Contemporary Analysis: Shattered Glass

Throughout the mid to late 90's, the world saw the rise of the young person. People were rising and holding jobs that seemed to mature for their age. Most cases it turned out fine, but other turned out the opposite, much the case of on Stephen Glass. He rose to prominence in the 90's writing for esteemed magazine's such as Rolling Stone, George, and most notably The New Republic. His fall is far more notable than his rise or any of his works. In 2003 Billy Ray directed a film about the rise and fall of Stephen Glass entitled "Shattered Glass". What Billy Ray showed us was two things; the anatomy of a liar, and the portrait of a sick man.


Shattered Glass follows the story of Stephen Glass, a twenty something journalist who has risen to a prominent position at the 'In flight magazine of Air Force One' The New Republic. He electrifies his colleagues at weekly table reads with his fascinating and humours stories. As it turns out, he's lying...about everything he has ever told, probably lying about school too. He is such a pathological liar that he even convinces his former Chief Editor to back him so much that it gets him fired. Glass didn't stop there, in fact it hardly seemed to phase him. The only reason he reconnects with Micheal Kelly is because Chuck Lane, his current editor, is hot on his tail of lies. It also implied that he lies to Kelly further by A) trying to sneakily sleazeball his way into a job at Kelly's new magazine, and B) telling Kelly he didn't 'cook' any stories while he was editor, particularly the 'Spring Breakdown' piece which got Kelly fired. Director Billy Ray paints a portrait of a man torn in two. And it's not the stereotypical two halves one good one bad, BOTH sides of Stephen Glass are bad and despicable. His lies convince his co-workers their work needs to be more like his. He directly effects so many people negatively, misleads them so atrociously that even at the very end they can't be live anything bad he has done. Stephen Glass is both a liar, and a mentally disturbed man at the same time, but given his track record, who's to say he isn't just a liar and a liar only?


The other piece that pulls Shattered Glass from the depths of other Independent films of its kind is the acting. Yes Hayden Christensen is a terrible, terrible actor, but even in this you see glimpses of his best work and Shattered Glass (next to Star Wars only for its name sake) is on the top if Christensen's resume. The true brilliance in this film though is Peter Sarsgaard as Chuck Lane. Sarsgaard launched an incredibly critically acclaimed decade with Shattered Glass. He won numerous awards for his performance, was nominated for among others a Golden Globe and an Independent Spirit Award, and is noted by many film critics as one of the worst Oscar snubs in recent memory. His performance in this film garnered roles in critically acclaimed films such as Jarhead, Garden State, and An Education. The other supporting roles in this film are brilliantly delivered by Chloe Sevingy, Hank Azaria, Steve Zahn and Rosario Dawson. The film beautifully shifts points of view from Stephen, to Chuck to the two Forbes reporters. The film never reached a massive popular following, but has maintained over the years that it is a solid film not only on Stephen Glass, but the high stakes, high stress environment of political journalism. This ranks Shattered Glass among one of today's great Independent movies.

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