MovieChat Forums > An Honest Liar (2014) Discussion > Unethical director?

Unethical director?

posted 9 years ago by kyrat
16 replies | jump to latest

Was really loving this until about an hour and a half, the point at which the director prods James into saying something due to his fears of losing his life partner of 25 years. He asks the director not to include his last comments.

If at that point, the scene had ended and it had still been included in the movie, I probably could have lived with the director's choice.

However, the interviewer twice assures him that it won't be used AND THEN USES IT. (justifying it at the end as saying James Randi had agreed to ALL interviews being used. Well yeah, at the time he signed that he wasn't aware his lifepartner might be deported).

James says "if I thought any of this would be used. I'd end the film now". The director answers "no no no no" to try and calm him while James says he is trusting the interviewer. The interviewer does try to point out that they had discussed using ALL interviews, but then instead of holding firm... when James Randi says "I want this last part to vanish"...
interviewer says "OK UNDERSTOOD. NO WORRIES."
Randi then says again, "I trust you or I wouldn't be doing this."
Interviewer, "Thank you".
If he truly believed it needed to be included he shouldn't have told James Randi he wouldn't!

It's not like James Randi just admitted killing Kennedy or something that had to be revealed, that truly justified violating his trust. For shame.

Hope he doesn't plan to ever request an interview from anyone ever again. He has no integrity.

[–] ILikeDirt420 9 years ago

yeah, just watched this, he was telling him hes not gonna use it and he clearly does. lol, WTF?

[–] gureto_hon 9 years ago

I didn't like that but I think it just shows everyone can be deceived if you really want to believe in something, even him.

[–] Chuckbooty 9 years ago

Randi gave permission to the film maker to use that part. At least the movie claims he did, if you watch just before the end credits it says, "Randi gave permission to use ALL of the interview showed in the film" or something like that.

[–] ehbunner 9 years ago

Glad someone stuck around and paid attention to the credits

It's not hard to imagine that after the court case was done Randi didn't feel the need to omit that confession

[–] Wilde_2015 9 years ago

Yours is my same reaction upon first viewing the doc. Obviously the film maker would have had in his mind that he'd keep filming in order to capture the moment and possibly convince Randi later to show it.

However, upon sober reflection, I think the film maker capturing both Randi's unflattering confession of sorts and his own less than flattering manipulations at the same time was a very good thing. This makes it a very up front "warts and all" display of everyone involved. So instead of painting both of them is the most flattering way possible, one as a victim of circumstance, the other as this unbiased "fly on the wall" film maker, the film maker gave us a more "honest" version of it which is actually quite fitting with the theme(s) of doc.

P.S. I had contemplated starting a similar topic myself several weeks after seeing the doc. I wonder whether I would have had this same shift in my view of this subject if I had committed that reaction to a new thread or if I would have spent the next few weeks defending that opinion?

[–] Jonwartea 9 years ago

You need to delete your review of the movie. I don't know how anyone missed the director telling the audience at the end that he had given premission to use that interview.

[–] Wilde_2015 9 years ago

I don't know how anyone missed the director telling the audience at the end that he had given premission to use that interview.

Well, you missed the 3rd paragraph of his post that clearly acknowledges that.

[–] Jonwartea 9 years ago

A post on the message boards is not the same as a movie review. I'm speaking of the movie review. Nice try though. Come back with your big boy pants next time.

[–] Wilde_2015 9 years ago

Nice try though. Come back with your big boy pants next time.

Well sweetie, at least you're a little bit better at condescension than you are at spelling and grammar.

[–] snoopduckyduck 9 years ago

The director didn't have to keep in the part where he agrees to not use the footage. So if he didn't have any integrity and Randi truly didn't allow the footage to be used, he could have easily edited that part out.

[–] lorenzb-2 9 years ago

There wasn't any real harm done. It just made Randi look all the more human and caring. In the end it added a lot to the film and everything worked out well anyway. I think the entire situation was very touching and profound. As diffrent as these two men are they obviously love each other deeply.

[–] DorkoTheDorkLord 9 years ago

Randi, promoting the movie on the Nerdist podcast, states that he changed his mind on including that footage. The movie has his full blessing, so there's no breach of ethics or trust there.

The podcast is a fascinating conversation in its own right, going into deeper detail about his early days. If you liked the doc, I recommend it.

http://nerdist.com/nerdist-podcast-the-amazing-randi/