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THE SHOCK DOCTRINE at MEIFF

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE at MEIFF

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 1 month ago
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Since first premiering at Berlinale in February, Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross’s The Shock Doctrine has itself absorbed a couple of major shocks. In the intervening months, the film has been recut (or, as Whitecross put it when introducing Shock in Abu Dhabi this week, “finished”) for fine tuning and to add material about the global financial crisis. Shortly before this altered version of the film premiered on UK television in September, the author of the book that inspired the film, Naomi Klein, made headlines by disassociating herself from the project. Because there was not “complete agreement between the directors and myself about the content, tone and structure of the film,” she told The Independent, she chose not to narrate the film or accept credit as its writer. The paper spun this as a falling out between the writer and the filmmakers; Klein then published a statement on her website softening the impression of conflict, saying that the she and Winterbottom “came up with a compromise: that someone other than me would narrate and that it would be clear in all materials that this was not my film but rather Michael and Mat’s adaptation of my book.” Whatever the production circumstances might have been, the adaptation lacks Klein’s gift for untangling relatively complicated webs of social, political and economic history with graceful persuasion.

Klein’s theory begin with the economic philosophy of University of Chicago professor Milton Friedman, which postulated that governments could take advantage of disasters to increase their power and decrease the freedoms of the governed, because “only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change.” The film meticulously (if too briskly) outlines how notions of Friedman and his disciples (called the Chicago School) were exported — with full knowledge and help of the US government, and the implicit support of the Nobel foundation –– to places like Chile, Russia and, um, England, resulting in disastrous dissolutions of governments, near-total hijacking of democratic freedoms, and economies fueled by fear. Moving quickly from one Chicago School application to the next, Shock really only slows down for long sequences of incredible archival footage of the urban warfare in which this socio-economic “shock therapy” inevitably results.

After the MEIFF screening on Sunday, Whitecross elaborated on the split between the directors and the author. Acknowledging that Klein had wanted to produce a work of investigative journalism, covering new ground and shooting loads of fresh material while Whitecross and Winterbottom were more interested in “translating” her analysis of recent world history by plumbing media archives, he insisted that Klein was “involved all the way to the end,” up to and including the portion of the film about the financial crisis produced after Shock’s premiere at Berlinale. The film doesn’t feel disingenuous to Klein’s ideas, but it does seem like it could make better use of her. She appears on screen in two modes: b-roll shows her scribbling notes “on the ground” at disaster zones from Baghdad to New Orleans, while documentation of Klein’s various panel appearances and lectures serve as the most concrete, precise delivery systems for her actual talking points. The entire argument really only comes into crystal clear focus fairly late in the film, via a lecture clip in which Klein appeals to the audience’s “feelings” about 9/11 and the ensuing expansion of government — something we can all understand, that swiftly and simply allies the viewer on an emotional level to the Chileans and Russians previously screwed over by the work of the Chicago School. This single moment renders most of Kieran O’Brien’s barking narration superfluous.

Throwing out the show-don’t-tell rule, Whitecross and Winterbottom show, tell, show again and then yell. While images of Thatcher supporting her “friend” Pinochet as he’s arrested for murder in Britain go miles further in suggesting her guilt than the long section of the film equating her crimes (union breaking, the sale of public-owned industries) with his (mass murder, torture, kidnapping, censorship…) The Shock Doctrine suffers from the same problem that weighed down Whitecross and Winterbottom’s The Road to Guantanamo (which remains the more elegant, focused, fascinating film): their material is so powerful that the filmmakers could essentially just thread it together and their polemical argument would state itself, but they weaken their case by beating us over the head with “evidence” that their chosen villains — particularly Friedman, Thatcher and every American Republican politician of the past 40 years, but there is also a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bashing of the Clinton administration for supporting Yeltsin — are not just politically questionable, but unquestionably evil. If much of the footage here could beautifully speak for itself, a few frames of Donald Rumsfeld apparently smirking in front of the still-burning 9/11 Pentagon crash site just pushes the argument into the realm of cartoon.

