MPI fellow Jared Lapidus' short film The Libel Tourist has only been live for a couple of weeks--but already it has been viewed more than 8,800 times on YouTube. And that's only a fraction of viewings, as this film has been spreading like viral wildfire across the internet. Libel tourism is essentially the process of finding countries where the courts can be used to effect censorship--so it's great to see information about it circulating so freely on the web. The internet knows no country--and it's bringing new meaning to the ideal of freedom of information.
French torch singer Edith Piaf lived a tough life--born in the Parisian gutter and abandoned by her parents multiple times, she was discovered by a club owner, busking brassily on a streetcorner, during the rough years of the 1930s--and never looked back. Given a stage name ("piaf" is slang for "sparrow") and some polishing voice lessons, she took first Paris and then the west by storm. Along the way, she lost a child and a lover and nearly lost her sight; she married and divorced and married again; she suffered through car accidents and addictions and early failing health most likely brought on by alcohol abuse--and she died slowly and tragically at the age of 47 from liver cancer.
The film La Vie en Rose brings Piaf to life--and dramatizes both her tremendous force of personality as well as the terrible manner in which she aged, failed, and died before her time. In the final scenes, we see a diseased, mortally ill Piaf refusing to give up the stage--and repeatedly collapsing before audiences as she tries to will her broken body to belt out one more song.
The most moving aspect of the film centers on her decision to adopt and debut "Je ne regrette rien." Piaf was in terrible health, and entering an irreversible decline when she first heard the song. She had decided to cancel a performance, and only listened to the song to be polite. But as she listened, she was transformed--so inspired that she decided to perform after all.
The lyrics seem to have been written just for her--and they call out to everyone who believes wholeheartedly in freedom of choice. They speak of the importance not only of choosing, but of being free to make bad choices as well as good ones. And they underscore how precious that freedom--to choose, to err, to remember, to love, and to embrace a lifetime and a future of choices--is.
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal
Tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
C'est payé, balayé, oublié
Je me fous du passé
Avec mes souvenirs
J'ai allumé le feu
Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs
Je n'ai plus besoin d'eux
Balayés mes amours
Avec leurs trémolos
Balayés pour toujours
Je repars à zéro
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal
Tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie
Car mes joies
Aujourd'hui
Ça commence avec toi...
Non Je Ne Regrette Rien
It was only fitting that Indoctrinate U would run into trouble with a university--so much of what the film documents is how much trouble universities make for people who depart from the approved campus viewpoint. And things were getting worrisome with Indiana University, whose lawyers not only found problems with the film's logo, but demanded that On the Fence Films pay them to drop their complaint. But after Evan Coyne Maloney published a piece about the debacle at the Wall Street Journal, IU thought better of its actions and declared a conclusion to its potentially ruinous pursuit of the film. And, in the manner of the internet, word got out not through an official university release, and not by way of direct communication with Maloney--but by way of an email sent by an IU official to James Taranto, author of the WSJ's daily "Best of the Web" column. Notification duly went public by way of Taranto's popular daily update.
Now Indoctrinate U is good to go--and going to Canada! On February 18, 2008, it will screen in Ottawa, at the Free Thinking Film Society, at 7 PM.
The Singing Revolution opens today in Greenwich Village--and the reviews are already coming in.
Zach Freeman of the Blogger News Network calls the film "moving," "engaging," and "rewarding," observing that "the film somehow manages to encapsulate both the information of a History Channel special and the entertainment value of a feature documentary." Noting that The Singing Revolution won both the Jury Prize and the Audience Favorite Award at October's Estdocs festival, Freeman remarks that "The 90-minute feature is an especially timely treat as it displays a prime example of creating change “not by violence but through creating a democratic alternative.”
And here is J.B. Spins, who thinks every student in the country should see this film, and who says that New Yorkers should prioritize it over The Kite Runner:
This is a very well put together film. The music is well chosen for both illustrative and dramatic effect. Linda Hunt’s narration is clear and authoritative. The filmmakers have collected some amazing archival footage and conducted many insightful interviews. Wisely, they completely eschewed the usual talking head academics, in favor of the people who really lived the story.
