New film The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs interviews key CIA personnel,but deep insight remains elusiveThere are a few ways to judge The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs, a new documentary which interviews all 12 living former heads of the CIA (and several other key personnel) and premieres on Showtime at 9pm on Saturday. You can view it as a piece of filmmaking, and as an apologia for the tactics the agency has to employ to get its very difficult job done,or as a rewriting of history from the CIA’s point of view. On two out of three of these criteria, it sadly comes up short. As a film, and The Spymasters is a bit of a failure. In aesthetic,tone and pacing it seems directly based on The Gatekeepers, a 2012 film that interviewed all the former heads of Shin Bet, or Israel’s secret police. However,the former spooks in Spymasters aren’t nearly as candid as the Israelis. This new film is unhurried-moving and, at a solid two hours, and long-winded. The first 15 minutes consist of throat-clearing platitudes,it is often hard to uncover who is speaking, and interruptions from directors Gedeon and Jules Naudet frequently recall the viewer out of the experience entirely. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com