Jason Sondhi
You can watch documentaries for a very long time without encountering a more magnetic and fearless performance than that given by Adam Steed in this film. You may have reservations about the word “performance” in the context of a documentary, but it is a term I use without disparagement—regardless of the craft a filmmaker brings to bear in the construction of a film, or the inherent intrigue of its plot or premise, great documentaries must have compelling subjects perform compellingly on camera. Steed “performs” the role of brave truth-teller, recounting the painful and horrific abuse he suffered as a youth in the Boy Scouts and his betrayal by the Mormon church in a manner so heart-breakingly open and vulnerable that it clicks the rest of the byzantine layers of the plot into place, providing the emotional core that makes Brian Knappenberger’s latest film unforgettable.
Asserting that Steed is the beating heart of the film is not a novel claim, it is one that Knappenberger himself has repeatedly made since the film’s 2020 Sundance debut. It is also something of an accident. A far-ranging film that is hard to summarize, Church and the Fourth Estate exposes beloved institutions, gigantic coverups, and attacks on journalism, by incorporating devastating testimonials and reams of chilling data. It is, ultimately, a massive story, and the film goes into odd places along its path of exposé, with characters that include a closeted gay journalist and the richest man in Idaho. Indeed, it was this side plot, about a newspaper journalist breaking stories of abuse within Idaho’s Boy Scout community and the ferocity of the attempts to delegitimize both him and his reporting, that first drew Knappenberger’s attention to Idaho.
Fresh off his acclaimed feature Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press which tackled the billionaire Peter Thiel’s successful destruction of the website Gawker, the Idaho story seemed thematically similar—an attack on journalism by financial might, the ability of principled actors to speak truth-to-power imperiled. While Knappenberger’s focus on journalism is relatively new, it is a theme that is in keeping with his career-to-date. Vaulted to prominence by his feature doc We Are Legion: The Story of Hacktivists and followed up by The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, stories about the power of information and its fragile ability to check powerful interests have consistently defined the documentarian’s filmmaking. I had a chance to interview Knappenberger in 2014 and appraise first-hand the resoluteness of his convictions in this regard. It was only in the course of research that Steed came to Knappenberger’s attention, and the power of his initial interviews transformed the entire project.
“(Steed) quickly finds his moral compass. It’s an extraordinary moral compass” – Dean Miller, Editor of the Idaho Falls Post Register
“His interview was so powerful and so courageous and so amazing. When I met Adam Steed, I understood that this story wasn’t really a press story. It was a story about institutions like the Boy Scouts of America and the Mormon Church who, in a very critical time, in a very important way, when confronted with a moral choice, failed,” he said. “And I think [they’ve] given up some of their right to be moral leaders, or moral teachers in our society.” relates Knappenberger in Deadline.
Knappenberger’s approach to the Documentary form is to use personal stories to highlight societal issues, and Steed is the lens through which this is accomplished in Church and the Fourth Estate. With agonizing specificity, Steed recounts his experiences and his dogged attempts to secure justice in the years that followed. However, the pattern of abuse is so similar and so vast, it allows him to stand-in as an avatar for hundreds of other victims. Explicitly, the film closes with Steed providing counsel to a fellow victim in a scene that is devastatingly emotional and regrounds the film in the intensely personal tragedies that take place within the over-arching scandal. Yet Steed’s prominence in the story shifts the film, as Knappenberger hints at above, away from a narrow story of journalism under-siege into a massive one about the downfall of Boy Scouts of America, which filed for bankruptcy protection a mere month after the film’s premiere, and the complicity of the LDS Church, which has not faced similar censure.
Reporting on child abuse in the Catholic church and in USA Gymnastics has been some of the most vital and acclaimed journalism of our time, making numerous careers, yet the institutional and moral failure depicted in Church and the Fourth Estate is no less heinous, and the scope of the abuse somehow may prove even larger. Will there be a reckoning? The film’s grim postscript mentions that over 80,000 accusations of abuse have been now been lodged in connection with The Boy Scouts of America, but is silent about reforms or repercussions meted out for the LDS church. This perhaps may change though. Nothing shines a brighter light on a short film than an Oscar nomination, and Knappenberger’s profile as an experienced feature director, alongside Field of Vision, which scored a nomination last time out with In The Absence, makes this a strong contender for the upcoming awards. The recent release of the film for online audiences is surely geared towards drumming up support during the voting process underway, so if you find the film as vital and affecting as I do, please share it.