Documentary film editors are like crash test dummies, according to Alexis Johnson. You keep letting yourself crash, assuming the seatbelts will work, over and over again just to see what impact a scene is having on you.
“If I am going to harness a feeling, I have to feel it myself,” she said, recalling working on director Alex Gibney’s powerful 2021 documentary “The Forever Prisoner,” about the CIA’s interrogation treatment of prisoner Abu Zubaydah. In addition to the countless hours reworking scenes of waterboarding and other harsh treatments, Johnson edited a sequence that depicts the technique of playing high-decibel music to terrorize a prisoner. It was particularly grueling, as Johnson repeatedly subjected herself to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ cacophonous “Give It Away” for hours while shaping the depiction of Zubaydah being tortured by the same song.
By the end of working on “The Forever Prisoner,” Johnson said, she...
“If I am going to harness a feeling, I have to feel it myself,” she said, recalling working on director Alex Gibney’s powerful 2021 documentary “The Forever Prisoner,” about the CIA’s interrogation treatment of prisoner Abu Zubaydah. In addition to the countless hours reworking scenes of waterboarding and other harsh treatments, Johnson edited a sequence that depicts the technique of playing high-decibel music to terrorize a prisoner. It was particularly grueling, as Johnson repeatedly subjected herself to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ cacophonous “Give It Away” for hours while shaping the depiction of Zubaydah being tortured by the same song.
By the end of working on “The Forever Prisoner,” Johnson said, she...
- 6/12/2023
- by Tom Roston
- Indiewire
"Something more aggressive had to be done." This is scary! HBO has revealed the official trailer for The Forever Prisoner, yet another new documentary film made by acclaimed director Alex Gibney. He also released The Crime of the Century this year, helped produced The First Wave, and also released Crazy, Not Insane last year. The Forever Prisoner is an HBO original documentary film that takes viewers, for the first time, behind the architects of America's torture program. The doc focuses on the story of Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee subjected to the CIA's program of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs), later identified as torture by those outside the agency. The film digs deep into the provocative question: "Are we prepared to abandon our principles in order to defend them?" I think too many might actually say "yes"... This looks at Guantanamo Bay and how torture was happening there for years.
- 11/26/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
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