CRAZY, NOT INSANE

                                                 

     A documentary by Alex Gibney features a psychiatrist who has tried for years to convince the legal profession that the death penalty should not be used on those who have serious psychopathology because those people are missing the controls that keep the rest of us from doing heinous acts.  Her basic question has been, “What keeps us [you, me, everyone else] from becoming a murderer?”  Having interviewed extensively 22 serial killers and scores of other serious offenders, she posits that Identity Dissociative Disorder (previously, Multiple Personality Disorder) accounts for the majority of them. She finds these other identities in perpetrators she has interviewed by eliciting them from family history, hypnosis, and psychological tests, and always verifies that these people also have organic signs from neurology and imaging tests that suggest physical abuse—usually coming from parents.  I get the impression that it takes personal histories including interviews, neuroimaging, and psychological tests altogether to confirm an identity disorder leading to murder.

     Working with Clinical Psychologist Dr. Catherine Yeager, neurologist Dr. Jonathan Pincus, and defense attorney Richard Burr, psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Lewis assembled a team to examine very carefully common precedents to the horrendous acts performed by killers.  Her interviews of these people are fascinating not only from the information she elicits, but the trusting bond she is able to achieve with them. Her evaluation of perpetrators in hypnosis will be particularly interesting to those who have never observed a hypnosis interview that pulls out different identities in the same person.  

     Yes, you may be skeptical, but when she shows different signatures (no, not your usual variations seen) from one person on different occasions sometimes using a completely different name; differing responses to psychological tests (as in one case, one being psychotic and the other being completely rational), and various personalities emerging during interviews, it’s very convincing.

     Crazy Not Insane gives full voice to those in opposition to her findings—those favoring a crime-punishment approach (for instance, state governors and prosecutors) and prominent forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz.  The film shows his clear disregard for Dr. Lewis, but also highlights Dr. Lewis’ convincing evidence afterwards.

     Another fascinating encounter is Dr. Lewis interviewing an appointed executioner (electrician on the side) who in his job as executioner, claims to have absolutely no feelings about what he does.  But the pictures he paints after each execution might indicate something more going on in his psyche than he realizes.

     It is disturbing to those of us finding convincing evidence in Dr. Lewis’ studies to see protesters outside courts and other places chanting that someone should die.  What draws the general populace to such occasions?  Why are we drawn to hangings and other formal occasions of death?  

     This film attempts to answer these questions in a comprehensive, insightful way—no easy answers.

 

A documentary for those wishing to explore the issue of capital punishment of the mentally ill.  

 

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland 

TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL

The title is taken from President Trump who repeatedly claimed that the COVID pandemic was totally under control during January, February, and March of this year; when, in fact, it was raging to the point that so far over 200,000 U.S. citizens have died from it and over 30 million jobs have been lost.  Alex Gibney, famed documentarian (Scientology and the Prison of Belief; The Story of Wikileaks; Enron:  The Smartest Guys in the Room; The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer; Casino Jack and the United States of Money; Taxi to the Dark Side; Citizen K) with his co-directors Ophelia  Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger, gives a detailed account of an important issue; in this case, the COVID pandemic in the United States this year, and how President Trump and his administration have handled it. It’s a very sad story that may usher in a period when our status in the world is different from any the United States has ever known.

     We’re introduced to the many government officials and scientists trying their best, along with those putting in stumbling blocks every step of the way. Most of what comes through is that the people with experience in infectious disease and public health are continually undermined by those with no experience in either area and, sometimes sincerely and sometimes disingenuously, negate what is recommended.  

     There are a multitude of instances put forth about events during the pandemic, which make it complicated, but the central theme is one pitting concern about public health against economic interests and the power of the Presidency to orchestrate policy.  Overall, it shows how the absence of good leadership undermined all the efforts made to combat the pandemic, from denying the seriousness of the illness to the states being put into a competition with one another—and with the Federal government(!)—to secure health supplies.

     It’s a sad story in many ways, in that a comprehensive plan for what to do to prepare for a pandemic was begun under President Bush and was passed on through the years to subsequent administrations.  President Obama used it to ward off the H1N1 flu outbreak, and his administration passed on to the Trump administration a warning about the possibility of a pandemic and gave Trump the 69-page playbook about what to do if one hit.  Unfortunately, the plan was chucked, and sometime later the Global Health Security, considered an elite biodefense team within the Nationall Security Council, was disbanded.

