| Cast in Credits Order | |
|---|---|
| Edward Snowden | as Himself |
| Glenn Greenwald | as Himself |
| William Binney | as Himself |
| Jacob Appelbaum | as Himself |
| Ewen MacAskill | as Himself |
| Jeremy Scahill | as Himself |
| M. Margaret McKeown | as Herself — Judge |
| Kevin Bankston | as Himself — attorney representing Carolyn Jewel |
| Harry Pregerson | as Himself — Judge |
| H. Thomas Byron | as Himself — Government Representative |
| Michael Daly Hawkins | as Himself — Judge |
| Jonathan Man | as Himself — Human Rights Lawyer |
| Robert Tibbo | as Himself — Human Rights Lawyer (voice) |
| José Casado | as Himself |
| Roberto Kaz | as Himself |
| Julian Borger | as Himself — Editor, The Guardian |
| Paul Johnson | as Himself |
| Nick Hopkins | as Himself |
| Julian Assange | as Himself |
| Marcel Bosonnet | as Himself — Lawyer |
| Wolfgang Kaleck | as Himself — Lawyer |
| Ben Wizner | as Himself — ACLU Lawyer |
| William Bourdon | as Himself — Lawyer |
| Gonzalo Boye | as Himself |
| Carsten Gericke | as Himself |
| David Miranda | as Himself |
| Ladar Levison | as Himself — Owner and Operator, Lavabit LLC |
| Marcel Rosenbach | as Himself — Journalist, Der Spiegel |
| Rainer Staudhammer | as Himself |
| Lindsay Mills | as Herself |
| Remainder Listed Alphabetically | |
| Keith Alexander | as Himself — NSA director (archive footage) |
| James Clapper | as Himself — DNI (archive footage) |
| Barack Obama | as Himself (archive footage) |
| Jesselyn Radack | as Herself — attorney for NSA whistleblower (archive footage) |
| Laura Poitras | as Herself (uncredited) |
| MPAA Rating: | R |
| Production Companies: | Praxis Films; Participant Media; HBO Documentary Films |
| Distributors (USA): | Home Box Office; RADiUS-TWC |
| Release Date (US): | 11/28/2014 |
| Running Time: | 114 minutes |
| Domestic Box Office: | $2,798,808 (4/24/2015) |
| Production Budget: | $? (Est.) |
This film shows us the discussions that took place in Hong Kong in June 2013 between Edward Snowden and reporter Glenn Greenwald, along with other people. (The other people were as important to the story as Greenwald, just given less time on-screen.) In addition to the interviews with Snowden about his release of classified material, in which he comes off well overall, we see him discussing technical details of NSA surveillance programs and advising others on communications security.
We also see Glenn Greenwald addressing a conference in Brazil, his adopted country (in Portuguese, with subtitles) and William Binney in a wheelchair addressing a conference in Berlin (in English.) There are also numerous outdoor scenes, and transcripts of online text conversations are displayed at intervals as background.
The matter of the secrets revealed by Edward Snowden and published by Wikileaks (as well as the disclosures by Chelsea Manning, mentioned in this film) and the arrests of several other intelligence professionals — notably William Binney — is a complicated one. It did not help my understanding much that Citizenfour is mostly a running conversation with Snowden in Hong Kong over the week he was held up there before his team got him into Russia. It is possible to glean most of the convoluted story from the film, but it takes close concentration and constant attention to the screen because of the transcripts that appear at intervals.1
In my opinion the film would benefit from another editing pass. For example, there is one scene of about 10 seconds where a blank exterior wall is shown for no apparent reason. Another shot shows an electronic billboard with Snowden's picture and some text in Chinese. This tells me nothing other than that Snowden was big news in Hong Kong at the time. Also, the audio levels varied so that it was sometimes difficult to hear the dialogue. Nevertheless I am going to give it a 9 and recommend it as a must-see.
My Rating:
9 out of 10
Capsule review: Sloppy editing does not much diminish this film. It does provide the gist of its important story, and the special features improve its relevance considerably. It is not to be missed.
| IMDB Rating: 8.1 | Raters: 42,013 |
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