November 13-19, 2003

movies

Broken Down

Man in the mirror: Hayden Christensen reflects in Shattered Glass.

Shattered Glass indicts the culture of dishonesty -- then pulls back.

by Cindy Fuchs

"Are you mad at me?" Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) asks this question repeatedly in Shattered Glass. According to Billy Ray, who based his film on a Vanity Fair article by former Inquirer staffer Buzz Bissinger, this question granted him insight into the particular pathology and broad symbolism of Stephen Glass.

You may recall that Glass, a former Daily Pennsylvanian editor, was caught out in 1998 for fabricating a series of articles for The New Republic, under the auspices of two editors, Michael Kelly (Hank Azaria) and Chuck Lane (the terrific Peter Sarsgaard). Writing for the magazine during the Clinton years (at which time, the movie reminds you more than once, it was the "in-flight magazine of Air Force One"), Glass is here portrayed as gifted, charismatic and oddly vulnerable, increasingly addicted to his own lies and elaborate processes of lying.

Thankfully, the film is less interested in Glass' personal psychology than in the environment that rewards it, an environment that persists today (and of which Jayson Blair is but a symptom). So, while Glass mentions a disapproving father by way of explaining his social awkwardness to Chloé Sevigny's (fictional) editor, Caitlin, the focus remains on his ability to perform. When Kelly questions the accuracy of Glass' exposé on young Republicans' hotel-room cavorting, Glass hems and haws, then returns home and produces "notes" to testify to his own truthfulness. (One of the peculiarities of the magazine's intricate fact-checking system is that the reporter's notes are assumed as fact, so that Glass is able to "document" his own mendacity.) That Glass is alternately so attractive (demonstrated when he colorfully pitches his stories to the editorial board) and so fretful compounds the problem: He looks so fragile, so "shattered," that no one wants to injure him further.

When Lane inquires after sources for a completely made-up article about a hacker turned security consultant, Glass goes into a kind of lunatic devious tailspin, creating websites and phone numbers for people who don't exist. Lane lets this go until he is pressed by increasingly insistent questions from Forbes onlinereporter Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn), whose revelations threaten to take down the whole magazine. With this burden on Lane, Shattered Glass underlines how much journalism (and politics, and any other industry premised on trust) depends on participants to be honest with one another.

Shattered Glass indicts Glass as a symptom of a widespread increase in opportunistic dishonesty, but also finds a sort of antidote in the character of Chuck Lane. Lane's staff resents his initial appointment as editor, when the publisher (Ted Kotcheff, who directed First Blood so many years ago) fires Kelly, in part for defending his writers against management. But Lane will emerge as this film's "hero." The only character granted an existence outside the office (even if this is reduced to occasional images of his wife and baby), Lane is increasingly sympathetic as he suspects his star writer is deceiving everyone.

That is, Lane doesn't make the cheating personal, purposely refusing to engage with Glass' efforts to do just that (as in, "Are you mad at me?"). This makes Lane's life at TNR miserable for a time, as Glass has earned the devotion of the other writers, who defend him when he starts acting all damaged and afraid, literally scrunching down in a corner with his head in his hands. As Lane tries to get answers from Glass, the other staffers huddle about, mutter and watch.

These confrontations, ignominious and alarming for everyone, are exacerbated by the film's smart uses of space by designer François Séguin and cinematographer Mandy Walker: Windowed cubicles throughout the office allow for precious little privacy, so that most conversations, if not heard, are visible. As Glass spends so much of his considerable energy on physical acting out, the actual space becomes metaphorical too.

As Glass' and Lane's trajectories take them past one another -- one ascending and the other in free fall -- Shattered Glass makes no pretense of objectivity, and it plainly yearns for another time, when journalists might be assumed to be trustworthy and honorable. (Indeed, Ray suggested in an interview with this writer that if the film's opening increased sales of Glass' recent novel, that would be "unfortunate.") At the same time, its judgment remains nuanced and its understanding of the complexities of the Glass case are admirable. More persuasively, the movie considers journalism's context, ever shifting and self-serving.

Shattered Glass

Directed by Billy Ray A Lions Gate release Opens Friday at Ritz Bourse

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