received no “satisfaction” from the experiences. He didn’t rape anybody because he knows the difference because he himself was raped. So, the film shows that abuse perpetuates itself, and here is a priest who doesn’t even understand his own pathology or the harm he inflicted on others. As Sacha leaves Paquin’s house, two boys ride by on bikes, emphasizing how close possible victims can be to predators.

The tragedy of 911 puts a major delay on the Spotlight story, but Mike works on getting the documents that Garabedian mentioned made public, and Robby and Sacha go to Robby’s old high school where a Father Talbot molested his friend. They find more obstruction of information. It seems to Robby that everyone in power knows the true story, except them, and they are the newspaper, the emphasis here is on “news.”

Mike gets a judge to finally allow the public records to actually become public. The records show that Cardinal Law quashed the evidence on the notorious Father Geoghan who molested several children. Make is angry that Robby doesn’t want to run the story until they get information on the covering up of more than one priest’s actions. The implication here is that Robby doesn’t want the Church to get the chance to shut the story down before its implications show more widespread atrocities.

The story not only affects Robby personally because of the molesting priest at his high school. Sacha won’t go to mass anymore with her grandmother. Mike says he liked going to church when he was younger and always thought he would return to it before this story came to them.

Conley, the Catholic Charities board member, meets Robby and tries to put a wedge between Robby and Marty, saying the latter doesn’t care about Boston and is just trying to advance his own career and move on. He then subtly threatens Robby by saying how Robby will still be in Boston. The suggestion here is that Robby could suffer the fallout of the investigation into the Church. Robby retaliates by saying they will be running the story.

Children sing “Silent Night” in the background since it is approaching Christmas. The voices of the innocents contrast with the crimes against youths as Mike types up parts of the story. Robby gets lawyer Sullivan to acknowledge the priests who he helped protect for the Church. The reporters note that the festival of the Epiphany approaches in the Catholic calendar, which they say is an appropriate word for the revelation that is coming.

Robby tells the others, including Marty and Ben, that he was the Metro head at the time when the information came to the newspaper in 1993 and didn’t follow up on the priests’ abuse. So, it was his and the Globe’s fault along with the others that contributed to the news not getting out. Everyone was involved. Marty says that sometimes we “stumble” in the “dark” until a light shows us the “blame” that goes around. The title of the news outfit and the name of the movie points to that epiphany, where the spotlight shows us the truth. But, it’s better late than never to right wrongs.

The effect of the story is widespread and personal, as the impact hits Sacha’s grandmother. Matt says he has been writing a horror novel, fiction as opposed to the actual horror in life. The film ends with the Spotlight team receiving numerous calls from victims who now feel safe enough to tell their stories.

The end notes state that the Globe published close to 600 stories on the abuse. 249 were accused of abuse in the Boston archdiocese. There were well over 1000 victims. Cardinal Law resigned, but instead of punishment he was assigned to a high-ranking post in the Church in Rome which shows how the Church still refused to acknowledge its part in the scandal.

Mark Ruffalo in one of the extras attached to the film states that you can’t have a free society without a free press.

THX 1138

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

THX 1138 (1971), produced by Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope company, is based on George Lucas’s college project. It shows his early interest in science fiction and the threats to freedom that he later explored in the Star Wars films. Here Lucas uses a depressing futuristic landscape, like 1984 and Brave New World, to comment on contemporary situations.

The pervasive white setting removes all color from life, presenting a sterile existence, devoid of variety and individuality. Everyone having shaved heads adds to the feeling of uniformity. The whole world is self-contained in a windowless environment contributing to a sleek, modern version of imprisonment. The holograms seem distorted as do some communications, creating a feeling of disorientation and alienation for the audience. The robot policemen presage our current apprehension about AI taking over the world.

The Director’s Cut version opens with a bit of Buck Rogers footage, which was shown like other short serials in movie theaters many years ago. The selection paints a future that is optimistic, stressing the benefits of scientific technology. What follows is the inverse of that prediction. Even the opening credits run backwards, suggesting that technology may advance but not the state of humanity.

