Hi, everyone. I’m still open to advice for my fanfic, but today I’m switching back to the regular Substack. And just like with the last post, I owe it to the podcast “Chatter.” I’m learning so much from that show, I’ve become a regular listener.
“Chatter” is produced by Lawfare, a media organization whose specialty is law and national security. Most of their podcasts feature policy experts and academics talking about very serious issues. “Chatter” is where they shed their usual wonkiness and go light - though not fluffy. They interview the same caliber of guests, but they ask them about pop culture. In other words, they let smart people talk about fun stuff. Last week, I was introduced to Professor Stephen Dyson’s lessons on science fiction. This week, the guest was Tina Satter, screenwriter of “Reality,” a movie dramatization about whistle blower Reality Winner.
Even before hearing the interview and watching the movie, I supported Ms. Winner. When she was in prison and her mother was campaigning for her release, I followed her on Twitter and publicized her cause with retweets as requested. I was relieved when President Biden pardoned her. But the movie did much more than reinforce my opinion. It persuaded me that Reality Winner is a national hero. Her lines were taken from Reality’s actual quotes. The writer didn’t put any words into the “character’s” mouth. But when she explained her reasons for sharing those secrets, it made me want to get up and cheer.
The uniqueness of the script is exactly this lack of invention. All the lines were taken straight from the FBI’s transcript of the interrogation. That makes it a truly journalistic film. As a student of writing craft, that was reason enough to watch it.
No doubt, the writer had to leave some parts out, and I don’t just mean the redacted stuff, which had its own visual cue. The interrogation lasted hours, so the writer had to be selective, and she made some interesting choices. One of them was the focus on Reality’s dog and cat. The FBI guys let her take care of them before they got started, which absolutely humanized them. From beginning to end, you don’t think of anyone on screen as an actual villain. The only villain is misinformation, and the discussion of it reprises the animal theme. Reality observes that the citizenry would do better to hear a stream of people talking about their pets than what passes as news these days. In a transcript, that might have looked like an off-hand comment, but in the movie, it became a unifying thread.
The writer said she consulted with Reality on the script, but she never asked how she felt at any particular juncture. The actress, however, had independent conversations with her, and those were probably all about emotions. I must say, the actress did as phenomenal a job as the writer. Her performance is really understated. She looks like someone trying hard to keep it together, but over the course of the film, you see her stress heighten as she realizes just how much trouble she is in.
Though the events portrayed in the movie took place only six years ago, so much has happened since then that you can’t help being struck by the irony. Reality Winner was incarcerated for three years for leaking one classified document in order to warn the public about foreign interference to elect a president who is now facing charges for stealing boxes of documents with an even more top secret classification. Did he share those documents with the foreign power that wanted to elect him? Did he sell state secrets to the highest bidder? Will we ever know the truth? I hope and pray that we will. After all these years and so many lies, the world needs it. Reality must become the winner.
I don't know anything about this case but it sounds fascinating!