Film Club: Going Clear

On Monday night, the day after the film premiered on HBO, my college roommate and I watched Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.


This might not seem like a movie you'd watch for fun while catching up with your friend, but she loves documentaries, I'd heard great things about this film and both of us kind of have a weird interest in learning about cults, so our selection for movie night was this documentary about Scientology. It was a nice change of pace, considering we usually watch things like American Horror Story or bad movies together.
Going in, neither of us knew much about Scientology. I'd heard some things - terrible things - about the...I hesitate to say "religion," but it's officially classified as one in the United States. I'd heard some terrible things about this religion, such as their naval division, Sea Org, being one step above torture and that it more or less requires its members to donate absurd amounts of money. Also that a ton of Hollywood celebrities are apparently into this, its founder was named L. Ron Hubbard and that its members believe they are aliens (descended from aliens? reincarnated aliens?). That was the collective knowledge of Scientology my friend and I had going into this.
The film was eye-opening to say the least.
I do have a brief disclaimer before the rest of the review: I was watching this at the same time as the rest of my family was watching Dance Moms, so I couldn't hear or understand a lot of what was said in the beginning. I'd also been up since before 5 a.m. that day, so I dozed off in the last fifteen minutes or so. I fully plan on buying this movie when it comes out on DVD or BluRay and watching it again, but I think what I got was substantial enough to write about.
Going Clear begins with a brief history of Scientology and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. We're introduced to five former members who each have their own stories and testimonials about what it's like inside. For all five, the church promised them their wildest dreams, lifelong happiness, anything they wanted, and in all of their cases, the exact opposite proved to be true.
Basically, Scientology was founded by Hubbard in the 1950s. Hubbard was a science fiction writer, and not only that, but a bad science fiction writer. According to his ex-wife, he founded Scientology as a money making scheme and, apparently, eventually came to believe it himself.
The former Scientologists keep speaking throughout the rest of the film, telling about their experiences, the abuses they suffered and, finally, how they escaped. This footage is intercut with footage from Scientology rallies, which bear an uncanny resemblance to Nazi rallies, footage of stars like John Travolta and Tom Cruise talking about the church, archival footage of Hubbard talking about his religion and more.
Altogether, it paints an incredibly unflattering portrait of Scientology, which I can't say was unexpected. As I mentioned before, I'd heard about how the church, and especially Sea Org, was known for its manipulation and harsh practices, but I didn't know just how bad it was. As the movie was wrapping up, my friend said "I just thought they were kooky and believed in aliens. I had no idea it was this insane." Just a few of these ethically questionable practices include:

• Brainwashing
• Imprisonment
• Isolation, both physical and social
• Gaslighting
• Extortion
• Kidnapping
• And more!

The church also doesn't believe in mental illnesses, such as depression, and believes psychiatry is "an industry of death." The former members' stories show how much pain and suffering, both mental and physical, the church caused them and others; it's hard to believe there are still people out there who claim this as their religion.
There's a scene in the second half of the film that stuck permanently in my memory. It's a story about some of the higher-ups in the church being held in a dirty, ant-infested doublewide trailer for days and being forced to play Musical Chairs to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in order to stay in the church. It sounds completely absurd and it's one of the most chilling parts of the movie. In fact, that's how my friend and I felt about a lot of the information in documentary. On the surface, it looks silly, but once you dig down deep and find out what's actually going on and how these people are actually being treated, it's terrifying. 
The movie's director, Alex Gibney, set out to uncover what makes people join Scientology in the first place. There are smart, capable, well-loved people involved in this - so how did they get there and why are some of them still there? He found out that what gets them in is what's called auditing, essentially Scientology's version of talk therapy but, of course, with their own spin on it involving e-meters and other similar things (this is a part I missed due to the volume on Dance Moms being too high). Auditing makes people who participate feel good, so they stick around and see what else Scientology can do for them and how it can help them. Why some are still there after finding out about how other members are treated, such as John Travolta finding out his friend was held in more or less a prison camp while her baby was neglected in a nursery, is still a mystery.
This is an interesting clip from The Hollywood Reporter of an interview with Gibney and the author of the book that inspired the documentary. It shows part of the scene I mentioned earlier.

Technically, Going Clear is a very well put together documentary. Its editing is tight, it has a nice balance of archival footage and current footage, its staged scenes such as the "Bohemian Rhapsody" scene I mentioned earlier are very well shot and its sound mixing and lighting are very pleasant to the ear and eye. Some documentaries can be difficult to watch not because of subject matter, but just because of how they look. Going Clear is not one of those.
What wasn't surprising at all was the fact that Gibney never, not once, features a new interview with a current church member. He uses clips of old interviews from shows like Anderson Cooper 360° but never uses his own footage. This is because the church refused to speak to him. They offered to send "25 unnamed individuals," but Gibney was looking for specific people and he believed this panel would be sent to defame his sources, so he declined. The church had an opportunity to defend itself and refused it, but of course after the film's release they've been mudslinging left and right in the worst possible way. I've watched some of their retort videos. They're awful. Their arguments hold no water and make almost no sense. They don't even directly address the film's accusations. It'd be more ridiculous if you didn't know what the church was doing.
Considering that what I knew about Scientology before watching Going Clear consisted of "they have a navy that's tougher than should be legal" and "they believe in a galactic overlord named Xenu and my friend Erin's final project in our makeup design class was Xenu," this documentary was super informative and eye-opening. If you're curious at all about Scientology or cults in general, or if you just like documentaries, I highly recommend it.