Venice: "Primetime" by Lance Oppenheim

Elisa Giudici reporting from Venice

“What story was Oppenheim trying to tell with this movie?” a colleague asked me right after we left the screening of Primetime. He sounded as baffled as I felt. Since we're both European, neither of us is particularly familiar with Chris Hansen’s persona, voice, or mannerisms. As journalists, however, we know enough about his notorious pursuit of ratings on American TV and the backlash surrounding his early-2000s show. Still, for days, when someone asked what I thought of Primetime, I found myself giving the rarest of answers: “I don’t know yet.” It took me a lot of thinking to unpack why, in the end, it did not work for me...

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