Robert Duvall plays THX 1138 whose work consists of constructing robots which adds to the dehumanization process of the populace. People no longer have distinctive names and instead are assigned alpha-numeric codes, demonstrating how humans are just parts in a governmental machine. The State anesthetizes the population, like the use of Soma does in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. A female voice states, “if you feel you are not properly sedated call 348-844 immediately. Failure to do so may result in prosecution for criminal drug evasion.” It may sound like the opposite of current attempts to stamp out illegal drug usage, but the opioid crisis in the United States generated billions of dollars in legally sold drugs.

Individual desires are suppressed, probably because they ignite passion that could lead to personal satisfaction not controlled by the State. Therefore, sexual activity between individuals is considered “illegal.”

After 63 workers die, a voice tells the other people at the plant that the total for the section that suffered casualties is “242 to our 195. Keep up the good work.” The state dismisses the loss of workers to industrial accidents, since it prioritizes the whole, not the individual.

THX 1138 has anxiety about his life. He goes to a sort of confessional, called a “unichapel,” which has an image of an enlarged face of a man. IMDb says that it is a picture of Hans Memling’s “Christ Giving His Blessing,” quite a desecration of a religious painting as sued here. The man in the picture is called OMM, which is like the Hindu and Buddhist religious chant for serenity, another satiric thrust as used here. THX must sign in by repeating “Blessings of the state, Blessings of the masses,” and extolling “the Party.” There are many sayings repeated in the movie, like “Thrifty thinkers are always under budget,” which remind one of the proper responses in The Handmaids Tale that are a form of mind control. The stress again is not on the individual, like what is encouraged in a Communist or Fascist world. There is a voice that just repeats the prerecorded impersonal messages, “I understand,” and “Yes, fine.” THX says he couldn’t concentrate on the job, that his mate is acting strangely, and he doesn’t feel well. The film takes the idea that “confession is good for the soul,” and shows how the State utilizes it in an impersonal way for its own purposes. No matter the problem, the voice says, “Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents, and be happy.” This world’s religion is consumerism, which apparently should make you “happy” no matter the emptiness a person feels. THX has heard all of this before and starts to exit the booth early showing how this activity is not making him “happy.”

LUH (Maggie McOmie) is his mate. THX does not interact with her but instead watches a naked woman dancing on a screen while he uses some device that helps him masturbate. It appears that the State determines how sexual energies are channeled into nonpersonal activity. There is a holographic video of a robot policeman beating an individual. The image seems to encourage acceptance of violence against individuals. The robots emit soothing voices while they brutalize people, which creates a discordant, satiric effect. Another video that is supposed to be funny jokes about getting a vehicle and running into a crowd. The indoctrination here is that human life is dispensable. THX says the video is funny, but does not laugh, as human response is deadened.

He keeps going to the automated confessional saying he is not well. He says he only shares space with LUH. Subconsciously he is rebelling against this marginalized existence. She shows tenderness when he comes back to their domicile. They make love but are under surveillance so intimacy is not private here. She has substituted medication which allowed him to be affectionate and wants him to stay off the drugs so that they can escape and live in the “Superstructure,” which we learn about later.

SEN (Donald Pleasence) is a coworker who can manipulate computers. He says his roommate was destroyed which he says was “inconvenient,” a cold way of describing a loss. He summoned LUH , had a talk with her, and said he now wants THX to be his roommate. He says THX rates “very high in sanitation,” which fits in with this sterile environment as a priority. SEN wants conformity to the norms. THX considers SEN to be in violation of manipulating roommate selection, which shows he wants to stay with LUH and is showing resistance against manipulation, something which is unusual for this world.

