34 The Nation. October 25, 2010

striking for its rarity. Zuckerberg allows him- self only a couple of others throughout the course of the film, and one of those hardly counts, given that he delivers it as a drunken blog post, written after his girlfriend walks out on him. The wonder of The Social Network is that Jesse Eisenberg, with his smooth and melancholy Jewish face, gets you precisely­ halfway onto Zuckerberg’s side. A specialist roup, I n c . ar M arke t ing G roup, in bright, vulnerable brooders with a bit of a mean streak (see The Squid and the Whale or Adventureland), Eisenberg plays Zuck- erberg as a genius-level wolf-boy: someone who is so smart that he feels entitled to say

© 2010 Columbia Tris t whatever’s on his mind, however brutal, and Jesse Eisenberg (left) and Justin Timberlake in The Social Network resents other people for resenting him for it. Abrasive in voice and manner, arrhythmic in gesture, humorless (though he doesn’t think Traps so), the character doesn’t bother to talk about by Stuart Klawans his feelings because nobody’s worthy to hear about them, and besides, he’s really interested f the word “breathless” were still available, movie about the 20-year-olds who were only in behaviors. Meanwhile, behind the maybe David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin shipping out to Iraq and Afghanistan when actor’s deep-shadowed eyes, you sense an could have chosen it as the title of The Zuckerberg had his brainstorm, or can’t almost desperate sweetness. It’s Zuckerberg’s Social Network, their lightning-quick zig- find jobs today.) In fact, The Social Network fatal flaw that he would never let anyone see zag through the rise of Facebook and the doesn’t even tell you that much about social that part of himself, and Eisenberg’s triumph Idemise of all the nonvirtual relationships from networks. What it does go into, fictionally that he gets through the entire movie without which it sprang. Reviving the old Warner but with strong critical intelligence, is the once begging you to notice it. Bros. tradition of ripping films from today’s presumed difference between Zuckerberg’s As foils to this character, and rather sche- headlines—or, rather, carrying back into a attitudes and expectations and those of other matic contributors to the movie’s theme, big-studio production the headline-tearing people, members of his own generation quick-witted British actor Andrew Garfield methods that remain common in television, included, whose thinking was about five (as Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg’s original where Sorkin is their master—The Social Net- minutes behind his. I take this difference to business partner and sole friend at Harvard) work makes crackling, often hilarious drama be the real subject of the movie. If the word and the very large Armie Hammer (in a out of events that began in Mark Zuckerberg’s had not already been taken, maybe Fincher dual role as Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Harvard dorm room a mere seven years ago, and Sorkin could have called it Contempt. ­upperclassmen in all senses) briefly imag- reached a (very temporary) legal stopping This is a story that begins with a callous ine they have hired Zuckerberg to work for point in 2008 and were put into book form (as put-down, immediately escalates to public them. The first mistakenly thinks that well- Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires, cred- slurs (against one young woman at Boston ­formulated, carefully executed business plans ited as the screenplay’s source) only in 2009. University and every female undergrad at still lead to success (and can hold Zuckerberg’s You’d better not get self-indulgent if you Harvard) and reaches its thematic high point attention). The second foolishly believes that want to toss off a film this fast; and indeed, when a character proudly remarks that one scholar-athletes with old money naturally Fincher has directed The Social Network head- of his actions had not been a smart business have success coming to them (and can excite on, without fudging a single camera setup move but was a great way of saying “Fuck anything in Zuckerberg other than rancor). or wasting a single shot (except for putting you.” Formally, The Social Network makes its The only character to catch on to Zuckerberg, in one too many images of a caged hen— strongest statement through a densely layered and catch what passes for his loyalty, is an- and that doesn’t matter, since the chicken soundtrack in which the voices are often other online entreprovocateur: Sean Parker, is funny). You may judge the efficiency of thoroughly blended into the ambient noise: inventor of Napster, played brilliantly by a Fincher’s