Shattered Glass
When in his twenties, Stephen Glass (now 31) was employed by the respected American magazine The New Republic, as a reporter. It was a move that would one day create nightmares for editors the world over.
Glass wrote a number of stories for the magazine, a lot of which were very well received. He was liked by colleagues, not just for the work he submitted but also for his charming, eager-to-please personality. Then, he submitted an article titled 'Hack Heaven', supposedly about a 15-year-old computer hacker who had been given a high-paying job by a software company after hacking into its systems.
The story was an interesting one. It also surprised the people at Forbes magazine, who were covering the same beat but had heard nothing about the hacker or his multi-million dollar deal. When their reporter Adam Penenberg did a bit of homework, he realised that nothing mentioned in the Glass story was true. Even the Web site of the company concerned, Jukt Micronics, had been faked – Glass had created a crude page at a free site hosting service.
Faced with this damning evidence, The New Republic did some homework of its own. What it found was astonishing. 27 of the 41 stories Glass had written for the magazine had been fabricated. In 1998, he was fired. Five years later, the film Shattered Glass hit screens.
In terms of a plot, the film tells the Stephen Glass tale in a pretty straightforward manner, moving from his early, heady days at the magazine to his ultimate dismissal. The dramatic tension comes thanks to the cast – chiefly, Hayden Christensen (who plays Glass admirably) and Peter Sarsgaard, who plays his editor Charles 'Chuck' Lane so well that he ended up with quite a few awards to show for it.
Directed by first-timer Billy Ray -- who wrote the screenplay for Volcano and has now directed Breach, which hits screens next year – Shattered Glass has been compared favourably to that other much-praised movie about journalism, All the President's Men: the 1976 classic about the Watergate expose, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. The fact that this is a true story only makes it more interesting.
source: rediff.com ... click to read rest of the review at rediff
Glass wrote a number of stories for the magazine, a lot of which were very well received. He was liked by colleagues, not just for the work he submitted but also for his charming, eager-to-please personality. Then, he submitted an article titled 'Hack Heaven', supposedly about a 15-year-old computer hacker who had been given a high-paying job by a software company after hacking into its systems.
The story was an interesting one. It also surprised the people at Forbes magazine, who were covering the same beat but had heard nothing about the hacker or his multi-million dollar deal. When their reporter Adam Penenberg did a bit of homework, he realised that nothing mentioned in the Glass story was true. Even the Web site of the company concerned, Jukt Micronics, had been faked – Glass had created a crude page at a free site hosting service.
Faced with this damning evidence, The New Republic did some homework of its own. What it found was astonishing. 27 of the 41 stories Glass had written for the magazine had been fabricated. In 1998, he was fired. Five years later, the film Shattered Glass hit screens.
In terms of a plot, the film tells the Stephen Glass tale in a pretty straightforward manner, moving from his early, heady days at the magazine to his ultimate dismissal. The dramatic tension comes thanks to the cast – chiefly, Hayden Christensen (who plays Glass admirably) and Peter Sarsgaard, who plays his editor Charles 'Chuck' Lane so well that he ended up with quite a few awards to show for it.
Directed by first-timer Billy Ray -- who wrote the screenplay for Volcano and has now directed Breach, which hits screens next year – Shattered Glass has been compared favourably to that other much-praised movie about journalism, All the President's Men: the 1976 classic about the Watergate expose, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. The fact that this is a true story only makes it more interesting.
source: rediff.com ... click to read rest of the review at rediff