THX files a violation against SEN, but being in drug withdrawal, he falters at work using radioactive material. He is arrested for drug usage violation. He is tried and the prosecution argues, “We must not continue to consume these erotics. We must exterminate the source of sin. Economics must not dictate situations which are obviously religious.” The State condemns sex as a “sin” which it must “exterminate” as an impediment to the hive-like operating system of this society. Conformity is its religion. The prosecutor says that the loss of THX to the workforce is not an excuse since the “sin” is so reprehensible. The State limits personal freedom to comply with its own dictates of social order.

It is determined that THX is to be held in detention and conditioned. Black-uniformed policemen prod him with shock sticks. He is forced to take pills, electrodes are used to monitor his brain activity, he is injected with chemicals, and other intrusive acts are done. They take control of his motor activities, and he is in the fetal position which shows how THX is forced into an infantile state so that any adult aspects can be reformed. There is voiceover from technicians who are experimenting with his bodily functions, dispassionately making him into a lab rat. IMDb states that Lucas has this scene to show his animosity toward doctors after his own near-fatal car crash when he was younger.

LUH enters the white cell where THX resides and states that she is pregnant. They joyfully have sex but then police robots enter. THX resists but is paralyzed by them. SEN and others are added to the detention area. There is one individual who appears mentally challenged and there is a dwarf, or “shell dweller,” who lives in the outskirts of the city. It seems outsider types who don’t fit in with the norm established by the State are removed from society. SEN is there because THX reported him. He gives speeches that IMDb notes are from President Richard Nixon’s speeches as Lucas satirizes what politicians were saying at the time the film was made. There is an attempted rape of one of the females and the destruction of one of the robot cops. It seems that extreme control over certain individuals creates an equal and opposite antisocial reaction by some. (The robot police are awkward, malfunction, or just fall down sometimes, which makes them appear as android Keystone Cops).

THX and SEN wander very far in the vast white landscape. The film becomes even more surreal as they encounter a third individual, a hologram, SRT (Don Pedro Colley) who decided to escape his confining existence. His plight mirrors the actual citizens. They exit into an area jammed with citizens bumping into each other. The documentary that accompanies the film states that Lucas feared “the empire crushing humanity.” Obviously, this idea flourishes in the Star Wars films. THX and SRT escape into an embryo-growing compartment, which conjures up how individuals are produced by the State in Brave New World.

Police androids search for SRT and THX in maze-like walls of electronic equipment which suggest manipulation and restriction. During the hunt for THX there is always a cost-estimate analysis being heard as to whether THX is worth the effort. The two then enter a morgue where the insides of the dead have been harvested for apparent recycling. Those servicing this area even have their faces whited-out, and they appear like ghosts, giving the whole scene a haunted appearance, as if all that is left of humanity are apparitions.

SEN enters the area where the monks of OMM exist. He prays to the oversized portrait of the Christ-like figure, apparently wishing to change and go back to the community. But a monk realizes SEN has no ID since he is a prisoner and SEN attacks the monk.

THX and SRT tap into a computer and discover LUH has been “consumed,” that is, reprocessed as a fetus to be grown as a new individual subject to the State. The technology here is frightening as it reduces individuals to new parts to be developed for society.

SEN in the trams underground encounters children playing a game which has them moving in unison to block their companions as they run through the group. The scene suggests a no-escape maze, symbolizing this culture. Apparently, SEN will be apprehended, but the audience does not see this act.

THX and SRT steal highly complicated sports car vehicles. SRT slams into a post, implying the overly technological world can be destructive. THX rockets through the underground expressway followed by android cops who, again, malfunction. (It is funny to hear a voiceover saying that a “Wookie” was run over, foreshadowing the Star Wars character).

It becomes too costly to continue the pursuit of THX, and the cops are called back. He climbs up a ladder lining a shaft. He is warned that he cannot survive outside, which turns out to be a lie. THX reaches the surface where there is an oversized sun greeting him. It is an escape from an underground hell to an ascension into the natural world. But whether he can flourish there is left unanswered.