methods by that zigzag effect I an environment of omnidirectional chatter snaky yet sexless Justin Timberlake. mentioned. Although The Social Network is and continual buzz where you lean in to catch A movie about the least cool guy in the structured as a double flashback—scenes of one line of dialogue while the speakers are world who invents the next cool thing, the two different legal depositions in 2008 call up already racing into the next. Dramatically, guy who can’t accommodate himself to any memories of 2003–04—the to-and-fro seems though, the most lasting impression The So- group and so smashes all of them, The Social only to make the action accelerate. cial Network might leave is the image of its Network delivers a current-affairs jolt that’s The result is not a work of reliable re- fastest thinker and talker as he rouses himself been sorely lacking in the multiplexes. You portage (something that only a mug would from a seeming torpor to tongue-lash an at- know what it’s about even before you see it, have expected it to be); nor is it, as some torney three times his age. In return for a per- and you know why it’s relevant without being commentators are claiming, the story of a ceived condescension, Zuckerberg returns the told. But at the deepest level of its investiga- generation. (If the latter film is what you real thing, red-hot and self-righteous, while tion into Internet capitalism, portrayed here want, don’t go looking for it in the portrait scarcely looking at the object of his scorn. as a nonsystem with an aggravated ethos of an exemplary billionaire. Wait for the This act of self-revelation is all the more of creative destruction, The Social Network October 25, 2010 The Nation. 35 blurs recent history into contemporary myth. Ghetto. These pictures—about sixty minutes in the Nazis’ meticulous records of their What is its central figure, if not the Ivy of them, which serve as the core of Herson- propaganda­ work. The reels disappeared until League fulfillment of Heath Ledger’s Joker ski’s documentary—were shot in the ghetto 1954, when archivists discovered them in the in The Dark Knight? Zuckerberg, too, could in May 1942, shortly before the beginning East German vaults. Subsequently, filmmak- say, from atop his pile of money, “I don’t make of the deportations to Treblinka, capturing ers began to use snippets of this semi-raw plans. I just—do things.” whatever was placed in front of the camera. footage to illustrate the misery of the ghetto. But because these scenes were planned and They did so, however, without commenting o v e r t h e p a s t s u m m e r , y a e l realized by the Nazis for their own purposes, on the source of the images or acknowledg- Hersonski’s A Film Unfinished began to play they are, in large measure, inventions. ing the existence of the strange, improbable theatrically across the country, bringing audi- Seemingly abandoned while still in rough scenes of Jewish luxury that alternated with ences the disquieting experience of viewing cut, with neither a soundtrack nor titles added, the pictures of utter wretchedness. authentically fabricated images of the Warsaw this dubious material was never accounted for This willfully naïve approach became less

relatively small posts from Central Asia security are now synonymous, and victory is In Our Orbit to Southeastern Europe and the Horn of meaningless, Washington is a war capital, Africa that are “meant to encircle and nail and the United States a militarized country, down control of this vast set of interlocking even if it doesn’t look like it at home. “We Fair Warning regions.” The massive fortified embassies live in a world of American Newspeak,” he by Frederick Deknatel under construction in Baghdad and Islam- writes, “in which alternatives to a state of abad, home to more soldiers, spies and cost war are not only ever more unacceptable, he embarrassing percentage of Amer- overruns than diplomats, “will, assumedly, but even harder to imagine.” America has icans who believe Barack Obama is a anchor the U.S. presence in the Greater been without a decisive military victory since Muslim Manchurian candidate sent to Middle East.” World War II—Grenada, Panama and the impose Sharia—or is it socialism?