Earlier than Hayden Christensen made his 2002 debut as Anakin Skywalker within the second installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Star Wars: Episode II — Assault of the Clones, he obtained essential popularity of his efficiency as a rebellious teenager who struggles to reconnect together with his dying father within the 2001 drama movie Life as a Home. Following Assault of the Clones, Christensen sought to develop his vary as an actor together with his featured position within the 2003 biographical drama movie Shattered Glass, through which he performs Stephen Glass, a once-celebrated reporter for the venerable journal The New Republic, who was discovered to have fabricated the vast majority of his tales.
In detailing Glass’s speedy skilled and psychological collapse, Shattered Glass explores themes of ambition, betrayal, and loyalty whereas offering a practical depiction of a working newsroom struggling to come back to phrases with an unprecedented disaster. Christensen’s refined, textured efficiency offers a riveting character examine of an admitted serial liar who was surprisingly hooked on the acclaim he obtained for writing fiction within the guise of journalism. Whereas Glass was an undeniably gifted author, regardless of his fraud, Shattered Glass clearly establishes that Glass was a significantly better actor than a journalist.
Stephen Glass Is a Grasp Manipulator Disguised as a Journalist
Simply as Palpatine masterfully exploits Anakin Skywalker’s vulnerabilities to show Anakin to the darkish facet in Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, Shattered Glass reveals how Stephen Glass expertly manipulates his colleagues to additional his corrupt agenda. The best vulnerability that his colleagues had at The New Republic journal was Glass. His bashful allure and reflexively apologetic nature enabled him to totally ingratiate himself amongst his colleagues, particularly the journal’s feminine workers members, who regarded him as a surrogate brother determine to be coddled and guarded.
Whereas his puppy-dog earnestness appears initially intrinsic to his persona, that is revealed to be a pillar of his misleading technique. Shattered Glass unfolds as a cat-and-mouse thriller through which Glass narrowly avoids detection by way of the impressed creation of a dizzying assortment of enterprise playing cards, notes, e-mails, faxes, and even a pretend web site. When questioned by The New Republic editor Michael Kelly relating to the veracity of an article through which he incorrectly recognized a resort mini-bar, an anguished Glass effusively admits to this minor mistake with out mentioning that your entire article was faked.
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Along with successful the entire belief of his colleagues, Glass had a deep understanding of the fact-checking course of and knew the right way to recreation the system. Earlier than he grew to become an affiliate editor and a reporter at The New Republic, he led the journal’s fact-checking division. This information led Glass to plan a plan based mostly on progressively escalating fabrication.
On the primary stage, just about each facet of an article is factual and bonafide. On the second stage, many of the parts of an article are correct with a modest diploma of fabrication. This downward spiral continues till the whole lot of the reporting is faked. The adoring fact-checkers are clueless and unsuspecting. After all, no fact-checking system is supplied to cope with a author whose work is totally a figment of their creativeness.
Hayden Christensen Is not the Actual Star of ‘Shattered Glass’
When Shattered Glass was launched in 2003, Hayden Christensen deservedly obtained enthusiastic critiques for his important efficiency as Stephen Glass, as this efficiency is now extensively considered arguably the most effective efficiency of Christensen’s profession. Nevertheless, the majority of the approval for the movie, each on the time of its launch and particularly on reflection, is hooked up to Peter Sarsgaard, for his compelling efficiency as Charles Lane, the newly put in editor of The New Republic who was the primary particular person to see clearly by way of Glass’s lies and punish him accordingly.
The actual protagonist of Shattered Glass is Lane, not Glass. Whereas Glass stays just about unchanged all through the movie, Lane evolves dramatically, starting with the second when Lane is tasked with changing the favored Michael Kelly because the editor of The New Republic, a lot to the disapproval of the journal’s workers. When Lane encounters the primary proof of Glass’s deception, after the accuracy of an article titled “Hack Heaven” is named into severe query by the web site Forbes Digital Software, Lane initially views Glass as a troubled younger man with psychological issues.
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Whereas Shattered Glass has sadly been considerably forgotten, it’s develop into extra well timed than ever earlier than.
Nevertheless, as soon as the extent of Glass’s blatant, intentional dishonesty turns into obvious, Lane alone demonstrates the braveness and integrity with which to take decisive and obligatory motion. By way of a single piercing stare from Sarsgaard, Lane purges the storied journal of Glass’s cancerous affect. With this daring act of ethical decisiveness, Lane beneficial properties the viewers’s utmost respect, in addition to that of his beforehand unsupportive colleagues.
‘Shattered Glass’ Predicted the Rise of Pretend Information
With its intense examination of the inside workings of a newsroom amid a just about unparalleled moral disaster, Shattered Glass ranks among the many greatest movies ever made about journalism. Shattered Glass resonates extra strongly immediately than it did on the time of its preliminary 2003 launch, particularly when imagining how the repercussions of Stephen Glass’s fraud would unfold in immediately’s more and more transient on-line media world. Simply as Shattered Glass, which is ready in 1998, serves as a poignant doc of the upcoming demise of print media and the onset of digital media, the movie additionally frighteningly predicted how the already weakening fact-checking guardrails offered within the film have been destined to develop into just about out of date.
Evidently, Glass’s elaborate deception wouldn’t be almost as newsworthy and stunning if it have been uncovered immediately, in an period through which Glass and his pretend articles could possibly be just about erased with the faucet of a pc key. Whereas there actually exists immediately the hope and modest expectation that digital media retailers will exhibit journalistic integrity and follow accountable reporting, there aren’t any significant penalties in the event that they don’t.
After all, if Glass’s journalistic fraud obtained comparatively scant publicity immediately, it won’t have been uncovered if the bogus articles had been printed earlier than the emergence of digital media. When Glass’s penultimate phony article, “Hack Heaven,” was first printed in The New Republic in 1998, the article was solely obtainable within the print version. Google didn’t exist. All that was left to show Glass was Yahoo. Shattered Glass is streaming on Tubi.