More than just a lesson in history and politics, Singing is about courage, both on the individual and collective level. It is about two police officers charged with protecting the country’s only radio transmitter tower from the invading Soviet army. It is also about hundreds of thousands of Estonians who took to the streets to protest the Soviets and to protect the Estonian government from rioting Communists affiliated with the Interfront faction.
The stories of Singing are truly moving, especially when accompanied by the stirring large scale chorale music of Laulupidu. These events should be common knowledge, yet the recent history of the Estonian Singing Revolution, the Czech Velvet Revolution, and other such courageous movements seeking freedom from Communist rule, are being ignored, forgotten or otherwise discounted these days. Singing Revolution is an excellent antidote. It should be seen by every student in America, as it speaks directly about what it means to be a citizen and to live in a free society. In fact, this film is increasingly timely, as Putin continues to chart an alarmingly neo-Soviet course for Russia.
It opens this Friday in New York at the Village East Cinema. Kite Runner opens the same day, which is also a great film, but Singing will have a more limited window to reach an audience, so interested viewers should make it their priority. Seeking it out is highly recommended.
I imagine that Jim and Maureen Tusty's documentary "The Singing Revolution" will mainly be of interest to Estonian immigrants, their families and other people from the former Eastern bloc, but it's actually a wonderful exploration of that still little-understood period, from the mid-1980s through 1991, when the empire of Soviet communism rapidly collapsed. Viewing that collapse from the perspective of a tiny, intensely patriotic country (total population: 1 million) whose principal nationalist expression is choral singing -- well, that makes it all the more improbable and delightful.
Repeatedly overrun by larger neighbors, and occupied by the Soviets since the end of World War II, Estonia nearly had its idiosyncratic culture and language wiped off the map. But as the Tustys' interviewees explain it, the choral tradition literally kept the nation alive, and the result was that in 1991 Estonia had a democratic revolution in which no guns were fired and no one was killed, even in a bitter standoff between the country's Estonian majority and a large and belligerent Russophile minority. This movie was supported extensively by the Estonian government, and as such is very much the official version of events. It does not explore the problems that have afflicted all of Eastern Europe in the post-Soviet era. But still: Estonia, Baltic land of beautiful forests, incipient democracy and weird, cool singing! What's not to love?
MPI fellow Jared Lapidus' The Libel Tourist is making waves in many languages. On Saturday, the Dutch equivalent of the New York Times, de Volkskrant, ran a colorful feature piece about the phenomenon of libel tourism, about Rachel Ehrenfeld's suit, and about Lapidus' film. The coverage comes in the wake of the movie's massive grassroots success -- available free online, The Libel Tourist has been downloaded at YouTube nearly 12,000 times since its release in November.
"Imagine the scene in Casablanca in which the French patrons sing "La Marseillaise” in defiance of the Germans, then multiply its power by a factor of thousands, and you’ve only begun to imagine the force of The Singing Revolution." --from the New York Times
The Singing Revolution has had a fantastic run this week at Manhattan's Village East City Cinemas--so much so that the theater has held the film over until Christmas day. Last weekend, The Singing Revolution was the #9 movie in the country on a per-screen basis--which is really saying something when you consider that it was only showing on one screen and was competing with over 3,500 other films.
Be sure to see this film if you haven't--it's touching, it's inspiring, and it's also immensely educational, not only about Estonian history, but also about how freedom works and how much people will risk to secure it. As the Hollywood Reporter says, "Few true-life tales of nationalist pride are as moving. ... Using copious amounts of fascinating archival footage as well as extensive interviews with numerous figures associated with the movement, [the film] provides an uplifting depiction of vitally important political ends achieved via nonviolent means."
One of the hardest things about documentary journalism--whether narrative or cinematic--is closure. Books and movies need to end, while the events and issues they chronicle tend to go on and on. This dynamic was painfully experienced by one of the genre's first and most accomplished practitioners--Truman Capote had to wait years to finish his masterpiece, In Cold Blood, as the death row murderers he was writing about had to complete their grindingly slow appeals process before Capote could say what finally became of them. Capote later compared the paralysis he experienced during that time to a death.
