The disquieted Americans
The release of a critical account of the Enron collapse
suggests that post-September 11 self-censorship is
finally ending, writes Duncan Campbell
"But the links between the Lays and George Bush and Dick
Cheney have not received the kind of relentless headlines that
would certainly have been the case had it involved the Clintons
and might have been the case had it not been for September 11."
Los Angeles dispatch Tuesday January 7, 2003
guardian.co.uk
After September 11, there was much nervousness in the worlds
of film and television in LA about screening or embarking on any
production that might appear to be in bad taste or deemed
unpatriotic. Some of this was for understandable reasons of
sensitivity but a timid self-censorship played its part, too.
Plans for a film about the Florida election fiasco of 2000 were
dropped and anything that appeared to show the president or the
US military in a poor light was reckoned to be unfeasible. A raft
of television shows in which the CIA were shown in a flattering
light appeared. But is the climate finally changing?
What prompts the question was the screening this week on
prime time CBS of the Crooked E, the Unshredded Truth About
Enron. Directed by Penelope Spheeris, it was based on the
book Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron
Insider by Brian Cruver, a 26-year-old graduate from Harvard
business school who joined Enron just in time to see the whole
sorry saga unravel.
Since Mr Cruver was an insider, the story has a ring of
authenticity to it, from the frantic shredding of incriminating
documents as the end neared to the tattoo of the Enron logo -
that crooked E - on the breast of a loyal employee. It made
grimly fascinating viewing and it had some fine veteran actors in
it - Brian Dennehy as a senior and unscrupulous Enron
executive and Mike Farrell as the former chairman, Kenneth
Lay.
But what was remarkable about it was its very overt political
message - that the greedy souls behind Enron and their political
protectors had ripped off the poorest and most deprived people
in America by their selfishness and dishonesty.
Last month, after more than a year of havering around, The Quiet
American, the film based on Graham Greene's book, was shown
here. Because it contains a plot line about a CIA man instigating
the murder of civilians in Vietnam, albeit during the French
colonial era, it was thought to be too risky to show. It came out
last month, got some nice reviews and will almost certainly win
an Oscar nomination for its star, Michael Caine, who, as he
pointed out himself, is hardly anti-American. The lesson was
that the studio had been unnecessarily over-cautious in delaying
its release.
There must have been some of the same nervousness at CBS at
showing such a full-on political film as the Crooked E,
particularly because of the company's White House
connections. Kenneth Lay's attorneys warned last week that
they would be watching to see if their client was portrayed as
"cunning, unfeeling and greedy." Perish the thought.
Last year, the Lays tried, with disastrous results, to use
television to make a case for their own defence. Lay's wife,
Linda, went on NBC to tell the world that they were broke, a ploy
that backfired when it turned out they still had a stack of
properties worth many millions.
But the links between the Lays and George Bush and Dick
Cheney have not received the kind of relentless headlines that
would certainly have been the case had it involved the Clintons
and might have been the case had it not been for September 11.
Perhaps now that the Crooked E and the Quiet American have
been shown and the sun has still come up in the morning - at
least it did today in California - other directors and producers will
be emboldened.
Email
duncan.campbell@guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk |
