Laura Poitras on Heroic Acts, Not Heroes

Video

Trailer: ‘Citizenfour’

A preview of the film.

By Radius TWC on Publish Date December 23, 2014. Photo by Radius-TWC.

So much has been written and said about the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden and the explosive revelations of massive electronic snooping contained in the government documents he leaked in 2013 that it has become easy to forget that everything began with his seeking out the filmmaker Laura Poitras.

Photo
Laura Poitras at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards this month, where "Citizenfour" was honored for best documentary.Credit Phil McCarten/Reuters

But in “Citizenfour,” nominated for the Oscar for best feature documentary and considered the front-runner in that category, Ms. Poitras provides a first-person account of what it was like to be on the receiving end of those overtures.

Of course “Citzenfour,” whose title comes from the screen name Mr. Snowden used when he first contacted Ms. Poitras by email, contains some new disclosures about the extent to which the American and British governments are spying electronically on their own and other citizens. But most of the movie’s drama comes from its portrayal of Mr. Snowden in the act of blowing the whistle — in a hotel room in Hong Kong — and the subsequent international fallout.

“I don’t think,” Ms. Poitras said in an interview in New York late last year, “that it’s as much about the disclosures per se as about ‘How did it happen? Who is he? How did these strangers meet in this hotel room, this unlikely place? Why did somebody take the risks that he took?’ It kind of operates on more human terms than just the disclosures. You know, documentary films do not exist to break news. You don’t spend two years making a film to break news. You have to function at other levels and provide a story that will work in the moment it is made and also in five or 10 years.”

Ms. Poitras, 50, the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 2012, describes “Citzenfour” as the last in a trilogy of films about national security; the first in the series, “ My Country, My Country,” was nominated for an Oscar in 2007.

Around that time, her name appears to have been added to the Department of Homeland Security’s watch list, and she has frequently been interrogated and detained at border crossings. In the interview, she talked about the film craft involved in making “Citizenfour” and related topics. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation:

Q.

Many of the reviews of “Citizenfour” have described it as a kind of real-life thriller. Was that something you were consciously trying to achieve?

A.

It wasn’t like we were trying to use the genre of thriller to structure the film, but rather as a filmmaker, to communicate to the audience what the experience was like, which was scary and dangerous. [Laughs] In a way it did mirror being in a thriller, because I started receiving mysterious emails from someone who was a complete stranger, making huge claims that I knew, if true, would anger the most powerful people in the world. And then I ended up in Hong Kong meeting somebody. These were all things that actually happened, so I felt as a filmmaker that’s what I was trying to draw the audience into, on that journey.

Q.

You seem to be working with a classic three-act structure. You’re not scripted, but after you accumulate the footage, were you thinking in arcs, the way people do with feature films?

A.

Right. It’s the typical Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Act 1 being the context, Act 2 being the conflict and Act 3 being the resolution. In this case, actually, we wanted Act 3 to be a little different than that. We didn’t want to tie up everything in a neat bow. The story pushes out beyond the acts, beyond the end of the film, to suggest that things are ongoing. But in terms of how we approached structuring the film, we knew that the Hong Kong footage was going to be the heart of the film and that everything around it would be determined structurally by that section.

Q.

Do you view your function as primarily journalistic or artistic?

A.

Both. I do happen to make films that deal with political content, because that is what I am interested in. But actually, if I’m going to a movie, I want the craft to be good more than I go to get information. Michael Moore is great on this. He makes some of the most political documentaries, but it’s about going to the movies. You have to be a good storyteller, you have to know what you’re doing. There’s no reason for nonfiction to be any less entertaining than going to a fiction film. All storytelling is based on human experience, so actually documentary filmmakers are closer to that.

Q.

How did you feel about becoming a character in your film?

A.

I knew I was part of the story and had to put myself in the film. It was a balance, how to do it. When I was in Hong Kong, I didn’t have a crew, I was operating my camera. So you hear me, and see the camera move. In the editing room we tried to figure out a balance. Oftentimes when the filmmaker inserts himself, it can pull you out a bit from the drama, depending on how it is done. And so we did some cuts where I was more present, and it felt like it started teetering toward an essay when I wanted to keep it in this kind of narrative drive.

Q.

Do you view Edward Snowden as a hero? The film seems to suggest that you do.

A.

A lot of people have asked me that, and it’s a question I have tried not to answer. It’s a bit reductive, and I’ve tried not to make a reductive film. So I guess what I’d say is that I’m interested not just in him but people taking the risk of whistleblowing and to sacrifice their own personal freedom for something larger. I have no doubt that what he did was motivated by the fact that he profoundly believes that the public has a right to know these things and that the intelligence agencies have grown out of control. Generally, in the type of filmmaking I do, I’m interested in actions rather than descriptions. So I would describe what he did as heroic.

Q.

In the past, documentary directors have said to me that part of the value of getting an Oscar or even a nomination is the impact it has for the issues their films address, the kind of validation it gives to their subject matter. Does the Oscar have that same kind of value to you?

A.

When I was nominated for “My Country, My Country,” it was at the height of the ethnic violence, brutal things were happening and we were out in Hollywood going to parties. And so there was this kind of disconnect between making works where people put their lives on the line, and then awards completely removed from those realities. But there is also this way in which being nominated does elevate the issues, which is a really positive thing. For sure there is this kind of awareness, the more the issue can have the better. But as a filmmaker, I don’t make films for things beyond making films. If they have an impact, that’s great. But they are not acts of protest.

Q.

Even now, after all you’ve been through, being placed on the watch list?

A.

I approach them to communicate something about the world that I see. If it goes beyond the people who see it, that’s good. But it’s not like “Oh, should I make a film, or should I protest on the street?” You make a film to say something, and it’s not for a goal beyond that.

Q.

On a personal level would it mean something to win an Oscar?

A.

Of course. I’m a filmmaker, and this would be your peers acknowledging your work. And I also very much believe in cinema. I consider myself a filmmaker first, and so to have the work recognized by people in the field would be incredible.