In times of crisis, some reporters set a valiant standard of professionalism, while others cravenly betray their commitment to truth and free expression. Do not count on the journalistic establishment to accurately identify the former or the latter.
Today, Walter Duranty is widely recognized as a willing stooge, who knowingly covered up Stalin’s genocidal crimes. Yet, the Pulitzer board refuses to rescind his Pulitzer Prize and his old employer, The New York Times has declined to return it. Gareth Jones exposed the Ukrainian Holodomor—the deliberate, systemic starvation of millions of Ukrainians—the very story Duranty tried to hide from the world.
Now director Agnieszka Holland (who was imprisoned in Czechoslovakia and exiled from her native Poland) tells the Welsh journalist’s tragic-heroic story in “Mr. Jones,” which was released June 19 on VOD.
Evil Exposed
Initially, Jones did not go to Moscow to dig up dirt on the communist system. The plan was to secure an interview with Stalin, in hopes of convincing the dictator to open a second front against the newly ascendant Hitler. (Alas, Germany and the USSR would sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact four years after the events of this film.)However, when Jones arrives in Moscow, he finds his (fictionalized) good friend Paul Kleb (a transparent reference to Paul Klebnikov, the Forbes journalist suspiciously murdered while investigating Putin) has been killed by petty street crime (in the workers’ paradise), according to Duranty, through whom the Soviets grant or withhold Western journalists’ access.
An Orwellian Dystopia Comes to Life
“Mr. Jones” is very much a historical exposé, in the tradition of Holland’s masterwork The Burning Bush, but in many ways, it also functions as a gripping thriller. Viewers can almost literally feel the eyes of the early surveillance state on them as Jones secretly pursues the truth. At times, Holland and production designer Grzegorz Piatkowski make 1930s Moscow literally resemble the dystopia of “1984.” Clearly, this is deliberate, since Holland flash-forwards to George Orwell writing “Animal Farm” (inspired by Jones’s reports) as a recurring motif.James Norton is well-cast as Jones, convincingly conveying his initial naiveté and idealism, as well as his profound revulsion and righteous outrage. Yet, the real horror comes from Peter Sarsgaard’s chillingly calculated Duranty. You will be hard-pressed to find a more unsettling film villain—and he is scrupulously based on a real-life (Pulitzer Prize-winning) figure. Sarsgaard’s performance and Holland’s depiction of the Holodomor largely overshadow much of the film, but as Brooks, Vanessa Kirby still has some memorable moments, late in the third act.
Yet, Holland and Chalupa do not merely expose journalistic malpractice. They really cut to the heart of the matter when a skeletal Ukrainian woman explains to Jones: “They are killing us. Millions gone. Men came and thought they could replace the natural laws.” (It is not clear from the closing credits who plays her, but her brief work is devastating.)
“Mr. Jones” vividly illustrates the potential dangers to democracy when journalists start with their ideological conclusions and tailor their reports accordingly. Indeed, the contempt that Duranty and Brooks express for the notion of objectivity sounds eerily similar to what we are hearing today. Perhaps Holland is not entirely objective herself, but her direct observation and lived-experience of the Soviet socialist era informs her filmmaking in very personal and relevant ways.
Very highly recommended, this is a powerful film that leaves viewers in a state of deep disquiet.
