Spotlight
Journalism at its best is a solid bulwark against tyranny and the abuse of power. The dynamic investigative reporters who expose corruption in high places, such as Woodward and Bernstein and the Watergate investigation can bring down even a President. More recently, Glenn Greenwald exposed the NSA's extensive domestic spying serving as a conduit for Edward Snowden's purloined NSA files, putting himself at considerable risk.
Spotlight is the name for the Boston Globe's investigative unit. In July 2001, Marty Baron took over as Editor-in-Chief at the Globe. He noted a column covering the trial of a local priest for sexual abuse. The column hinted that there might be more to the story than just one priest molesting a child.
Baron approached the paper's crack Spotlight investigative team and asked them to look into the matter further. What followed is a six month investigation that blew the lid off the Roman Catholic Church's cover-up of extensive and continuing abuse of children at the hands of clerics.
The movie follows this investigation from its beginning and through to its conclusion. It is a powerful and dramatic story, a story of dogged determination to uncover the truth and to bring important facts to public awareness.
The ensemble cast is superb, with the four members of Spotlight played by Michael Keaton as team leader Walter "Robby" Robinson, Rachel McAdams as reporter Sacha Pfeiffer, Mark Ruffalo as reporter Mike Rezendes and Broadway stage actor Brian D'Arcy James rounding out the team as reporter Matt Carroll. Their supervising editor is Ben Bradlee, the same Ben Bradlee that supervised the Watergate investigation for the Washington Post years before. Bradlee is played by John Slattery. Rounding out the key cast members is Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron and Stanley Tucci as lawyer Mitch Garabedian.
At first the team discovers that as many as fourteen priests could be involved. But as the investigation grows, so does the suspect pool - eventually reaching almost ninety. But more than that, there is evidence of a massive cover-up. Abusive priests getting reassigned to a church run psychiatric facility for a short time, then reassigned to a new parish. Crafty lawyers turning it into a cottage industry, paid by the church to make plea deals and weasel priests out of criminal charges and into private arbitration so no pubic record exists of the abuses. Church lawyers manage to get what court records do exist sealed. The scandal reaches to the highest level of the church - Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, the Archbishop of Boston.
The police, and even the media, including the Boston Globe, are complicit, with the paper burying stories on the back pages and not following up on substantive tips that could have brought the matter to light much earlier.
The team is almost ready to go to press with their story when 9/11 happens. Spotlight's expose and everything else is put on hold as the terrorist attack takes front stage. Finally in January 2002, the story breaks on the front page of the Globe.
The epilogue scroll of facts that came to light in the wake of this first major exposé of Catholic Church misdeeds is horrifying in its scope. In Boston alone, the number of priests involved was almost triple what Spotlight uncovered. And scandals were subsequently exposed in cities around the United States and around the world. It is truly mind-boggling. Cardinal Law was shuffled off to a post in the Vatican away from the public eye but retained his status as a bishop and a cardinal. The Boston Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the scandal.
Today the scandal is almost forgotten. The Catholic Church remains a pillar of the community. Its role in the cover-up downplayed and conveniently forgotten. But as the Wikipedia article on the subject notes, there were allegedly 10,667 victims of abuse between 1950 and 2002, with 4,392 priests accused of molestation of minors. That's four percent of the priesthood, though unofficial estimates place the number as high as six percent.
The movie is a powerful and important one. Too often, news events like this, particularly events of fifteen or more years ago, are soon forgotten, swept into the dustbin of history. But they should not be forgotten. This movie is commendable for reminding us of the potential for abuse even with an organization supposedly devoted to goodness. The ensemble cast works well together with the performances of Mark Ruffalo and Stanley Tucci standing out in particular, though all are excellent.
Oscar prediction: This movie ought to be nominated for Best Picture, and, of the films I have seen so far, most deserving of a win. It got a 98% favourable rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Because it is an ensemble cast with no clear leading actors, it may just get Supporting Actor nominations for Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton. Possibly a Supporting Actress nod for Rachel McAdams. It should be nominated for Best Screenplay for Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer. McCarthy may get recognition as Best Director.
Spotlight Official Website
Hollywood versus History - compares the movie's account to the actual facts.
No Quote of the Day today.
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