As a work of anti-fascist propaganda, The Shock Doctrine might have felt refreshing several years ago, when audiences starved for angry media were forced to make do with Michael Moore. But at this point, how many more airless, humorless indictments of British and American political wrongdoings do we need to see from members of the villains’ own voting republics? The question that The Shock Doctrine and all similar films seem to revolve around is, “How could this happen in our democracy?” The weak answer usually offered is “Because the idiots who don’t watch films like this voted for the wrong people.” The Shock Doctrine, almost accidentally, reveals this as the false solution that it is. There’s a clip towards the end of the film of Obama’s election night acceptance speech, which he began by looking directly into the camera and saying, “Hello, Chicago.” By showing this as Barack Obama’s first public words as the President elect, the implication is that this is the guy who will finally break from the pattern set up by the Chicago School, this is the guy who finally look at real bad guys dead in the face and destroy their dominance. If only he had shown such strength in real life!

Clowns to the left, jokers to the right. Flattening popularly elected leaders into smarmy supervillians while essentially picking a hero at random, The Shock Doctrine offers evidence that liberal polemics have devolved into a cycle of caricature that’s indistinguishable in form from the media produced by the opposite side.

Robert Pattinson Documentary to Introduce Teen Girls to Non-Fiction Film. Today in Film Bloggery 10/06/09

Christopher Campbell
By Christopher Campbell posted 1 month ago
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In all likelihood, a new documentary about Robert Pattinson titled Robsessed is a total cash grab and a waste of time. But let’s not completely toss aside the potential of this film, which UK-based distributor Revolver Entertainment has acquired and will release to DVD in the U.S. around the time that The Twilight Saga: New Moon opens in theaters.

I’m reminded of all the late night commercials I used to see for Biggie & Tupac years ago. The way the film was being sold sure made it seem at the time to be as cheap and disregardable as any of those compilation CD sets advertised in the same late hours. I never would have guessed the film was made by such an interesting filmmaker as Nick Broomfield, who I now place within my top five favorite documentarians. If only I’d been a bigger hip hop enthusiast I might have discovered Broomfield earlier than I did.

Likewise, if I’d been a greater Nirvana fan I might have been turned onto the filmmaker through his prior doc Kurt and Courtney (it wasn’t until years later when I wrote a paper on first-person documentaries that I acquainted myself with Broomfield’s films). And speaking of Kurt Cobain, I’m sure some of his young fans rented Kurt Cobain About a Son only to wind up interested in non-traditional documentary and the further work of director A.J. Schnack.

Could Robsessed really have been directed by a true talent like Broomfield and Schnack? It’s hard to imagine, especially since neither the news release nor Revolver’s website reveals the filmmaker behind this documentary. But since the film may concentrate primarily on Pattinson’s obsessed fanbase, it could at least be as interesting as docs like Trekkies and We Are Wizards, which deal with devout followers of the Star Trek and Harry Potter franchises, respectively.

I wouldn’t write Robsessed off so much as I’d say to ignore the film’s DVD-set companion, a pre-Twilight RPattz movie titled The Haunted Airmen.

Check out what other film bloggers are saying about the documentary after the jump:

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CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY Review

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 2 months ago
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Capitalism: A Love Story begins with a brilliantly edited montage equating our current state of despair with the fall of ancient Rome. This leads into a typically Michael Moorean voiceover pondering what our civilization will be remembered for centuries after our demise: funny cat videos, or the forced evictions resulting from the mortgage crisis? The actual answer is probably either “both” or “neither,” but the question is a rhetorical device. Capitalism: A Love Story is primarily an examination of how the country’s romance with free markets spectacularly soured, and secondarily an ode to the ways in which the masses have made their heartbreak visible, including viral video. Moore wisely spends less time intervening into the action here than he did in Sicko, often letting public eruptions of frustration speak for themselves.

