Of the all the major superheroes, Batman has always held a place near and dear to my heart. Tim Burton’s 1989 movie and its gothic aesthetics were the first contact I had with Batman’s character and I’ve never fallen out of love, except maybe with the comically bad Batman & Robin.
In Batman lies the idea that humans ultimately have their destiny in control, if only partially. We are each responsible for how we respond to the events in our lives and how our response shapes our environment. Batman has no super powers – just the drive and the means to achieve the mission he set for himself. More importantly to his character, Batman’s entire reason to exist is for him to stop existing: he seeks to construct a future where Gotham is no longer in need of Batman.
Shopping for graphic novels is one of the rare things that is incommensurably better in France than it is the U.S. Despite North America being the birthplace of the modern comic-book, there is a much stronger culture and acceptance of graphic novels as a way to tell a story on the other side of the pond. Brick and mortar stores are manifold and the selection is richer.
In honor of Batman’s 75th anniversary this year, French publisher Urban Comics has released a series of five deluxe hardcover volumes, in black and white. These stories have been published before but I am surprised that I couldn’t find the equivalent edition of those books in English. In any case, I have ordered all five and can say they belong to the collection of any self-respecting Batman fan, even in the French language. The series gathers the works of Frank Miller, David Mazzuchelli, Jeff Loeb, Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo… Or, as the French would say, la creme de la creme.
Citizen Four is the codename Edward Snowden was using to sign the first set of emails he sent to Laura Poitras, and it’s also the title Poitras has chosen for the movie she has been producing about their encounter. The central piece of the documentary is a week-long interview with Glen Greenwald in a hotel room in Hong-Kong.
Throughout his interview, Snowden is determined and calm, very well-spoken, clear-minded and level-headed. He knows the topic he’s talking about inside and out and is keen on fully answering the questions asked by Greenwald and going forward with the publishing of the documents he took from the NSA.
He is conscious that the spin doctors in DC are going to try to target him personally, and explains this is why he wants to remove his own bias by using the press as a proxy – from what is shown in the movie, it’s a working relationship. He doesn’t talk much about himself, not because he has something to hide but because he feels it would be a distraction to the people, something the government could exploit.
The aesthetic of the film is that of a quiet, international espionage thriller where a lot is playing out behind the scenes. Did he just walk out of the hotel and into a cab at the time his face was on every screen in the world? Where was he hosted after that? The whole episode of the Moscow airport, including how specifically WikiLeaks provided assistance, remains shrouded in mystery.
On a couple of occasions, the documentary deliberately goes for the comical effect. Snowden not only mentions the ways in which intelligence agencies are spying, he lives by them. In front of two incredulous journalists, he is seen covering his head and laptop under a blanket before typing a password. Later in the film, lawyers representing him not only turn off their phones, but the phones are taken out of the room before the meeting can begin.
Snowden’s background, that of a kid raised in military family, only reinforces the sentiment that he’s genuinely chose to join the NSA and then to out its practices to not just make rent or for fame, but because he genuinely believes that the government is acting against the interest of the people.
The only moment of perceivable weakness is when Snowden is shown chatting with his girlfriend, who he had left entirely in the dark as to his intentions. Well over a year after the first NSA documents were first published in the Guardian, this movie is less about the repeated lies of the US government and the intelligence community and presents the flip of the coin. It isn’t a portrait of Edward Snowden, but it’s the most personal it’s going to get.
I’ve been trying to find a good article about this for a while: France doesn’t call ISIS ‘ISIS’.
Being bilingual gives me the chance to see how the news coverage of the same event or topic differs between the two countries. When the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and the Defense Secretary Laurent Fabius both started using the term ‘Daesh’ to refer to ISIS a few weeks ago, I felt something was fishy. The word Daesh is roughly the acronym of the Arabic name of ISIS ; it also appears to be a derogatory term in Arabic.
The French press uniformly followed suit and I have yet to find an article explaining the reasoning behind this move – could the rest of the world be this stupid for not doing the same? I have a deep respect for the power of words, and can certainly see why calling it ‘The Islamic State’ establishes it as something it isn’t. However, that at least one government is so prompt to discredit at entity not because of its horrific actions, but through the name it bears, feels in an of itself like an acknowledgment. I’m not sure the young French jihadists will be any less inclined to join the ranks of ISIS.