|
COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
The new movie "Shattered Glass" depicts a nasty moment in the life of The New Republic. If the internal turmoils of a political magazine based in Washington are now considered sufficient grounds for a motion picture, there is no saying where the movie industry, avid for fresh material, will choose to cast its net: A struggle for the soul of Men's Health? A major dustup over late-bottled port in the pages of Decanter? Journalists everywhere will be emboldened to inspect their wrinkled lives for possible drama. For instance, that cab ride to J.F.K. that I claimed on expenses last year: would Vin Diesel care to hear more?
The man who, in the late nineteen-nineties, brought disgrace upon The New Republic was Stephen Glass, although to call him a man suggests that he was fully formed. As portrayed in the film by Hayden Christensen, he is scarcely more than a boy: geeky, glib, and blessed (or, as we come to realize, burdened) with the headlong momentum of boyhood--that eagerness with which the smart kid will both lunge into trouble and try to oil himself out of it. Christensen has tasted fame as Anakin Skywalker in the recent installments of "Star Wars," but any fears that he would import an aura of proto-Jedi wisdom to this new role are, thankfully, unfounded, and somebody in the makeup department remembered to lop off that annoying intergalactic rattail at...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
