Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief - documentary

 Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
Rated 89
by 4 people.

A 2015 documentary feature based on the 2013 Lawrence Wright book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief. The film deconstructs various claims made by the church and explores various stories by ex-members, it also explores the relationship that various A-list Hollywood celebrities have with the church, perhaps most notably Tom Cruise and John Travolta. The film was given a limited theatre release a few weeks before being broadcast on HBO and was nominated for seven Emmy Awards, it won three of them.

 

The film can be broken into three distinct segments, one which examines how former Scientologists were recruited into the church, another scrutinizes the history of the church and its founder L. Ron Hubbard, and the third examines allegations of abuse of church members and inappropriate behaviour of some of the church’s most senior officials.

 

The Church of Scientology launched a full-scale attack on the producers of the film in an attempt to denounce the film, taking out full-page advertisements in numerous national newspapers. The church has also been accused of harassment and threats towards those who chose to feature in the film as whistle-blowers, similar tactics were used against John Sweeney when he produced the documentaries Scientology and Me (2007) and The Secrets of Scientology (2010).

 

In this documentary “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief”, Alex Gibney investigates the inner workings of the controversial Church of Scientology. The film is based on the book by Lawrence Wright and lays out Scientology bare for us all to see using knit together archive footage and testimonials from former high ranking Scientologists as well as reconstructions. 

Category
Society, Conspiracy

Presenter
Alex Gibney
Year
2015
Watch time
02:00:07

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Comments

1

Gerryb 2016-08-26 01:17:23

This was a real eye opener. Best moment was when the ex member realised ( WTF is going on here ). Do scientology members watch these documentaries??

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0

xcritic 2016-08-27 20:13:15

Yeah, and they try and silence them where possible.

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0

dude 2015-12-16 18:29:53

Can't think of a dodgier corporation apart from FIFA maybe.

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