Year Released: 2019
Directed by: Agnieszka Hollanda
Starring: James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard
(Not Rated, 118 min.)
Genre: Suspense, Action, Historical Drama

“I don’t have an agenda, unless you call truth an agenda.” – Gareth Jones

One was a real journalist, the other a depraved opportunist who covered up a famine. Guess which won the Pulitzer Prize?

The real journalist, Gareth Jones (Grantchester’s gorgeous vicar James Norton almost unrecognizable behind glasses and without out his standout ginger hair) starts out as a little too full of himself, though.

The Wales journalist is still riding high after his one on one interview with Adolf Hitler and now looking to secure another with Joseph Stalin. After all, Stalin might look forward to the even-handed coverage Gareth gave to Germany’s new Chancellor:

He was more natural and less of a poseur than I had expected; there was something boyish about him. His handshake was firm, but his large, outstanding eyes seemed emotionless as he greeted me. –“With Hitler Across Germany,” by Gareth Jones, February 23, 1933.

But when Jones arrives in Moscow, he finds a tangled web of debauchery, cowardice, and corruption that sends him on a mission much more dangerous.

Gareth Jones, an ambitious Welsh journalist, travels to the Soviet Union in 1933 and uncovers the appalling truth behind the Soviet "utopia". His quest quickly turned into a life-or-death journey… helping inspire Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Walter Duranty, the resident New York Times journalist in Moscow, is of little help in arranging said interview, instead inviting Jones to one of his many lavish parties. The Duranty that greets young Jones at the party is certainly not the suited and refined gentleman he had encountered earlier at his office. The party version of Duranty is decidedly decadent, greeting Jones completely in the nude and surrounded by other profligate and outrageous attendees.

But there is someone there who might be of help, Duranty’s “star,” the one Duranty himself relies on to find, edit, and polish the stories he writes under his own name. She is Ada Books (Vanessa Kirby), one of the few fully clothed party attendees, and she seems disinterested in the revels around her.

Later, Jones takes her to task at her modest apartment:

Ada Brooks: What do you want?

Jones: The story no one is talking about.

Ada Brooks: Ukraine.

Jones: Stalin’s gold

But finding “ Stalin’s gold,” i.e. the great wheat crops of that region, proves just about as challenging as interviewing the man himself, a project Garth Jones quickly abandons in his quest to run down the rumors of a famine there. His reporter friend, the same one who engineered his interview with Hilter, had hinted at a big story. Only upon his arrival in Moscow does Jones learn of his sudden and mysterious death.

Jones in undeterred, though, and gets permission for a tour to the Ukraine under the auspices of an official, whom he ditches as soon as he can, a flight that is fraught with danger.

He hides at first by slipping into a group loading bags of grain on a truck – all bound for Moscow, but he is soon spotted and on the run in blizzard conditions. Not quite as horrible as those faced by our Norwegian anti Nazi saboteur in 2018’s The 12th Man

But still pretty grim.

However, it is not Gareth Jones’ own deprivation that moves us, but the horrors Gareth Jones sees around him. Frozen corpses are loaded onto donkey carts almost mechanically by a pair hired for the task. They do it routinely, but we know it is not callousness but a numbness of the soul and the spirit that is the source.

***

Ultimately Jones returns to England and writes about the famine he has seen, but Walter Durranty disputes it.

The main rebuttal to Jones came from Duranty himself via an article published in the March 31, 1933, edition of The New York Times. This masterpiece of disinformation directly attacked Jones, accusing him of jumping to the conclusions on the basis of limited facts and not telling the entire story. “Conditions are bad but there is no famine,” wrote Duranty. –Serhi Plokhii

There are food shortages, not famine, Duranty opines, later echoing Stalin himself:

“To put it brutally, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

What we see here is not too different from current practice, where true journalism is often rejected by those wishing to remain comfortable in their safe niches away from the real action.

What is particularly galling, however, is Duranty’s Pulitzer Prize and the description of why he received it.

Mr. Duranty's dispatches show profundity and intimate comprehension of conditions in Russia and of the causes of those conditions. They are marked by scholarship, profundity, impartiality, sound judgment and exceptional clarity and are excellent examples of the best type of foreign correspondence. –Spartacus Educational. Com

To this very day, that Pulitzer has never been rescinded, and The New York Times has never apologized for their role in this travesty.

A final note is the film’s title, Mr. Jones, an anonymous name for an almost anonymous journalist. The real “Man Who Knew Too Much” did not have the happy ending Alfred Hitchcock gave to Jimmie Stewart in his classic film.

This film was produced by The United Kingdom, Poland and Ukraine; it offers a reason the latter are risking their lives to stay independent from Russia today.

A thrilling eye opener, and one of the few relatively new and excellent films still popping up.

See it today.

–Kathy Borich
🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁

Trailer

Film-Loving Foodie

They may have been starving to death in Russian (notably the Ukraine region), but life in Moscow, where Walter Duranty lived a life of privilege and debauchery, was good.

Mr. Jones attested to that himself.

in Moscow … it was possible to dine well if you knew where to go and if you had the right money. He described the meals available in a restaurant near to his hotel: "fresh Astrakhan caviar, with pre-war vodka; white bread and butter, delicious borscht soup, with old sherry; grilled salmon and roast partridge, with vontage burgundy or champagne; cakes of every kind, cream, sugar, custard, fine Russian cheese, hot-house grapes, old port and older cognac." –Spartacus Educational. Com

We draw from these “cakes of every kind” for our featured recipe, a delicious Russian Sour Cream Cake of layered lusciousness.

хороший аппетит

Russian Sour Cream Cake

Ingredients

Cake:

· 3 eggs

· 1 cup white sugar

· 1 cup all-purpose flour

· 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Filling:

· 1 ¾ cups sour cream

· 1 cup white sugar

· 1 teaspoon lemon juice (Optional)

Directions

Instructions Checklist

· Step 1

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease a 9-inch springform pan.

· Step 2

Combine eggs and 1 cup sugar in a large bowl; beat with an electric mixer for 5 minutes until mixture is smooth and thick. Sift 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour on top and carefully mix into the batter using a wooden spoon or a spatula. Pour batter into the prepared springform pan.

· Step 3

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and allow to completely cool on a wire rack, about 1 hour.

· Step 4

Combine sour cream, 1 cup sugar, and lemon juice in a large bowl; beat with an electric mixer for 10 to 15 minutes until a thick cream forms.

· Step 5

Cut cake horizontally into 3 layers. Place bottom layer on a cake platter and spread with a layer of cream filling. Add second layer and spread another layer of filling on top. Finish cake by placing the third layer on top and cover cake from all sides with the remaining cream. Cover and refrigerate until serving.

Cook's Notes:

In Russia, smetana is used for this cake, but you can substitute it with full fat sour cream.

Tips

You can use some jam for garnish. Place a dollop of jam on top of the cake and, using a knife, move the jam through the cream for a marble effect.

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