如日中天的华盛顿年轻议员史蒂文•柯林斯的女助手研究员突然遇害,柯林斯在针对军火商峰点公司的国会听证会上一时失态,致使婚外情曝光,成为众矢之的,只好跑去大学好友兼昔日竞选顾问,《华盛顿环球报》的资深记者卡尔•麦卡弗里家暂避。麦卡弗里在调查一起凶杀案的过程中偶然发现死者竟与柯林斯的已故女助手研究员有关。在同事德拉的帮助下,随着麦卡弗里的调查一步步深入,峰点公司内幕与国会议员的丑闻纷纷曝光。麦卡弗里面对新闻竞争、事件真相、昔日友情与社会公正的多股力量,最后报道究竟何去何从?。Herbert Vesely was one of the promises for a new German cinema already in the 50's, but after the 60's his star was already dimmed. He made a small number of films in the 70's and 80's, all non too good. This biography of Egon Schiele, one of the most important Austrian artists, is an example of the pretensions and emptiness of a Vesely-film of later date.
The life of Schiele is presented here as a puzzle| well, Vesely thinks that Schiele's life was a puzzle: the core of the story is centered around the famous 1912 pornography trial and using this as base the film shows fragments of past and future. The problem is that it never becomes a unity and that the order of scenes and sequences seems to be at random: a cut-and-paste job that could have had any other result. Indeed, after seeing it twice I am almost convinced of it that a unsatisfactory linear thought-out film was changed into the puzzle in the editing room. Egon Schiele was an enigmatic man, but not a total puzzle, and this film does not bring him any closer.
The films also fails in conveying the eroticism and meaning of the Schiele's paintings: the camera watches and glides over the models without any understanding of Schiele's intentions, we only see beautiful naked bodies. If interested in Schiele, you better buy a book with his works in stead.。