Television Review
JIM: THE JAMES FOLEY STORY
Directed by Brian Oakes. On HBO, Saturday at 9 p.m.
There are so very many things to admire about “Jim: The James Foley Story,’’ HBO’s new documentary on the journalist who was beheaded by an ISIS executioner in August 2014.
Foley was the first American murdered by the militant group, and the video of his execution made their barbaric tactics loud and clear in this country: kill journalists to scare away the free press, while using social media to spread the fear and to recruit. The image of Foley, a handsome 40-year-old kneeling in the desert in an orange jumpsuit, became a symbol of a savage new global front line. But it served an unintended purpose, too. Foley’s deep humanity, still written into his face and lurking behind his weary eyes, provided us with a powerful and enduring grace point. He appeared beaten down, but unbroken.
What is admirable about the film, which was directed by Brian Oakes, a longtime friend of Foley? It is beautifully shot, smartly edited to flow unhurriedly, peppered with enough — but not too many — news clips and artful prison reenactments, and narratively organized for optimum impact. The many interviews in particular — with Foley’s family in New Hampshire, with men who were imprisoned with him in Syria, with friends, with fellow journalists also drawn to the war zones — are remarkable for their intimacy and clarity. And the movie’s portrait of life as a freelancer in war-torn lands, unable to find protection in the resources and the bureaus of large news outlets, is eye-opening. Like “Spotlight,’’ “Jim’’ shows just how unglamorous journalism can be, even when the results are world-changing.
But – and there is a big but – admiration is the least of the feelings this movie evokes.
“Jim,’’ which premieres Saturday at 9 p.m. after winning the Audience Award last week at the Sundance Film Festival, is better than admirable. It is a deeply moving film, and it has the ability to elicit tears — of rage at the way Foley was treated during the almost two years after he was kidnapped, of sorrow for the hell he, his family, and his friends were put through by ISIS, and of bitter disappointment at the lack of savvy support Foley and his family received from the American government. Like Sebastian Junger’s 2013 documentary “Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington,’’ “Jim’’ carries an emotional impact that speaks more powerfully than all of its astute observations and factual record-straightening.
A scripted treatment would likely turn Foley into something closer to a superhero; entertainment is lousy with superheroes these days, since they draw audiences hungry for visions of moral strength. But “Jim’’ gives us the human-scaled man behind the oversize image that captured the eyes of the world. (Disclosure: “Jim’’ co-writer Heather MacDonald works for Boston.com.) Despite the fact that Oakes and Foley go way back as friends, there is an emotional honesty to the film that ultimately leaves us with a sense of a real man with a believable moral strength. As they look back on their brother, son, friend, and colleague, all of the interviewees — even Foley’s parents — don’t seem to have an unduly romanticized sense of him. They all voice respect and affection, of course, but they never veer into hagiography. “He was just a you and a me, until he was tested,’’ Foley’s father says, talking about the prison months. “Where that came from I don’t know.’’
The Foley we hear about was somewhat of a lost soul, a disorganized, restless guy trying out different careers until, in the mid-2000s, he found his calling. In footage of Foley delivering a lecture at Marquette University, his alma mater, he talks about the draw of the front, “like some kind of siren song.’’ One freelancer who traveled with him in Libya (where he was detained with Clare Morgana Gillis for 44 days in 2011) recalls running from gunfire with Foley and laughing from the adrenaline, being “under the spell of the front lines.’’ During the Boston Marathon bombings, there was much talk about those who ran from the explosions, and then those first responders and journalists who ran toward them. Foley was one of those people with a reflexive need to rush in — not to be a hero, necessarily, but to bear witness and share it.
“He had an itch he couldn’t scratch when he was domesticated,’’ his sister-in-law says of his time back in the States between gigs.
Some of the clips from Foley’s work are extraordinary, most notably a video of a Syrian girl singing a song, a sweet moment that suddenly erupts into chaos and smoke from nearby shelling. We see his footage of parents grieving their children, unable to let go of the bodies, and we see why Foley felt so driven to carry these visuals of devastation and horror out to the rest of the world. As conditions in Syria worsened, though, Foley and his colleagues began to understand that the American media was less welcome than it had been in Libya, where the rebels would give them rides and information. This was before most of the world had heard of ISIS.
But the most riveting material in “Jim’’ is probably listening to the men who shared a cell with Foley for many months. They give us a look at Foley and his honor and stability under pressure, while delivering an up-close view of the intimidation and punishing physical reality of captivity with ISIS. We hear in detail about the shifting moods among the prisoners, the invented games, the murders of Syrians that were conspicuously committed outside the cell door, the starvation, and the close bonds that formed despite it all. “When you invent a life, you have to invent also a family,’’ one says of his strong connection with Foley.
It’s one of the many lovely things that emerge as this sad movie unfolds, as Oakes delivers his genuine portrait of both one man and a world in trouble — without showing the beheading video, by the way. ISIS used Foley’s image, turning him into a crude piece of propaganda, but “Jim’’ takes it back.
JIM: THE JAMES FOLEY STORY
Directed by Brian Oakes. On HBO, Saturday at 9 p.m.
by matthew gilbert | globe staff
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.