Capote was nothing if not melodramatic. But the difficulty built into the project of artistically reporting current events is real enough.
When MPI fellow Jared Lapidus was putting the finishing touches on The Libel Tourist during the summer and early fall, he found himself delaying completion because libel tourism was much in the news and he wanted to incorporate new developments into his film. But a line did get drawn in November, and Lapidus was certainly right to release his film when he did. The movie does a great job of laying out what is at stake in libel tourism by way of Rachel Ehrenfeld's case against Saudi billionaire Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz. But at the time, Lapidus wasn't in a position to say whether the U.S. courts would uphold Ehrenfeld's free speech rights, or whether, by extension, it would pose a pointed and necessary challenge to the manner in which English law enables libel tourists to strike devastating blows against free speech--for the simple reason that Ehrenfeld's case was still pending.
Unlike Capote, Lapidus could and did release his work when the outcome was unclear. And that was a wise move, as it allowed him to use his film to frame important issues. Had the outcome been known, the film would have had to have been framed around events rather than principles -- and, as the developments of this week reveal, that makes for a dispiriting picture indeed.
Earlier this week, New York's highest court tossed Ehrenfeld's case--and sent a chilling message to those who seek to expose how global terror networks are financed:
New York's highest court has passed up an opportunity to protect American authors from the libel judgments of foreign courts. In a decision handed down yesterday, the Court of Appeals in Albany told a New York-based researcher that she could not use the courts here to challenge a British judgment ordering her to pay 30,000 British pounds — more than $60,000 — for defaming a Saudi billionaire.
The case was a test of how New York's courts will respond to concerns that the First Amendment rights of American authors are undermined by libel judgments imposed abroad, especially in Britain.
Libel law in Britain is far more plaintiff-friendly than libel law in America. This discrepancy has given rise to a practice that critics call "libel tourism." In recent years, American authors and journalists have found themselves sued by non-British nationals in British courts over articles and books published in America.
The researcher, Rachel Ehrenfeld, had asked a court in New York to declare the British judgment against her unenforceable under the First Amendment.
But the Court of Appeals said a New York court first needed jurisdiction over the Saudi financier who brought the case, Khalid bin Mahfouz, before it could take up Ms. Ehrenfeld's countersuit. The court found that Mr. Mahfouz had so few dealings involving New York that no local court had jurisdiction over a suit against him.
The decision does not preclude Ms. Ehrenfeld from challenging the judgment if Mr. Mahfouz goes to court in New York to try to collect. But Ms. Ehrenfeld's attorney, Daniel Kornstein, has said having the judgment hanging over Ms. Ehrenfeld has affected her research and writing, regardless of whether Mr. Mahfouz tries to collect in a New York court.
The decision, written by Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick, an appointee of Governor Cuomo, sidestepped Ms. Ehrenfeld's claims that the British judgment was hampering her free speech. Of "libel tourism," the decision states: "However pernicious the effect of this practice may be, our duty here is to determine whether defendant's New York contacts establish a proper basis for jurisdiction."
A lawyer in Boston who has written on the case, Harvey Silverglate, said: "The New York Court of Appeals could have done a better job of protecting our constitutional rights than it did here with this rather technical opinion."
At issue is Ms. Ehrenfeld's 2003 book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed — and How to Stop It," in which she accuses Mr. Mahfouz of backing organizations with alleged ties to terrorism. Mr. Mahfouz denies the accusation, and he sued Ms. Ehrenfeld and other researchers who have made similar allegations against him in court in London. Ms. Ehrenfeld's work has appeared in many publications, including The New York Sun.
Ms. Ehrenfeld never appeared before the British court, which in 2005 ordered her to print an apology, keep her books out of the country, and pay Mr. Mahfouz the fine.
Last year, Britain's highest court, the House of Lords, made it significantly more difficult for journalists to be sued for libel. That decision came in a case against the Wall Street Journal Europe brought by another Saudi businessman.
