We Live in Public Review

By Sam Caldarone

In We Live in Public, filmmaker Ondi Timoner takes the audience on a journey to explore a side of media many people have not considered before. With all the positives to all the new media that’s being created, it’s easy to overlook the downsides of media. That is the theme that this explores, and it is done through the eyes of Josh Harris. Josh Harris was a media prodigy, but, through an increasing series of bad investments, eventually wound up losing all his money. The film starts off with a shot of Josh Harris saying good-bye to his mother (who has terminal cancer). This is done to show just how heartless Josh Harris is. He doesn’t break a tear in the video, and won’t even talk to her in person. Timoner then goes back in time, and, in a chronological sequence, shows how Harris came to be what he has become. It’s not defending Harris or accusing him of anything, but showing his life and how he predicts that the media will take over our day-to-day life. I liked Timoner’s idea of showing one recent shot, and then going back in time to explain how they got to that point. I thought it was effective in conveying the point of the film.

Although the narrator is almost never seen (except one scene near the end of the film where Timoner finally tracks down Harris in Ethiopia), she is still present, and providing the occasional voiceover. Voiceovers are very uncommon in this documentary, but are still present, making this documentary a hybrid of expository and performative. The film includes a lot of archival footage, and features many interviews with some of Josh Harris’ past acquaintances. It was filmed with an unbiased approach, and let the audience draw their own conclusions. I believe that Harris is an insane genius, who has become so heartless because of a bad childhood. He was the youngest child, and it sometimes seemed as though his mother had no time for him. He claims that he was ‘raised by television’.

The strength of the story was within the main character, Josh Harris. His fascinating story is what made this documentary a great one. I enjoyed hearing a story that I had never heard of before. I thought the way the documentary was started (Josh Harris saying his good-bye’s to his mother) was brilliant, and was a great foreshadowing to the rest of the film. My favorite scene would have to be the scene where Timoner finally finds Josh Harris in Ethiopia. It ends the story somewhat of a good note, since Josh has become successful there, but he does get his comeuppance for being somewhat of a bad person (he goes bankrupt for a while). It was a genius way to end the film.

Even though Josh Harris wasn’t exactly a great guy, he was very smart. He made intelligent and accurate guesses as to where the future of media was going, and he made a lot of money off of this. When he created the ‘We live in public’ building, despite the disastrous end results, it was asking citizens to re-examine the situation they were in. Do people want to wind up like these people, being watched all the time? It clearly did not work out for the members of the ‘We live in public’ building. The building was asking us to be more careful, and to not let us get overrun by cameras all around us. I doubt that this is the type of future that we are headed towards, but nevertheless, we still must be careful. All things considered, We Live in Public is a great documentary, that explored some very interesting concepts.