Conrad Black, This Is Your Life!

By: Mark Fitzgerald Throughout the 87-minute running time of "Citizen Black," which airs Feb. 20 on the Sundance Channel, Toronto filmmaker Debbie Melnyk shows herself chatting up former Hollinger boss Conrad Black--at book signings, corporate meetings, even accompanying him on a tour of the home of Franklin D. Roosevelt's mother--in an unsuccessful campaign to get him to sit down for a formal interview.

It doesn't matter--because Melnyk was lucky enough to capture Black's "Ceausescu" moment.

Remember the images from December 1989 of Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who had foolishly called a mass rally of support as riots spread around the country, standing shocked and speechless as the emboldened crowd hooted him down? Black experienced something like that at the 2003 annual stockholders meeting of the holding company he used to control.

The natives were restless at that meeting, too. Shareholders were just getting wind of the giant management fees and ?non-compete? fees paid to Black and a small circle of insiders including former Chicago Sun-Times Publisher F. David Radler. Hollinger didn?t want the press at the meeting, claiming that the posh club hosting the meeting objected that the reporters were not dressed properly for the occasion. But Melnyk slipped in with her digital camera.

Press accounts of that meeting invariably described a ?defiant? Black swatting aside criticism. It was at this meeting that he famously characterized demands for transparent corporate governance as a ?fad? advocated by ?terrorists? and ?charlatans.?

Defiant words, indeed. But Melnyk?s camera captures the awful delivery of Black, who has always been a talented public speaker. He never looks up from the speech text, and later, answering shareholder questions, he fairly drips self-pity, complaining that shareholders had uttered ?not one word of commendation? for the company?s financial performance.

?You don?t know what you?re talking about,? he tells the crowd. How do you say that in Romanian?

Much has happened since Melnyk wrapped shooting for ?Citizen Black,? which made its debut in the summer of 2004 at the Montreal World Film Festival.

A Hollinger International Inc. special committee that Black jauntily suggests on camera will ?sort everything out? and exonerate him instead accused him of heading a ?corporate kleptocracy? that looted the publishing company of some $400 million. His friend and business partner Radler has cut a deal with the feds for reduced prison time that requires him to testify against Black. And Lord Black of Crossharbour himself has been indicted and fingerprinted in a Chicago courthouse on a variety of felony charges.

But Melnyk?s film remains well worth viewing when it makes its U.S. premiere on Feb. 20 on Sundance.

First of all, it?s highly entertaining. Mostly, Melnyk plays it straight in the documentary, but other times she gets mischievous, telling the story of Black?s upbringing and early career as if it were a 1940s newsreel, or inserting animation that suggest Terry Gilliam or the JibJab guys. Clearly, she?s a fan of the Canadian magazine Frank that satirizes the nation?s media mercilessly, and calls Black ?Tubby? on first reference.

?Citizen Black? also tells a fascinating story in a clear way, no easy feat when the subject is so adept at corporate prestidigitation.

Melnyk can be plenty catty--and when you?re talking about Black and his wife Barbara Amiel Black, who are shown arriving at a party dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette, how can you not?--but she is also surprisingly fair. Black has burned plenty of bridges in his career, but ?Citizen Black? shows that he has admirers, too.

In one of the many nice touches in the film, Melnyk talks to documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield, whose subjects have included Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss and star-crossed rockers Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. Broomfield has just been to a gala Black event, and confesses that he didn?t confront the media baron, but just kind of kissed up to him like everyone else. You go away feeling disgusted with yourself, he tells Melnyk.

With ?Citizen Black,? Melnyk need not feel any shame.