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Wikflick?

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Will Gompertz | 09:42 UK time, Monday, 26 July 2010

If I were a screenwriter, I'd put aside all my pet projects, walk away from the lucrative studio re-write and give up on the 13-part series for HBO about 21st-Century Detroit and instead devote every waking moment, every creative cell, every pulse of energy into a biopic of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks.

Mix the original - single-minded, nomadic, uncompromising, Australian - with Frank Capra's - the little guy versus the system - add the magic ingredient of the man who sticks it to the Man, stir well and serve.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    Will, you are far too obsessed with the cult of personality. People are born, they live and the die - life goes on with scarcely a ripple - celebrity is just a daft way to sell magazines and TV programmes. Please try to be less obsessive!

    Ask yourself this question: does it matter that the 'truth' is known leaked, or otherwise? Most intelligent observers view the statements of those in power as 90% a self serving, self justification gloss intended only to protect their position - see the Iraq Inquiry for example. Only a journalist believes that the 'facts' matter. I am afraid that they don't matter that much.

    Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely! (Acton's aphorism). Everyone knows this in the heart of hearts. Films concerning the revelation of hidden facts do not form much of the pantheon of film because no-one much cares - except the media marketing men when they are promoting a film. Audiences like emotion and the reworking of the basic stories of life, love and death (see the seven stories of literature).

  • Comment number 2.

    I agree with John-From-Hendon.

    Mr Gomertz, rather than jump on a bandwaggon, why don't you just do your duty as a journalist? We don't expect you to devote every waking moment, every pulse of energy, to doing a good job.

    If you have to make a film, how about using some creative cells to question why it's taken so long for the world to come up with a website like Wikileaks? Or, better still, why don't you make a film about how the pay structure works at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳.

  • Comment number 3.

    At the top right of this page it says this is an arts journal. So could someone please explain to me what relevance this post has to the arts?

  • Comment number 4.

    #3. Playwright1749 wrote:

    "At the top right of this page it says this is an arts journal. So could someone please explain to me what relevance this post has to the arts?"

    1. If your 'this' refers to your own post - then I wonder too.

    2. Will was wondering aloud, as I read it, why films are not made about dramatic real world news events. Is the making of film dramas not art? Do you want to limit 'art' to a timber square with stretched canvas daubed with paint?

    I think it is quite reasonable of Will to provoke consideration and comment of the incestuous nature of film (and TV)and the media in general.

    PS sorry to be so censorious of your first post - why 1749? (Are you commemorating Goethe's birth?)

  • Comment number 5.

    Wouldn't be a very interesting biopic, Will... "geek makes website"... hardly Caravaggio, is he?

  • Comment number 6.

    "Mix the original Mad Max - single-minded, nomadic, uncompromising, Australian - with Frank Capra's Mr Smith - the little guy versus the system - add the magic ingredient of the man who sticks it to the Man, stir well and serve. "


    Why doesn't he stick it to the real bad guys in the world? Like the kind that would make him disappear tomorrow because that is what they do best. Instead he betrays troops of the West fighting for freedom in the world. The man should be in prison.

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