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The
Corporation
(2004)
Am I the only one who thinks docutainment is the new black tar heroin? Because if I am I'll stop reviewing 'em... No? Good because I really wanna talk about this one. The Corporation is docutainment at its finest. I was amused, incensed and saddened. I was ashamed and at one point seriously contemplated packing up my belongings and moving to Tasmania. More importantly though, at least from a filmic perspective, I was gripped by what I was watching.
So what is it about docutainment that I find so fascinating? Why has this specific medium sprung forth from relative obscurity to its present high profile in so short a time span? For me it's because it feeds several desires of the viewer. The desire to learn, their thirst for entertainment and the lust to have their ego stroked by watching a movie preach a view point that they probably already hold. They fill you with this feeling that you're doing and learning far more than you actually are and it's a marvelous illusion.
The Corporation takes an in depth, if sometimes overly biased, look at corporations, their histories, their structure, their legal status, and breaks them down into sixteen distinct chapters. They do this with a mixture of stock footage, news footage, investigative reporting and interviews with their subjects ranging from CEO's of huge companies like Pfizer and Goodyear to intellectuals and consumer advocates. Some of the interviewees stick to party lines, others show some surprising candor in their thinking, while still others point out some of the complexities we face in trying to untangle what corporations have become.
Though as propagandist as any other docutainment movie, The Corporation escapes with relatively little backlash from its mostly sensible positions. It offers very few solutions, instead examining mostly the problems and their sources. It allows voices of opposition to speak and what one walks away with is a feeling that there is a lot of work that needs to be done amending our laws to safe guard certain aspects of life and the world against harm but also, for the most part, that there isn't just one person or group to point a finger at, that the blame is plentiful.
Breaking down the chapters of this film one at a time would be tedious and unjust to its excellent pacing. The structure is logical. The events are of epic importance and for anyone interested in Cyber Punk (or Post Cyber Punk) literature or films, The Corporation is an excellent primer to understanding why Uncle Enzio's and other fictional zaibatsu aren't as far off as we would like.
-Scott
Kline
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All contents ©
2004-2009 Thoughtsonfilm.com |
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Director:
Mark
Achbar & Jennifer Abbott
Writer: Joel Bakan, Harold Crooks, Mark Achbar
Starring: Noam
Chomsky, Milton Friedman, Mikela J. Mikael, Michael Moore,
Distributor: Zeitgeist
Films
Runtime: 140
min
Rating: Unrated
Release Date: June
4, 2006
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