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Disclosure Day, the new whistleblower thriller from Steven Spielberg, arrives in theatres today.
Starring Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt, the film follows a cybersecurity specialist on the run and a meteorologist whose psychic abilities grant her otherworldly communication as they attempt to expose the U.S. government’s alien cover-up. But, it’s also a return to form for Spielberg, dealing with extraterrestrial affairs and ideas that he’s shared before.
Today on Commotion, culture critics Adam Nayman, Ashley Ray and Radheyan Simonpillai talk about the new blockbuster and what they think Spielberg is trying to communicate through it.
We’ve included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, including Stop! That! Train! and the current controversy around how Obsession’s crew is being paid, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.
WATCH | Today’s episode on YouTube:
Elamin: The last time we talked about the last Scorsese movie — Scorsese is in his 80s — he [was] going back and revisiting some of the images that he gave us, but subverting them in certain ways. Spielberg — 79 years old — [is] going back to some of the images that he gave us, but also subverting them in certain ways. Does this feel like it’s a movie where Spielberg is trying to say, “These are all the ways that I set you up to think about the world, and think about your imagination, think about space and think about aliens, but also I’m coming at it from a different perspective because maybe you didn’t hear me?”
Radheyan: I think your Scorsese comparison is interesting, because [Disclosure Day] feels like a coda to Close Encounters [of the Third Kind] and E.T. [the Extra-Terrestrial] in the way that The Irishman felt like a coda to Goodfellas and Casino, where you’re in the same territory, but you’re adding another chapter to see what happens next.
How relevant, or how functional, is Steven Spielberg’s ethos today? His sentimentality, his ideas of empathy and building connections — how much can we connect to that in this moment? Because this is a movie that is very much Spielberg trying to reassert some of his themes in the world of today. And when I say the world of today, it is a world that is on the brink of World War Three. There’s all of these violent conflicts happening all over the place. There is a paramilitary agency that uses technology to surveil and to manipulate the public — the public is being lied to. All of these things resonate.
I mentioned how these truth-tellers are radicalized by videos of violence done to these alien figures. You can see how [in] so many protests of today, people are radicalized by seeing the footage of carnage in Gaza. So there’s all these ways where this movie is gesturing to our world without being pointed at about it. In fact, the opening scene is a wrestling match where the wrestlers are wearing blue and red. Meanwhile, in the stands, is Josh O’Connor’s character carrying the secrets of the world while he’s being chased by these agents. So it’s almost like the spectacle of bipartisan politics is there in the wrestling match where these wrestlers tear each other apart, but there’s bigger things happening — bigger things that could connect the world.
And I feel Spielberg is trying to be like, “All of this bickering of the world, there’s possibly some wondrous hope out there that could help us connect better, that can get CNN and Fox News to report on the same story in the same way and get us all on the same page.”
Elamin: But if Scorsese was making a movie saying, “You didn’t quite understand me,” is Spielberg also doing the same thing here?
Adam: Well, it’s interesting. Spielberg makes images like we breathe. It’s effortless for him. He conveys visual information. It’s not that he’s not trying, but it’s effortless for him. This is a vocabulary that he speaks eloquently.
It’s when [Disclosure Days] tries to say things, that it either fails at articulating them — or without spoiling the end — it can’t really go into them. It’s the movie where [you think] you’re going to hear the most beautiful music ever, and then you don’t [get to] hear the symphony. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, those notes don’t say anything but they give the movie a shape and some fulfillment and an experience is conveyed.
Here, he comes right up to the edge of being like, “Here’s what I’ve got.” The generous reading is: it’s ambivalent, project yourself into it. Or the negative reading is: he doesn’t have much, except for the idea it would be good if we all listened to one thing.
I think what he wants us to listen to, not narcissistically — I want to be clear — but nostalgically, is him. And [its] a very old-fashioned liberal, ’70s to ’90s coded idea of the media, which is you could all switch on one channel. I agree with Ashley that it’s not like Don’t Look Up, but it’s like, “Just look here.”
You can listen to the full discussion from today’s show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Panel produced by Stuart Berman.