Similarities Between Spotlight And The Zodiac

All the President’s Men (1976), based on Bernstein and Woodward’s examination of Richard Nixon’s White House, specifically the Watergate scandal, is the quintessential film about investigative journalism. In recent years, investigative journalism was reintroduced to the cinema by Spotlight (2015) and The Zodiac (2007). In comparison, Spotlight is a more comprehensive film about investigative journalism than The Zodiac. Spotlight’s storyline impacts the audience by demanding justice for the victims of the criminal activity portrayed. In addition, Spotlight won more critical acclaim than The Zodiac. Finally, Spotlight pays homage to investigative journalism, and journalists, while The Zodiac combines the psychological thriller genre with investigative

On the other hand, The Zodiac recounts another true story about the hunt for the Zodiac Killer by detectives and journalists in San Francisco. In Spotlight, the victims of the historic sexual abuse are the emphasis of the storyline. The journalists pursue the story in an attempt to publicly expose and condemn the Church’s history of criminal complicity. More than anything, the journalists want justice for the victims and accountability for the Church. In opposition, The Zodiac revolves around the cat-and-mouse game played between the newspaper and the Zodiac Killer. The emphasis is not on justice or the victims, but on the perpetrator. Throughout the film, the murders are reproduced to disturb the audience without consideration for the real victims. In the cinema, watching Spotlight, I experienced the audiences involuntary verbal reactions to the revelations made about the extent of the Church’s coverup. I did not see The Zodiac in the cinema, but I viewed it with an audience and the reactions were more of anxiety due to the suspense rather than anger at the journalistic revelations. Spotlight bought empathy into the theater, while The Zodiac reenacts crimes for shock

The journalists in Spotlight are tasked with tracking the history of sexually abusive priests in the Boson dioceses, which is depicted through interviewing priests or Church hierarchy; interviewing victims of sexual abuse by priests; interviewing a priest accused of molesting children; communicating with a psychologist involved in researching sexually abusive priests; and interviewing lawyers involved in lawsuits against the Catholic Church. Throughout all the journalistic tasks, you are brought into the offices of the Boston Globe and into the field with the journalists. This gives the audience a basic understanding of the immense task of exposing a powerful institution of concealing priest perpetrated abuse for decades. In The Zodiac, the audience is also brought into the journalists offices, but the focus is on how the personal lives of the journalists are effected by the Zodiac Killer’s encrypted notes addressed to the newspaper. A significant portion of the film is spent in the apartment of one of the journalists, acted by Jake Gyllenhaal, as his marriage falls apart and he devolves into obsession over the identity of the Zodiac Killer. Spotlight’s presentation of the facts are accurate, in accordance to Betrayal: A Crisis in the Catholic