Snowden Hero

Oliver Stone’s Snowden Explores a Reticent Hero in an Age of Surveillance
Oliver Stone’s latest iconoclastic biopic, Snowden, is a stunning exploration of personal liberties, journalistic integrity, and demonization of the whistleblower. Stone minces no words and makes his position clear: for revealing the extent to which the US government was spying on its own citizenry at great personal risk, Edward Snowden is a hero. Hence, Stone is primarily occupied with humanizing Snowden, and his casting of Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a step in the right direction. The film also exploits a parallel narrative structure to simultaneously tell the story of his life and the few days when he provided classified information to journalists in a Hong Kong hotel room. The result is a film which brilliantly characterizes Edward Snowden, his changing worldview, and the choices that made him infamous.
Any discussion of Snowden has to begin with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Though I’ve heard that many have issues with the voice he uses to impersonate the real Ed Snowden, I wasn’t bothered at all. Snowden has a distinct
Surprisingly, he is a solid actor, as his line reads aren’t hollow or wooden. This choice is a masterstroke by Oliver Stone. Throughout the whole film, the audience is conceptually aware that the events onscreen actually occurred, and through Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s portrayal of Ed Snowden we begin to identify with the character absent any infamy. But, by switching out the actor for the real person at the conclusion, we get something marvelous: a real-life reminder that these events happened in our reality, not some fantastic dystopia on film. This surveillance is real. It is happening to you, right now as you visit this website to read this piece. And it charges you to recognize the heroism of Edward Snowden and do something to curtail the magnificent and enraging abuse of power that he