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CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY, INVENTION OF LYING. TIFF 2009 Day 3

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 2 months ago
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I should note that on my actual third day in Toronto, I saw two films that I’m not going to be able to write about on just one viewing: The Road and A Serious Man. If you follow my Twitter updates, you’ll know that I was blown away by the former and don’t know what to make of the latter. I know better than to try to waste words on first-blush reactions like that. I plan to catch up with both before their theatrical releases and will report back then.

So let’s skip straight to Sunday’s screenings. As mentioned previously, the “accidental” double feature is not an unusual phenomenon at TIFF, but I still didn’t wake up this morning expecting to see two one-note comedies about the odd symbiotic relationship between wealth accumulation, fabrication and faith. An even more surprising commonality between Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story and The Invention of Lying starring/co-written and directed by Ricky Gervais, is that both feel in a way like huge-scale home movies. They tackle grand concepts from an ironic remove, and yet still leave the impression that their most important statements are about their makers.

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Documentary THE COVE Makes a Difference? Today in Film Bloggery 09/03/09

Christopher Campbell
By Christopher Campbell posted 2 months ago
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We can apparently add Louie Psihoyos’s documentary The Cove to our list of Movies That Really Made a Difference. The secret-camera-employed expose on the slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan, is getting credit, at least in part, with a stoppage of the dolphin killing, the season for which would have begun this week.

Dolphin activist and trainer Richard O’Barry, who appears in Psihoyos’ film, showed up to protest as usual accompanied by a group of international journalists and media crews, only to find the titular location void of fishermen.

He immediately reported his happy discovery to Take Part, writing, “it is a good day for the dolphins. And for me personally, as the police only wanted to talk with me, not arrest me!”

While this is certainly good news, it’s also not surprising that a documentary dealing with the killing of animals would be more successful in its goal than the countless films raising awareness of human genocides and poverty.

Of course, this is a sign that documentary as activism can make a difference, so I don’t mean to be cynical. I honestly hope that The Cove will be made an example and that other films inspire similar change.

Check out what other film bloggers are saying about The Cove’s success after the jump:

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THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE Review

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 2 months ago
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The September Issue is an irresistible pop culture mashup: imagine the Teen Vogue segments of The Hills (though her royal highness Anna Wintour is swapped in for cut-rate LA imitation Lisa Love, the MTV reality show’s masterful manner of spinning diegetic commentary out of eye rolls taken out of context is left intact), genetically blended into an alternate universe version of The Office. Except in this office, the workers actually work, and in fact are terrified not to because their boss is Michael Scott’s polar opposite: impatient, undemonstrative, and absolutely incapable of taking no for an answer.

As a portrait of Wintour the person, RJ Cutler’s documentary does little to dig under the surface of Wintour’s iconic, impassive under bangs image. But as a meditation on art vs commerce, emotion vs rationality, and the role of fantasy merchants in the recently-burst economic bubble, The September Issue is both cerebral and accessible. If it’s not as provocative as it could be, it’s definitely entertaining.

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WE LIVE IN PUBLIC Review

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 2 months ago
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“I was the smartest kid in town, and the reporters knew it,” brags Josh Harris in We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s documentary on the rise and fall of the Internet’s first (and still its most charismatic) video mogul. It’s a telling statement, in that it points to both Harris’ 1990s raison d’etre, and also his Achilles heel: it’s not what you do that matters, it’s that people are watching you do it. Timoner’s portrait of the prescient (and quite possibly crazy) web pioneer will be a must see for anyone interested in internet fame and the phenomenon of casual over-sharing, even if her storytelling tactics are surprisingly stale.

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Michael Moore’s Capitalism Trailer Seems Dated. Today in Film Bloggery 08/21/09

Christopher Campbell
By Christopher Campbell posted 3 months ago
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The new trailer for Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story debuted yesterday on CNN.com, but obviously the world (including me) was too busy crapping on the Avatar trailer to notice. Even the Wolfman spot received more notice. For awhile last night I thought maybe people, even those on the left, were tired of Moore completely. But no, there has finally been some discussion of the thing today.

