My husband and I recently watched “Control Room.” It’s a documentary about Al-Jazeera satellite television’s news converage of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I found it extremely interesting. I didn’t realize how little I knew about Al-Jazeera other than the negative things said about it by the Bush administration. If the documentary is anything to go by, their journalistic standards are laudable and they seem to be significantly less ‘biased’ than complaints would have you believe. I mean, they don’t claim to be utterly objective. They represent a generally Arab perspective on the world. But they do seem to care very deeply about telling the whole story.
One of the US Marines serving as a liaison to the media gets a lot of screen time. He’s fascinating.
There is an episode when the military “unveils” their deck of cards showing the “55 Most Wanted” that’s pretty funny. They show the deck, and then leave the podium saying they can’t let the journalists see it. The journalists have a hissy fit, (perhaps justified) over this tease, but it’s mostly just comical to see.
Haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll give it a consideration if I’m looking for a movie and it’s nearby.
My problem is that I’ve already done some reading on Al-Jazeera from non-American sources, so I already knew they weren’t the Fox News of the Middle East that Bush tries to paint them as. Still, I think it’d be interesting to see life behind the scenes, especially given all the explosive (heh) news in the Middle East in the last few years.
For anyone who hadn’t heard this, the rest of this post is copy & pasted this from the Washington Post. It’s about that Marine. . .
The unlikely stars of Noujaim’s film are now adapting to life with celebrity. Ibrahim has been recognized in a restaurant in Manhattan. Khader, when told that his remarks have been singled out by critics as among the movie’s high points, responds in kind: "When somebody tells you that you are famous in the Arab world, you say, ‘Where do I cash it?’ " And Rushing has been silenced by the Marine Corps, which says he has been reassigned and won’t be allowed to take questions about his role in “Control Room.”
His wife, Paige Rushing, says that he is angry and disappointed and that after 14 years in the corps, he is now planning to leave. Of all the characters in Noujaim’s film, he was the one who evolved and grew most, never wavering in his basic views but willing to listen.
“He feels he has something of consequence to say,” says Paige Rushing. “This was a personal experience for him, and he feels that his opinion is relevant. He would love to share it.” The Marine Corps says only that he is no longer working for CentCom and will not be allowed to speak.
Rushing’s candor in the film led him to say things that may be deemed controversial, including a comparison of Fox News and al-Jazeera as simply two viewpoints at opposite ends of the same spectrum. What he does after the Marines is open, but, in the film, he said he might look into another controversial subject, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
“I don’t think Americans are getting good information about it,” he said. “I really don’t.”
I wish it would have been a better actual piece of film-making - it’s static, talky in the wrong ways, and always seems to have missed the action by ten minutes.
But while it has a point of view - to undemonize Al-Jazeera - it does so fairly gently and without getting in the viewer’s face about it. You get to see real people with concerns about their world, their religion, and their viewers rather than propagandists. The U.S. military spokespeople in the official briefings play that role.
Rushing is a tragedy. He is never less than an articulate and forceful representative of the U.S. view and that he is being made to play to play the scapegoat (assuming that the media reports are true, always iffy when the military is concerned) is disgraceful.
Unsaid by everyone because it is too obvious even to be mentioned is that everyone in authority in Al-Jazeera has a perfect command not merely of English but of American culture, politics, and mindset. And no one on the American side has a clue about the Arab world.
That’s also a tragedy, and also disgraceful.
Anyone who is concerned about the possibilities of an American empire should watch Control Room. That means you, Niall Ferguson.
Ah, you’ve said that so well. My embarrassingly-less-articulate way of putting that was to say to a friend that the Al-Jazeera personnel featured in the film totally “get it” when it comes to the U.S. They get us. They have a far better grasp on the differing views of the world than I suspect they’d ever be given credit for.
I was really moved when Ibrahim mentioned his great faith in the U.S. constitution.
It’s currently playing in Seattle, at the Varsity. I have every intention of seeing it, probably tomorrow night. (I missed it during the film fest a few weeks ago.)
I agree that it was an extremely interesting and enlightening documentary. It is interesting to contrast this film to Fahrenheit 9/11. The documentary of the arab network begins a few days before the start of the Iraqi war.
This film has no “stunts” as F9/11 did, and the filmmakers do not insert themselves into the film. There is no narrative telling the audience what conclusions to draw from the film events being shown.
There are some similarities, though. A couple of points made by Micheal Moore in F9/11 were also made in Control Room. One I remember off the top of my head is the Al Jazeera journalist who was trying to explain why the American public was supportive of the war and the administration’s tactics. He mentioned the ability of fear to manipulate the public, and how all these red and green and blue colored warnings every other day was contributing to the public’s fear level, allowing them to be manipulated by the administration. This is not a direct quote, mind you, and he was probably more diplomatic and eloquent in making the point than I am now, but F9/11 did state the exact same thing.
The best “anti-Bush” moments (from a film not ostensibly anti-Bush but certainly the Arab viewpoint is presented which certainly doesn’t agree with the Bush Administartion’s viewpoint) are simply clips of Bush or other administration officials in their own words. No editorializing, no real disputed commentary about what they said, just their own words, left to the audience to come up with any conclusions.
There was one clip of GW Bush (broadcast on the Al-Jazeera network, as you can see their logo on the bottom of the TV screen being filmed) just after some US troops have been captured during the war, saying that they better respect the Geneva Convention and treat our troops as well as we are treating their captured troops. The audience I saw this with was gasping and laughing at this statement, clearly filling in the blanks with recent news events.
This film is not going to get anywhere near the publicity or distribution that F9/11 is, but if it is playing in your town I would recommend it.