Snowden
Short description
Snowden dramatizes the events surrounding the 2013 disclosure of classified National Security Agency documents. Edward Snowden, a computer specialist who believed in American intelligence work and its counterterrorism aims, comes to see that the agency's surveillance reaches far beyond foreign targets and into the private communications of ordinary people. He gathers evidence and travels to Hong Kong to meet journalists and a documentary filmmaker, knowing that publication will expose the scale of the programs and put his own future at risk.
Oliver Stone directed and co-wrote the film with Kieran Fitzgerald, adapting Luke Harding's book on the case alongside a book by Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden's Russian lawyer. It is the nineteenth of the twenty-two features Stone has directed in chronological order, following Savages and preceding JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Snowden, with Shailene Woodley as Lindsay Mills, Melissa Leo as Laura Poitras, Zachary Quinto as Glenn Greenwald, Tom Wilkinson as Ewen MacAskill and Scott Eastwood as Trevor James. The production involved German, American and French companies and cost about 40 million dollars, returning roughly 37 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.3 from 172,000 votes and on TMDB 7.1 from 4,785, while critics rated it 6.2 from 261 reviews, below both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- After filming, Oliver Stone met with Edward Snowden and showed him a rough cut of the film.
- Shailene Woodley learned to pole dance for her role.
- This is Oliver Stone's first narrative feature film shot on digital cameras. Previously, the director had only used digital cameras for his documentary projects.
- Before filming, Edward Snowden advised Oliver Stone not to depict the NSA command center as lavish as it is typically shown in movies and television shows, as these centers are actually maintained on very limited budgets.
- While filming in Germany, Oliver Stone's mother passed away. Stone was forced to miss her funeral due to the project's time and budgetary constraints. Otherwise, completing the film within the existing budget and schedule would not have been possible.
- Filming began on February 16, 2015. At that time, the film was slated for release on December 25, 2015. The release date was then pushed back to May 2016 because the visual effects were too complex and required more time to complete. After the film was fully finished, the premiere date was moved again to September 2016 because the distributor wanted to avoid competition with summer blockbusters.
- This is the 20th feature film directed by Oliver Stone.
- This film was one of the first to be shot primarily using the ARRI 65 6.5k camera.
- Before deciding to film this movie, Oliver Stone met with Edward Snowden three times in Moscow.
- To ensure the script didn't leak, Oliver Stone worked on it only on one computer that had no internet connection.
- The US premiere took place on September 16, 2016, the day after Oliver Stone's birthday. The director turned 70 years old.
- During its opening weekend, the film had the lowest box office results of any film directed by Oliver Stone.
- Snowden uses a Rubik's Cube to secretly smuggle out a microSD card from a secure NSA facility. He uses an updated version of this cube, as evidenced by the small slots on its faces. Snowden worked at the NSA in 2013 and contacted journalists in the same year, while the cube model he uses only appeared in 2014.
- When Snowden leaves his hotel room, a cell phone can be noticed inside the microwave.
- As Snowden copies files onto his microSD card on the base in Hawaii, he does so from a computer running Windows, and dozens of pop-up windows appear reporting file copying. In reality, only one pop-up window should have appeared.
- During a video chat between Janine and Greenwald and others from the hotel room, Janine receives an image showing depth of field in the camera, as two people sitting behind Greenwald are out of focus. This wouldn't have happened if it had been filmed with a webcam.
- Despite being portrayed as an extremely experienced hacker, Snowden copies files onto the card simply by dragging and dropping. Any advanced user, let alone a hacker, would use the command line for this and minimize windows to keep them off-screen.
- As Snowden and Lindsay walk through a crowd of protesters, a woman with a stroller can be seen on Lindsay's side. In the next shot, that same woman is now on Snowden's side. Furthermore, it’s clearly visible that the baby in the stroller is just a doll.
- When Snowden is making pasta in the kitchen, he pours boiling water into the sink. Steam then hits his face and his glasses fog up. He then collapses, and when he is lying down, it’s visible that his glasses, which were fogged up just a few seconds earlier, are now completely clear.
- Nicolas Cage previously starred in Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" (2006) and, due to his good relationship with Stone, agreed to participate in this project of his as well.
- Melissa Leo played the role of journalist Laura Poitras, who previously made the film "Citizenfour: The Truth About Snowden" (2014).
- The dating site used by Lyndie Mills and Edward Snowden to communicate is a reference to the classic anime "Ghost in the Shell" (1995).
- Shailene Woodley was cast in the film on November 15, 2014 – her 23rd birthday.
- Tom Wilkinson previously played the role of President Joseph F. Kennedy in the series "The Kennedys" (2011). Oliver Stone directed the film "JFK" (1991).
- Timothy Olyphant and Zachary Quinto both starred in Hitman films. Olyphant appeared in "Hitman" (2007), and Quinto in "Hitman: Agent 47" (2015).
- The character Corbin O'Brien is a reference to the character O'Brien from George Orwell's novel "1984".
- The film is based on the books "The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man" by Luke Harding and "Time of the Octopus" by Anatoly Kucherena.
- Oliver Stone met with Julian Assange in April 2013 at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, but Assange himself did not appear in the film, even as a character. In reality, Assange actively helped Snowden leave Hong Kong. The only participant from WikiLeaks who took part in this film is Sarah Harrison, who travelled with Snowden from Hong Kong to Moscow and supported him there. She is shown in archival footage towards the end of the film.
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