     The filmmakers have done an excellent job in recruiting scientists, journalists, and government officials here and abroad, to provide a detailed summary of how the pandemic has been managed in the U.S.  What happened here in just the first half of 2020 is in sharp contrast with South Korea, a country where their first case of COVID19 occurred at the same time as ours.  But the South Korean politicians put their scientists in charge of managing the pandemic, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive testing and tracking, isolation measures, and amassing a store of medical equipment that has met their needs.  Consequently, they have not had to shut down societal organizations, and their economy has prospered.

     Totally Under Control lends comprehensive, authoritative, and accurate information in its account of what happened when a pandemic hit one of the most powerful countries in the world.  It behooves every U.S. citizen to watch it and use it as a guide in evaluating our government leaders—perhaps especially in making decisions before the upcoming national election.

 

Alex Gibney, master documentarian, nails it again in this account of why the U.S. has been the worst hit of all the nations confronting the COVID pandemic.

 

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland 

CITIZEN K

     I applaud this film most for demonstrating so clearly how a dictatorship can evolve in a country newly liberated from Communism and asking for government to be more accountable, to be hijacked, a lesson for many democracies in the world today.  Citizen K (Mikhail Khodorkovsky) is about a man whom we will all recognize.  He’s flawed—at least among even some sympathetic observers—but he speaks and works for the democratic principles we have come to value.  I had heard about the Russian oligarchs who exploited the demise of the USSR to enrich themselves in outsized proportions, but Alex Gibney’s documentary gives us detailed descriptions of the billionaires who surfaced during that time, the consequences of their achievement of power, and the one (not the only) man who learned from his experiences and maintained fundamental democratic principles throughout.  He’s Citizen K, who is pitted against the dictator Putin who ultimately comes to power.

     First, comes a brief history of Russia after communism and the USSR in the early 1990’s.  Boris Yeltsin emerges talking about his visions for a more democratic system and the advantages of capitalism.  Feeble attempts (like vouchers) are made to introduce people to a different kind of government, showing how little Yeltsin and his advisors understand the dynamics of a capitalist system.  So little does he foresee:  That people do not know how to use the vouchers given to them, the chaos that will ensue following the socialist state, and the opportunity for those cagey enough to exploit the situation to their own benefit.  This is what happens, which results by the mid-1990’s in seven oligarchs controlling 50% of the Russian economy, and the rest of the population in dire stress.  The government runs out of funds, and is not able to support all the economic and social programs it has in the past, and the economy bottoms out.

     In the meantime, Yeltsin has become a hopeless alcoholic and gravely ill when he tries to negotiate with the oligarchs for the country’s benefit.  He makes a “Faustian” bargain with them in which they will loan the government huge sums.  Of course, when the government is unable to pay back the loans, the oligarchs have a huge menu of government enterprises and assets they can pick up on the cheap.

     Enter an unknown but scheming small bureaucrat with a history of being in the KGB, who manages to get close to Yeltsin and become his heir apparent.  Vladimir Putin is astute and recognizes that he must bargain with the oligarchs, which he does.  They will be ignored for any lawbreaking if they will concentrate on their businesses and stay out of politics.  This goes well until Khodorkovsky begins to feel more and more passionate and outspoken about Russia becoming a democratic country.  

     This man, the Citizen K of the movie, is fascinating on a number of counts, which makes the crux of the documentary so powerful.  He came from modest circumstances, although his parents were engineers.  He was crafty and unabashed in his pursuit of wealth and reading the signs of opportunistic possibilities, but somewhere along the way, he maintained a fundamental belief in equity, honesty, and human rights.  A testament to his sincerity are the numerous people close to him unwilling to testify against him after his arrest to lighten their own sentences. That is, he is willing to sacrifice himself to what he believes in.

     Citizen K clearly stands as a lesson for people in western democratic countries today.  The forces and events across time can serve as critical points when we the people have to be aware and stand up to subtle or not so subtle threats to a democratic system of government.  This film is certainly a demonstration that those who opt for chaos (someone to “shake up” the government, “clear the swamp”) may be disillusioned and will pay the price, along with the rest of us, later.

Once again, documentarian Alex Gibney tells it like it is, and brings us along on an introspective journey that is highly relevant to politics across the world today.

Grade:  A                                                By Donna R. Copeland