White Noise (2020 film)
White Noise is a 2020 American documentary film directed by Daniel Lombroso. The film covers three figures in the alt-right movement: Richard B. Spencer, Mike Cernovich, and Lauren Southern.
White Noise | |
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Film poster | |
Directed by | Daniel Lombroso |
Produced by | Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg |
Music by | Gil Talmi |
Cinematography | Daniel Lombroso |
Edited by | Carlos Rojas Felice |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Running time | 94 minutes[1] |
Country | United States[1] |
Language | English |
Interviews
- Richard B. Spencer, a white nationalist. Spencer worries that he will be blamed for further violence after the 2016 Unite the Right rally.[2]
- Mike Cernovich, a men's rights activist and conspiracy theorist. Cernovich attempts to find a marketable opening in the movement and admits that he has no clear agenda.[3]
- Lauren Southern, an anti-feminism and anti-immigration activist on YouTube. She reveals her issues with misogyny and sexism in the alt-right.[2]
Production
White Noise is the first full-length documentary produced by The Atlantic. Daniel Lombroso, the director, focused on the alt-right after the 2016 United States presidential election. One of his interests was answering the question, "What made white-power ideology so intoxicating, especially among my generation?"[4] Part of his interest in the topic came from having grandparents who survived of the Holocaust.[4] Lombroso proposed documentary coverage about the alt-right movement to The Atlantic. After the Unite the Right rally, a full-length documentary was green-lit, and Lombroso said he worked "almost exclusively" on White Noise after 2017. Lombroso had done prior documentary shorts on the alt-right, which he used to build further connections to alt-right activists. Lombroso focused on the three people he identified as the most influential, then persistently worked to get revealing interviews with them.[5]
Release
White Noise premiered at AFI Docs on June 10, 2020.[4] IndieWire highlighted it as one of the 10 most interesting films in the line-up.[6]
Reception
Writing for Variety Owen Gleiberman called the film a "lively and disturbing documentary" that exposes alt-right celebrities as "deeply shallow and self-deluded hypocrites".[2] Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film "sheds a much-needed spotlight" on its subjects, but the focus comes at the expense of being more informative about the wider alt-right movement.[3] Chris Barsanti of The Playlist gave the film an "A," saying that it "reveals the grift behind the genocidal rhetoric" of the alt-right. [7] On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 7 reviews, with an average rating of 8.9/10, as of July 31, 2020.[8]
References
- "White Noise". AFI Docs. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
- Gleiberman, Owen (July 10, 2020). "White Noise: Film Review". Variety. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
- Scheck, Frank (June 24, 2020). "White Noise: Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
- Lombroso, Daniel (June 11, 2020). "Four Years Embedded With the Alt-Right". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
- Wissot, Lauren (June 18, 2020). ""This Whole Movement is about Performance": Daniel Lombroso on his Alt-Right Doc White Noise". Filmmaker. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
- Kohn, Eric (June 16, 2020). "AFI Docs 2020: 10 of the Most Exciting Films in This Year's Lineup". IndieWire. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
- Barsanti, Chris (June 20, 2020). "Alt-Right Documentary 'White Noise' Reveals the Grift Behind the Genocidal Rhetoric [AFI DOCS Festival Review]". The Playlist. Retrieved July 31, 2020.
- "White Noise (2020)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 31, 2020.