Movie review by Greg Carlson
Less successful but no less important than “The Internet’s Own Boy,” “Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press” marks another David-versus-Goliath call to action in the filmography of writer-director Brian Knappenberger. Originally saddled with the even more cumbersome title “Nobody Speak: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and Trials of a Free Press,” the documentary begins with the salacious sex video case involving the once popular professional wrestler and ends as a cautionary warning about the chilling power wielded by the super-wealthy in a contemporary media landscape where oxymoronic absurdities like “alternative facts” are asserted by White House spokespeople.
The Orwellian doublethink and doublespeak spewing from the current administration comes back closer to the film’s conclusion, but the long shadow of Donald Trump’s bizarre relationship with television and print outlets thematically informs Knappenberger’s broad thesis. In the film’s opening sections, Knappenberger lays out the strange case known as Bollea v. Gawker, in which Hogan sued the gossip website and several of its employees for invasion of privacy, infringement of personality rights, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. At issue was Gawker’s post of an explicit recording of Hogan, also known as ”Terry” Bollea, and Heather Clem, the spouse of Todd Clem, a radio personality known professionally as Bubba the Love Sponge.
The revelation that billionaire Trump supporter Peter Thiel, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal, had financed the prosecution in the Bollea v. Gawker trial temporarily sharpens Knappenberger’s focus. Established precedent regarding public figures, the boundaries of journalism, and the basics of a free press are swallowed up as Hogan’s team successfully builds an argument that Hogan and Bollea can and should be treated as two distinct entities. Gawker defendant AJ Daulerio also digs his own grave with ghastly deposition comments creating the impression of ethical corruption.
“Nobody Speak” jumps from the Gawker trial to the purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal by Sheldon Adelson. Like Thiel, fellow billionaire Adelson has aligned himself politically with Trump, and Knappenberger could easily have made an entire feature on the casino kingpin. Instead, a lengthy aside covers Adelson’s attempt to keep his purchase private. Ken Doctor summarized the curious scenario, writing, “the paper’s own reporters and editors attempting to report on the sale — and to question the potential editorial impact and brand damage of the ‘secret’ sale — reportedly saw their online-first story significantly changed, and the presses subject to a brief halt, as the paper re-plated with a new version of the suspect story.” In other words, an awful lot of people thought that Adelson bought the paper to make sure it no longer published content critical of him or his interests.
Not all of Knappenberger’s pieces fit together seamlessly, and the timeliness of Trump’s election win appears to have inspired some late modifications to the film. Advocacy storytelling focused on the outsize antics of the president will very likely populate film festivals for the foreseeable future, and “Nobody Speak” joins titles like “Michael Moore in Trumpland,” “Get Me Roger Stone,” and “Trumped: Inside the Greatest Political Upset of All Time” to make sense of the unorthodox policies that terrify one segment of the population and energize another.