| White Noise | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Daniel Lombroso |
| Produced by | Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg |
| Cinematography | Daniel Lombroso |
| Edited by | Carlos Rojas Felice |
| Music by | Gil Talmi |
Production company | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 94 minutes [1] |
| Country | United States [1] |
| Language | English |
White Noise is a 2020 American documentary film directed by Daniel Lombroso. The film covers three figures in the alt-right movement: Richard B. Spencer, Mike Cernovich, and Lauren Southern.
White Noise is the first full-length documentary produced by The Atlantic . Daniel Lombroso, the director, focused on the alt-right after the 2016 United States presidential election. One of his interests was answering the question, "What made white-power ideology so intoxicating, especially among my generation?" [4] Part of his interest in the topic came from having grandparents who survived the Holocaust. [4] Lombroso proposed documentary coverage about the alt-right movement to The Atlantic. After the Unite the Right rally, a full-length documentary was green-lit, and Lombroso said he worked "almost exclusively" on White Noise after 2017. Lombroso had done prior documentary shorts on the alt-right, which he used to build further connections to alt-right activists. Lombroso focused on the three people he identified as the most influential, then persistently worked to get revealing interviews with them. [5]
White Noise premiered at AFI Docs on June 20, 2020. [4] IndieWire highlighted it as one of the 10 most interesting films in the line-up. [6] The film had its international premiere at IDFA in November 2020. [7] It had its UK premiere at the Raindance Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary Film. [8]
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 87% based on 30 reviews and an average rating of 7.4/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "White Noise pulls back the curtain on the morbidly fascinating -- and chillingly mundane -- private lives of far-right figureheads." [9] On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 77 out of 100 based on 6 critic reviews, signifying "generally favorable reviews". [10]
Writing for Variety, Owen Gleiberman called White Noise a "lively and disturbing documentary" that exposes alt-right celebrities as "deeply shallow and self-deluded hypocrites", and wrote: "Lombroso did his homework, embedding himself with these people for several years, so that he won their trust and became privy to their private lives." [2] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a score of 3 out of 4 stars, writing: "Ten minutes into Lombroso's film, it's painfully clear these are people with ugliness in their hearts and dangerously racist ideas. But there's value in seeing these how these hate hucksters operate and going behind the curtain to see how small they really are." [11]
Chris Barsanti of The Playlist gave the film an "A", saying that it "reveals the grift behind the genocidal rhetoric" of the alt-right. [12] Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film "sheds a much-needed spotlight" on its subjects, but the focus comes at the expense of being more informative about the wider alt-right movement. [3] Peter Keough of The Boston Globe called the film "fascinating, outrageous, and disturbing." [13] Eric Kohn of IndieWire wrote, "Lombroso has made the scariest documentary of the year without telling us anything new", and stated that the film "has a compelling message at its core, by daring viewers to see the worst of our society, and cautioning against the tendency to simply tuning it out." [14] In an interview with the director, Vox 's chief film critic Alissa Wilkinson said that the film is "excellent" [15] and "far more engaging and smart than most journalistic profiles of each of these people." [16] Wendy Ide of Screen International called it "unprecedented" and "queasily compelling." [17] Randy Myers of the Mercury News said it is "one of the most important - and scariest - documentaries of 2020," giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars. [18]
Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave the film a score of 2 out of 4 stars, writing that the film "is not so much about interrogating the alt-right as it is humanizing them through observation". He added: "as everyone seems to have run out of hate to sell, "White Noise" says little about its movement except showing that to stay grifting, you have to adapt." [19] Ben Kenisberg, writing for The New York Times , said: "While the film doesn't take a strict fly-on-the-wall approach — Lombroso can occasionally be heard offscreen challenging his subjects — it sticks close enough to inner circles that its message sometimes risks coming across as "extremists are just like us."" [20] Barbara Shulgasser-Parker of Common Sense Media gave the film a score of 2 out of 5 stars, writing: "Director Daniel Lambroso[ sic ] thinks that fair reporting in White Noise means letting the racist activists he's profiling speak for themselves in the hopes that viewers will see through their hatred. Given that his subjects have already proven themselves experts at exploiting social media to spread lies to millions (Pizzagate, Hillary Clinton is dying, etc.), this documentary mostly serves to expose an even wider audience to their vile attitudes." [21]
White Noise was named one of the top documentaries of 2020 by Vox and The Boston Globe. [22] [23] The film is a 2021 finalist for the Livingston Award in National Reporting. [24]
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
Lauren Cherie Southern is a Canadian alt-right YouTuber, political activist and commentator. In 2015, Southern ran as a Libertarian Party candidate in the Canadian federal election. Southern worked for Rebel Media until March 2017, when she began to work independently.
