The Six Billion Dollar Man: Julian Assange and the Price of Truth

by MANSEL STIMPSON

The first feature film by documentarian Eugene Jarecki to obtain a UK cinema release was 2012’s The House We Live In, a deeply considered polemic against America’s War on Drugs. It was exceptionally well made and immediately stood out. Jarecki followed it up a few years later with The King (2017), a film centered on the life of Elvis Presley, but viewed him as a victim of an exploitative capitalist society. This approach allowed the film to incorporate a critical view of America during Trump’s first term, confirming that social and political issues lie at the very center of Jarecki’s work. His latest film is a clear continuation of this: the shorter version of its title, the Six Billion Dollar Man, is intriguing and cryptic, but the film’s subtitle, Julian assange and the Price of Truth, defines its subject matter. However, it could lead to a misunderstanding as to the film’s chief concern because, despite telling Assange’s story, its purpose is such that to regard it simply as a biopic would be to underestimate its wider aims.

This studiously researched film is in three parts. The first, ‘How It All Began’, starts in 2010 when WikiLeaks, founded by Assange four years earlier, released a video revealing US airstrikes killing civilians and journalists in Iraq in July 2007. When Alex Gibney made his detailed and effective documentary we Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (2013), a number of key elements in Assange’s story had already occurred: the claims against him in America for breaching the country’s security by releasing hacked documents through WikiLeaks, the accusations of rape following sexual encounters with two women in Sweden, and the sanctuary offered to Assange when Ecuador granted him political asylum, enabling him to take shelter in their London embassy. These matters are inevitably revisited here, and indeed, this film’s Part II, ‘A safe Place’, is concerned with the time he spent in the embassy.

However,what happened within that embassy was hardly anticipated. For his own security, Assange would remain indoors there for almost seven years, during which time his condition deteriorated. He initially received genuine support from Ecuador’s president,rafael Correa (who appears in the film). however,when Correa’s successor,Lenín Moreno,took over in 2017,the country acquired a leader ready to make a deal with Trump.The title of this film refers to the belief that ecuador’s receipt of financial aid from the IMF – to the tune of six billion dollars – was in return for terminating Assange’s right to asylum. This revocation occurred in 2019, and Assange was arrested and taken to Belmarsh prison. There, he awaited a hearing in which Woolwich Crown Court would consider the extradition request received from America, where Assange faced seventeen charges under their Espionage Act, originally set up in 1917. These developments and their eventual outcome are central to the second half of Jarecki’s film, including the whole of its third section, ‘The Delivery of Julian Assange’.

after Gibney’s film appeared, it was followed by another take on the story: Laura Poitras’ Risk in 2016. Then – as now – assange