A fine overview of a pivotal figure in American socio-political history
Based on The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News – and Divided a Country by Gabriel Sherman (2014), The Loudest Voice takes as its subject the rise and fall of Roger Ailes, and the concomitant rise and ongoing success of Fox News, the "fair and balanced" news network heA fine overview of a pivotal figure in American socio-political history
Based on The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News – and Divided a Country by Gabriel Sherman (2014), The Loudest Voice takes as its subject the rise and fall of Roger Ailes, and the concomitant rise and ongoing success of Fox News, the "fair and balanced" news network he founded in 1996. And whilst Bombshell (2019) focuses on the women who brought Ailes down, The Loudest Voice is more interested in the man himself. Does it tell us anything new? Not really. Is it biased? Absolutely. Is it subtle? Not even a little. However, it's well-written, brilliantly acted, and extremely well-mounted.
Rather than providing a straightforward biographical account of Ailes (a superb Russell Crowe), the show focuses on seven key events, looking at one per episode, beginning with the formation of Fox News ("1995"). The following six deal with Ailes and Fox's response to 9/11 ("2001"); the rise of Barack Obama ("2008"); Ailes and his wife Beth (Sienna Miller in a performance every bit as good as Crowe's) purchasing a local newspaper in their home town of Garrison, New York ("2009"); Obama running for a second term ("2012"); the rise of Donald Trump ("2015"); and Ailes being sued by Gretchen Carlson (Naomi Watts) for sexual harassment ("2016").
The most immediately obvious element of Loudest Voice is the non-linear editing. The most impactful scene in this respect occurs in "2009"; a scene of Ailes compelling employee Laurie Luhn (Anabelle Wallis) to give him oral sex, intercut with her cleaning her mouth out in the bathroom afterwards. It's a horrific moment and a brilliant example of using the mechanics of the medium to comment on the events depicted without resorting to dialogue, showing us how disjointed editing can be thematic, telling us all we need to know about Luhn's attitude towards her relationship with Ailes.
Indeed, Luhn's storyline is one of the show's most effective. Her discomfit with the relationship is hinted at throughout the first two episodes, but it's only in "2008" that it takes centre stage, culminating in a horror show of mental collapse across two episodes. The early scenes between her and Ailes are really the only ones that speak to his darker characteristics, which go on to be such an important theme in later episodes. Much like John Lithgow in Bombshell, Crowe initially plays Ailes as intelligent, inspiring, funny, charming, even nurturing, and the only real suggestion of the depravity beneath that veneer comes in the form of the increasingly disturbing sex scenes between him and Luhn.
Thematically, Ailes and Fox's roles in dividing the country is a major focus, especially in "2009". Here, we see Ailes stoking the fires of division in Garrison by interjecting himself into a dispute amongst the locals. This is the microcosm. In the same episode, we see the increasingly volatile clashes between Obama supporters and those who oppose him, fuelled by Fox's anti-Obama vitriol. This is the macrocosm. As visual metaphors go, cutting between a fractious townhall meeting in Garrison and news coverage of street clashes across the country is a little heavy-handed, but it is effective in getting the point across – Ailes was very good at breeding division. And of course, there's the constant theme of Ailes and Fox's crimes against journalism. For example, "2001" features a scene in which he willingly turns Fox into the propagandist arm of the Republican Party, and scenes like this are found throughout the seven episodes.
In terms of problems, although it improves over time, the prosthetic work in the first couple of episodes is really poor. Ailes's skin is far too smooth and plastic-like, as if he's been run through a Photoshop filter. Another issue is that I'm not entirely convinced that seven hours were necessary. Tied to this is some unusual choices about content – so we get, for example, an episode on the purchasing of a local newspaper, but there's no mention of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, which was Fox's first big ratings win.
If Roger Ailes didn't exactly build the Divided States with his own hands, at the very least, those who did were working from his blueprint, and The Loudest Voice is a very fine deconstruction of that blueprint. Certainly, it's more interested in probing the political impact of Fox than examining the psychology of the man, and it's disappointingly silent on the question of why he did what he did – it never really deals, for example, with whether or not Ailes genuinely believed he was fighting the good fight or if he recognised that he was essentially a snake oil salesman. However, for all that, it's very enjoyable – the acting is top-notch, the aesthetic superb, and the events it recounts of great importance in today's cultural climate.… Expand
The Loudest VoiceYour Score0 out of 10User Score
