ABSTRACT
Citizenfour is a tale of risk, depicting actions that set in motion potential consequences whose magnitude and scale are uncertain. Indeed, Edward Snowden employs the term risk on several occasions to explain his actions. The array of scholarship on ‘everyday risks’ makes evident that the kinds of day-to-day concerns that shape people’s engagement with their environment are not necessarily the stuff of feature documentary. Hazards around the home, accidents in the street and the risks associated with a myriad everyday objects and tasks, while usually the most prevalent and pertinent to people’s lives, tend to lack the kind of dramatic and narrative scale around which to construct a theatrical experience. Drawing on the work of prominent risk theorist Ulrich Beck, John Tulloch and Deborah Lupton write that ‘people have become compelled to make themselves the centre of the conduct of life’, as the ‘process of individualization is the other, private side of globalization’.