And the consensus appears to be that Moore isn’t making films any fresher or more groundbreaking than James Cameron is. In fact, Moore’s latest seems surprisingly dated. This is something we’ve expected, of course, given the ongoing story of the economic meltdown, but it is interesting to see so much Bush as well as a complete lack of footage that appears to have been shot since Obama was elected.

Worst of all, everyone agrees, is the use of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on the soundtrack. Even if that song hadn’t been used to death by Pineapple Express and Slumdog Millionaire ads, I would think I was watching a trailer from 2008. How about, given the current events, Moore just rereleases Sicko instead?

Check out what the rest of the film blogs are saying about the film/trailer after the jump:

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Cinema Eye Honors move to January

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 3 months ago
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Lots to of changes to report at the Cinema Eye Honors. Held in the spring for the first two years of its existence, in 2010 the awards dedicated to nonfiction film will take place in January. The calendar move will change the identity of the event from a footnote to the long awards season to a potential pre-Oscar indicator. Also, filmmaker Esther B. Robinson and newly installed San Francisco Film Society programmer Rachel Rosen will join Cinema Eye Founder AJ Schnack as co-chairs of the event, and former co-chair Thom Powers will now chair the Nominations Committee. Finally, the nominees for January’s awards will be announced at the Sheffield Doc/Fest in England in November, thus somewhat internationalizing the affair.

Coverage of past Cinema Eyes.

10 Movie Marketing Blunders

10 Movie Marketing Blunders

Christopher Campbell
By Christopher Campbell posted 3 months ago
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This week is proving to be a monumental moment for failed movie marketing campaigns. Over at Deadline Hollywood Daily, Nikki Finke shares an insider’s look at the blunder of Summit’s Bandslam campaign, which is being blamed for the movie’s dreadfully disappointing bow. Meanwhile there’s the apparent mistake of Fox’s Avatar promotion, in which “overwhelming response” caused the film’s site to crash while people attempted to get free “Avatar Day” tickets for this Friday (we think it was all a ploy to attract more interest from markets where there’s actually little response and awareness, such as Denver). Throw in some spoiler spewing from The Time Traveler’s Wife’s Rachel McAdams, and it’s clear we’re seeing some terrible mishandling of film promotion lately.

The fact that District 9 did so well with its advertising and buzz only makes the blunders of this week seem that much worse. Plenty of reports around the web this week highlighted the contrast between the campaigns and performance of D9 and Bandslam (some people have also been contrasting the latter with The Ugly Truth’s marketing). But will the mistakes cause Hollywood to do better? Looking back at some past marketing errors, we can only assume not. Check out some of the worst movie marketing blunders (including one for a film yet to come out) after the jump.
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Jem Cohen’s EMPIRES OF TIN

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 3 months ago
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“I don’t know what this is,” said Jem Cohen, in his introduction to last night’s screening of his new work Empires of Tin at the IFC Center. He went on to call it “a documentary musical hallucination,” which really only chips the surface of this astounding, frustrating, one-of-a-kind piece.

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Iran, Berlosconi and White Stripes make TIFF Documentary Lineup

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 4 months ago
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In more Toronto lineup news, indieWIRE has posted TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers’ selections for this year’s festival. Highlights:

  • Emmett Malloy’s The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights will mark Jack White’s return to the festival as the star of a nonfiction film, after last year’s It Might Get Loud.
  • In Collapse, American Movie director Chris Smith follows “radical thinker Michael Ruppert” and “explores his apocalyptic vision of the future.”
  • Bassidji tracks director Mehran Tamadon’s three-year immersion “into the very heart of the most extremist supporters of the Islamic republic of Iran (the Bassidjis) to understand their ideas.”
  • In Videocracy, Erik Gandini examines the business and political interests of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlosconi, to show “how his reality TV shows full of bikini-clad women enriched his friends and beguiled a nation.”
  • Straight from Cannes, L’Enfer de Henri-Georges Clouzot follows archivist Serge Bromberg’s discovery of an unfinished film by the director of Wages of Fear.
  • How to Fold a Flag, from Gunnar Palace directors Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein, tracks “U.S. soldiers as they create new lives post-Iraq—from a Congressional candidate in Buffalo to a cage fighter in Louisiana—set against the backdrop of the 2008 election.”

indieWIRE has the full line-up.