Michael Cernovich is an American right-wing social media personality, political commentator, and conspiracy theorist. Though he initially called himself alt-right, he dissociated from the movement after Richard Spencer became its public face. Cernovich describes himself as part of the new right and some have described him as part of the alt-lite.
Daryle Lamont Jenkins is an American political activist, best known for founding One People's Project, an organization based in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Jenkins serves as its executive director.
The alt-lite, also known as the alt-light and the new right, is a loosely defined right-wing political movement whose members regard themselves as separate from both mainstream conservatism and the far-right, white nationalist alt-right. The concept is primarily associated with the United States, where it emerged in 2017. The term remained in vogue during the Trump administration, as observers assessed all sources for right-wing populism, but has mostly faded from popular discourse as of 2024.
Jack Michael Posobiec III is an American alt-right political activist, television correspondent and presenter, conspiracy theorist, and former United States Navy intelligence officer.
Anthime Joseph "Tim" Gionet, more commonly known as Baked Alaska, is an American far-right media personality who gained notoriety through his advocacy on behalf of alt-right and white supremacist ideology. He has also used the alias Tim Treadstone.
Pinnacle Peak Pictures is an American evangelical Christian film production and distribution studio founded by David A. R. White and Russell Wolfe. Pinnacle Peak produces Christian films, including God's Not Dead (2014), Do You Believe? (2015), Woodlawn (2015), The Case for Christ (2017), and Unplanned (2019). Since 2014, films produced and distributed by Pure Flix have collectively grossed over $195 million at the worldwide box office. The company has headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Theodore Robert Beale, commonly known as Vox Day, is an American activist and writer. He has been described as a far-right white supremacist, a misogynist, and part of the alt-right. The Wall Street Journal described him as "the most despised man in science fiction".
Untouchable is a 2019 British documentary film about film producer Harvey Weinstein and the sexual abuse allegations that involve him. It was directed by Ursula Macfarlane.
American Factory is a 2019 American documentary film directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, about Chinese company Fuyao's factory in Moraine, a city near Dayton, Ohio, that occupies Moraine Assembly, a shuttered General Motors plant. The film had its festival premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It is distributed by Netflix and is the first film acquired by Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, Higher Ground Productions. It won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Amazing Grace is a 2018 concert film "realized and produced" by Alan Elliott. The film's footage was shot under the direction of Sydney Pollack, who does not receive directorial credit, just a "special thanks." Amazing Grace stars Aretha Franklin recording her 1972 live album of the same name. It co-stars James Cleveland, Alexander Hamilton, and the Southern California Community Choir, and features her father C. L. Franklin.
Dick Johnson Is Dead is a 2020 American documentary film directed by Kirsten Johnson and co-written by Johnson and Nels Bangerter. The story focuses on Johnson's father Richard, who suffers from dementia, portraying different ways—some of them violent "accidents"—in which he could ultimately die. In each scenario, the elderly Johnson plays along with his daughter's black humor and imaginative fantasies. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Award for Innovation in Non-fiction Storytelling. It was released on Netflix on October 2, 2020.
Feels Good Man is a 2020 American documentary film about the Internet meme Pepe the Frog. Marking the directorial debut of Arthur Jones, the film stars artist Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe. The film follows Furie as he struggles to reclaim control of Pepe from members of the alt-right who have co-opted the image for their own purposes. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker. It was also nominated in the U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance.
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution is a 2020 American documentary film directed, written, and co-produced by Nicole Newnham and James LeBrecht. Barack and Michelle Obama served as executive producers under their Higher Ground Productions banner.
Mayor is a 2020 documentary film produced and directed by David Osit. The film follows Musa Hadid, the mayor of Ramallah, the de facto capital of Palestine, for two years.
Jawline is a 2019 documentary film about social media and Internet celebrities. The documentary received several reviews. In February 2019, Hulu acquired United States distribution rights for the film. The film is directed by Liza Mandelup.
Inconvenient Indian is a 2020 Canadian documentary film, directed by Michelle Latimer. It is an adaptation of Thomas King's non-fiction book The Inconvenient Indian, focusing on narratives of indigenous peoples of Canada. King stars as the documentary's narrator, with Gail Maurice and other indigenous artists appearing.
Do Not Split is a 2020 documentary short film directed by Anders Hammer about the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject at the 93rd Academy Awards. The film was funded and produced by Field of Vision and supported by Fritt Ord and Viken Filmsenter.
American Scar is a 13-minute documentary film directed by Daniel Lombroso. The short film focuses on the damage caused to desert ecosystems by the construction of a barrier at the Mexico–United States border.
Daniel Lombroso's "White Noise" was named best documentary feature, while Matthew Walker's "I'm Wanita" won best music documentary.
