April 17, 2004

Shattered Glass

Shattered Glass is based on the true story of "journalist" Stephen Glass, fired in 1998 from The New Republic, for fabricating facts or even entire stories. It was released in late 2003, months after the latest "journalist", Jayson Blair, joined ranks with Stephen Glass and others.

Since I was sick all weekend, Hol humored me and rented this one... Although I thought the story it was based on was interesting, I wasn't expecting too much from the actual film. I think both Hol and I were pleasantly surprised by the production quality and acting. The screenplay version of the real events was quite good and kept the watcher involved the entire time, even though you knew what was coming in the end.


Watching Glass' character getting caught in lie after lie, and returning to his routine self-effacing and apologetic mannerisms was perfectly done by Hayden Christensen. You could understand why Glass' peers at TNR were slow to turn on him, his fabricated personality was likable and his friends wanted to stand behind him despite how obvious his fabrications were in hindsight. In the end, the new TNR editor, Chuck Lane, wasn't able to continue supporting Glass, and fired him after re-reading his articles with a clearer understanding of how Steven's mind worked.

I'd definitely recommend this movie to anyone. As a bonus, the DVD contains the 60 Minutes interview with the real Stephen Glass (now Georgetown Law School graduate and author of a fiction novel). There isn't much back reading required to understand the story, but I'll leave you with a few interesting articles on the subject and related personalities:


Posted by ben at 03:00 PM
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