‘Citizenfour’ aims to reveal the real Snowden

Nothing in her career as a documentary filmmaker could quite prepare Laura Poitras for an encounter in a luxury hotel room in Hong Kong in June 2013. It was there, amid absolute secrecy and after months of encrypted communications, that she met Edward Snowden. The once-anonymous contractor for the National Security Agency was about to become the world’s most famous whistleblower, leaking classified documents that exposed the unprecedented global and domestic reach of the agency’s surveillance programs.

“Being in the hotel room, I had an experience I had never had before,” said the filmmaker, who spoke after introducing a screening of “Citizenfour” at the New York Film Festival, where the film premiered Oct. 12 to a long, loud standing ovation. “There were things I filmed that I couldn’t remember that I filmed, and I saw them later in the footage. I just blocked them.”

Although she remains behind the camera, Poitras was joined in the sessions by journalists Glenn Greenwald — to whom Snowden had likewise reached out and the filmmaker persuaded to participate — and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian. They would become the conduits for the release of Snowden’s explosive revelations. (Many of the further revelations came in a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning stories written by Barton Gellman that appeared in The Washington Post.)

“There’s a conversation when Glenn talks to Snowden about coming forward, and the camera goes back and forth, and I actually didn’t remember I filmed that, and for me it’s the most powerful scene in the film,” said Poitras, 52. In the scene, Snowden insists he will go public as the source of the NSA leaks that the journalists will release regardless of the consequences. It’s a palpably electric sequence, which would be the core of any fictional drama. In this case, though, the action is perilously real, and the camera isn’t only capturing a historical event, it’s part of the making of it.

“The choice that he’s making could end his life,” Poitras said. “I’ve worked in war zones with bombs going off, and I know, ‘OK, that’s the moment.’ I know that’s the one where all the emotion is contained. In this case, my brain, whatever those defenses were, just blocked it out. I felt we were in a state of free fall, not knowing what kind of landing we’d encounter.”

“Citizenfour,” which takes its title from a code name used by Snowden to identify himself to Poitras, introduces audiences to a mild-mannered and quick-witted computer expert who is variously considered a traitor or a hero but whose image has been inevitably distorted by much of the news media. “I think there’s enough evidence on the table you can make your own decision,” said Poitras, whose measured approach frames in intimate and vulnerable terms what might have been sensationalized. “We wanted not to be influenced or feed into the frenzy around us but stay true to material and the human drama. It’s really about Snowden and what he chose to do.”

It also is often quite funny, as Snowden’s tech-geek mannerisms underscore some of the absurdity that comes with living in a real-life Jason Bourne thriller. At one point, as a rational paranoia compels him to hide his laptop as he types, he throws a blanket over his head. He calls it “my mantle of power,” causing everyone to break up laughing. Such instances eased the tension. Though Poitras said she felt much safer once they began releasing Snowden’s information, she had no illusions they hadn’t been tracked.