PAINOVIIHDETTÄ

• Ohjaaja:
• Tuotanto: Elma Productions 1998/Ranska.

In English In English In English

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Its central subject is "scoop organisation": how, by manufacturing scandals, the British tabloids maintain the highest circulation in the world.

For example, in March 1997, the unfortunate Piers Smith, a Conservative MP particularly keen on family values, was cought red-handed in a park with a seventeen-year-old stripper. The young ingenue had been hired by a paper who equipped her beforehand with a concealed microphone and camera.

Almost every day, another pillar of the establishment runs the risk on ruin for a pretty pair of breasts. The masters of this riotous game are not journalists, but a new race of middlemen, agents like the celebrated Max Clifford whose speciality involves approaching the "victims" of the rich and famous: jilted mistresses or battered servants. He offers them a deal: selling their "story" to a tabloid in exchange for a cosy sum (around 500 thousand pounds) to be split fifty-fifty. And naturally, he prefers stories which are backed by photos, video or audio tapes.

We meet his victims and clients, his informers and their lawyers.
We will see how much energy and cash the papers are ready to invest in Max's scoops. We will see how in the same paper on the same day, a single affair can provide the basis for headlines, a photo story and an in-depth investigation. We will also see how the tabloids invariably invest themselves with the role of spokesmen for the "ordinary people", flouted by the powerful. We will see how Max campaigns against the government, and how all these moral postures represent a financial gild mine.

• Director:
• Production: Elma Productions 1998/France