DIED YOUNG, STAYED PRETTY Review

Vadim Rizov
By Vadim Rizov posted 4 months ago
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This review was originally published during the 2009 SXSW Film Festival. Died Young, Stayed Pretty opens in New York today at the IFC Center. There is also an opening party tonight at the 92Y Tribeca.

I’ve hung out with enough graphic design nerds to know how tedious their fetish can be to the unconverted, and the options for a documentary about rock posters seemed to be either that kind of geekery or hipster hagiography. “Culture is that thing you shovel out of your window in the evening,” interviewee Mike King wisely announces in Died Young, Stayed Pretty; “otherwise, it will drown you.” The danger in such a project is obviously that kind of self-valorizing mythology, when your clique’s self-evident importance is inaccessible (or just stupid-looking) to outsiders. But Eileen Yaghoobian’s documentary is unexpectedly excellent, a bracingly free-form group portrait of people who only recently discovered each other’s existence when the founding of GigPosters.com showed isolated artists they weren’t just working alone in the dark. I’ll have to take Yaghoobian’s word for it that eminently quotable interviewees like Art Charney and Tom Hazelmyer are actually luminaries of the poster world, but this is one entertaining film regardless of how its profiled community receives it .

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Chick Strand Dies

Karina Longworth
By Karina Longworth posted 4 months ago
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Via the Flaherty Seminar’s Twitter comes the news that West Coast nonfiction filmmaking legend Chick Strand passed away over the weekend at the age of 78. A force behind the formation of art/underground film distributor Canyon Cinema and founding editor of the influential Canyon Cinemanews journal, as a filmmaker Strand (real name: moved fluidly from found footage collages (like Loose Ends, which you can watch on Vimeo) to impressionistic ethnographic documents shot in various parts of Mexico to not-quite-feminist portraits of female experience.

An example of the latter, Strand’s 1979 feature Soft Fiction was a huge early eye opener for me when I first saw it in art school ten years ago. A sort of narrative built out of five women’s first-person stories about their sex lives shot in Strand’s inimitably intimate style, it’s the kind of film that reveals the arbitrariness of the lines that we draw between genres.

There was an excellent story about Strand in the LA Weekly a couple of years ago which offers a sense of her personality; I’ve excerpted a section about her teaching style after the jump.

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5 Movies Sacha Baron Cohen Should Remake in the Style of Bruno

5 Movies Sacha Baron Cohen Should Remake in the Style of Bruno

Christopher Campbell
By Christopher Campbell posted 4 months ago
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Now that Brüno is finished and in theaters, what is Sacha Baron Cohen to do next? Surely he can continue appearing in movies not his own, such as he did with Talladega Nights and Sweeney Todd, but will there ever be another shock-mockumentary in the style of Borat and Brüno? Even if he develops some new characters, people don’t believe he could make another one of these kinds of films stealthily enough to make it work.

Well, let’s hope that isn’t true, because we would love to see at least one more. And we think he’s enough of a chameleon that his increasing fame won’t get in the way. As Metromix recently pointed out, there are just so many people (live and dead) who still need to be interviewed and/or pranked by Baron Cohen. Also, there are so many more marginalized people out there who could use a Brüno of their own to challenge the stereotypes and expose the continuing prejudices of our country.

To help Baron Cohen come up with a new character and issue, we’ve selected five already existing scenarios — which should help garner funding since Hollywood is so into remakes — to inspire him.
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