— Engelhardt does not trace American 1991 Gulf War aside—but that is irrelevant. from sea to shining sea should take militarism solely to the “war on terror.” The reality, created in the cold war and ex- aT look at the Pentagon’s books. Earlier this With quick pace, he tells a history of fear ploited after 9/11, is an “ongoing war system year Obama, formerly the partial antiwar and triumph that followed Pearl Harbor [that] can’t absorb victory,” because victory candidate, sent Congress the largest defense and the atomic bombings of Japan, which is the end of military spending and rhetoric. budget since World War II: $708 billion for not only exposed the world to the reality War, Engelhardt argues, “is increasingly a the fiscal year 2011, a sum that surpassed the of nuclear war but also showed Americans, state of being, not a process with a begin- 2010 defense budget of $626 billion, which with Hollywood’s help, the image of a cata- ning, an end, and an actual geography.” Na- grew this spring by $33 billion—the initial strophic attack on the “homeland.” The tional security and the “war on terror” feed outlay for an additional 30,000 soldiers in term that was forged on 9/11 “once was an a perpetual state of insecurity that sustains Afghanistan. Nearly $160 billion of the 2011 un-American word, more easily associated and justifies the national security state. At budget (up from $128 billion in 2010) covers with Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany.” Yet it least four times since the invasion of Iraq, “Overseas Contingency Operations,” the has “replaced ‘country,’ ‘land,’ and ‘nation’ the United States has declared Iraq sover- wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These bloated in the language of the terror-mongers. ‘The eign. After every announcement, garrisons numbers, plus the less-reported budgets homeland’ is the place that terrorism, and of American troops have remained, with and contingencies that reveal themselves in nothing but terrorism, can violate.” billions in Congress-approved budgets sup- drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, are not History and polemic mix in punchy porting them, whether they are designated just “part of Pentagon blank-check-ism in chapters about the rise of aerial warfare, for combat or not. Washington,” in Tom Engelhardt’s terms. the acceptance of civilian deaths as “col- Engelhardt excels at extracting lurid de- They are also proof that “war is now the lateral damage” and the language of war. tails from the annals of America’s ongoing American way,” as he writes, “even if peace Engelhardt laments the lack of journalistic state of war. He has an editor’s eye for the is what most Americans experience while coverage of the air wars over America’s most revealing line buried at the bottom of their proxies fight in distant lands.” At the distant battlefields, whether by manned jets a war correspondent’s dispatch or an intel- outset of his damning new book, The Ameri- and helicopters or, increasingly, remote- ligence report filed in Washington. One of can Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became controlled drones. Media reports rarely cite his best details is of the pilots who operate Obama’s (Haymarket; $16.95), Engelhardt, “any cumulative figures on air strikes in Iraq the unmanned drones that drop missiles on a Nation Institute fellow, writes, “And peace or Afghanistan per day, week or month.” Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some work at itself? Simply put, there’s no money in it.” Why are no reporters taking to the skies computer screens on the outskirts of Las The collection is a culling of essays pub- above Iraq to survey the destruction of its Vegas. When a day’s work is over and the lished on Engelhardt’s TomDispatch web- cities? Along with the permanent American pilots leave Creech Air Force Base, a sign site since 2004, and the same note is struck bases in Iraq, in Engelhardt’s view, “the warns them to “drive carefully”—this is “the in piece after piece after piece: America is expansion of U.S. airpower is the great most dangerous part of your day.” A fair an empire, its actions imperial. The signs missing story of the post-9/11 era.” warning; the threats are made at home. n are not just Iraq and Afghanistan but the Also missing is the willingness of the increased drone attacks in Pakistan and the political class to imagine a foreign policy Frederick Deknatel is a freelance journalist Pentagon’s expansion of “lily pad” bases— not in thrall to a war machine. Since war and based in Oxford, England. 36 The Nation. October 25, 2010

tenable in 1998, when a British researcher was made as the US government’s official stumbled upon some thirty minutes of ap- film account of the Allied powers’ trial of parently discarded material from the Warsaw Nazi high officials. Written and directed by Ghetto film: multiple takes of scenes, which Stuart Schulberg, and produced by Schulberg left no doubt that they had been staged. Still, and Pare Lorentz (who dropped out, or was until Hersonski, no one has thought to exhibit pushed, before the project was completed), this material as an artifact, drawing attention Nuremberg was meant to be shown not only to to its puzzles, self-contradictions and lies. the vanquished Germans but also to Ameri- In A Film Unfinished, Hersonski has em- can audiences. That latter release never hap- bedded the extant footage within a critical pened. Although it seems that at least some scaffolding—one with several tiers, not all of US officials tried to secure domestic studio them equally sturdy. Its elements are a dis- distribution for the film, the government cursive soundtrack narration; readings from shelved Nuremberg—perhaps because by the diary of Adam Czerniakow, head of the 1948 it was no longer politically expedient to ghetto’s Jewish Council, who made notes show scenes of a Red Army prosecutor taking about his forced participation in the filming; the moral high ground. Nuremberg became a dramatic re-enactment of official testimony another unseen, all-but-forgotten film. given by one Willy Wist, the only member of It has resurfaced thanks to a restora- the Nazi film crew ever to have been identi- tion by Sandra Schulberg (daughter of the fied; and scenes of octogenarian Warsaw writer-director,­ and a distinguished figure in Ghetto survivors watching the footage, and independent­ film) and Josh Waletzky (best responding to it, in a screening room in known as the director of Partisans of Vilna). Be- Israel. The method is complex; but what we cause the prints found in an American archive learn from A Film Unfinished can be summed turned out to be badly deteriorated, Schulberg up simply enough. The Nazis most likely and Waletzky based their restoration on a intended to represent the Warsaw Ghetto as German print—a fortunate necessity, since it a hell of the Jews’ own making. In manufac- makes the intention of Nuremberg unmistak- turing this horrific fiction, they unavoidably able. Over introductory images of Germany recorded traces of horrific reality. in utter ruin, a narrator intones, “The people It’s perfectly clear which side Hersonski wanted to know the answers. They wanted takes in this conflict between actuality and to know what happened, and why.” (We get fabrication; but it’s also clear that she is a to hear these words in English, recorded by media sophisticate who is familiar with the Liev Schreiber in perfect reproduction of the argument that supposedly nonfiction films period style.) Whether “the people” actually have always been paradoxical, starting with wanted to know is not so certain; but the trial Nanook of the North. If it’s accurate to say was meant to tell them, and films, this one that even the most blatantly made-up movie included, were integral to the telling. retains a residue of the facts that were before The prosecutors introduced two com- the lens, then it’s also necessary to admit that pilation documentaries into evidence at the documentarian’s camera records circum- Nuremberg: The Nazi Plan, detailing the stances, not truths, out of which the film’s party’s rise to power and pattern of aggres- subject is constructed more than revealed. sion, and Nazi Concentration Camps, showing This argument is incontrovertible, in a what US and British troops had found at minor way. How minor, Hersonski shows by the liberation. In making Nuremberg, Schul- an implicit contrast: between the magnitude berg followed the prosecutors’ case point by of the crime witnessed (and covered up) in point, going back and forth frequently from the Warsaw Ghetto footage, and the trivial- the images shot in the courtroom to the im- ity of the offense she herself commits by ages presented in evidence. You might say, staging scenes for A Film Unfinished. then, that Nuremberg is a construction made But there is perhaps an even stronger largely out of other constructions. case to be made for the potential truthful- It is not a lie. You can judge for yourself, ness of documentary constructions, as seen thanks to the clarity with which Schulberg and in a film that’s just now being released—­ Waletzky have chosen to present it. Nurem- another artifact, as it happens, from the era berg is unquestionably a fabrication, which of the Warsaw Ghetto footage. This film, bears the marks of its time and purpose—but too, is tendentious, and even propagandistic; the reason it has the power to shock, appall but it is going into theaters with no interpre- and infuriate is because of its truth. tive scaffolding, as if the people responsible Nuremberg does have a lesson for to- for reviving it trusted audiences to under- day—which can be studied at its special stand the material on their own. presentation at the New York Film Festival, Released in Germany in 1948, this docu- and at its US theatrical premiere run at New mentary—Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today— York’s Film Forum. n