I think Mark commented on this doc once before, but I couldn’t find the entry. Smart, biting, engaging. Yet…. besides a new case history or two, a sometimes-unfamiliar set of talking heads (academic and corporate), and its useful condensation (and surrealization) of the history of the corporation, I didn’t feel like I really got pushed in new ways by this film. Maybe I’m–we’re?–not the audience for this documentary; I know I’d be very keen to teach the thing, as I think it would provoke and entertain equally well.
But my own engagement with its politics and history was lesser than with Richard Powers’ very fine novel Gain, which told a clearer, more incisive story because… well, it was a clearer story, I think. Or even Michael Moore’s The Big One, which makes many of the same points with more jokes, albeit less depth or breadth of information. I recommend it, but almost like I recommend eating 5 servings of fruit a day. Good for you, probably even as tasty as the pretzels that make up 46% of my daily caloric intake. Alas. (The dvd, it should be noted, does have some very nice extras.)
I’ve become a bit wary of the “preaching to the converted” argument that films (particularly documentaries) like The Corporation get. If the film is interestingly shot, edited, and treats a difficult subject with the proper amount of background and nuance, then fine. I’m already converted, but would like to hear the story told anyway. (I know the plot of most films I see; that doesn’t stop me from seeing them if they are good films).
I think that’s particularly the case with The Corporation, a long film (3 hours) that convincingly argues some points on a topic (corporate responsibility) that fills hundreds of books, thousands of articles, and takes up much of the time of our elected officials.
Comparing this film to a Richard Powers novel – or even preferring the story-telling method of one to the other – seems to me unfair to the film. First, it’s a novel, and it can jettison all the statistics and actual examples of real-world scenarios that The Corporation makes such fine use of. Second, it’s a freaking Richard Powers novel, and even if the plot veers into Erin Brokovich territory, we’re talking about two vastly different taxes on the consumer’s attention. Though I’ve not read it, I cast a skeptical eye on your claim that Powers “tells a clearer story.”
The Corporation was clearly put together more for DVD than for a theatrical viewing. I saw it in a theater, and was not bored, but I wouldn’t have minded watching it over two nights, letting certain facts sink in. and stopping the disc to talk over points with my wife and cat. Powers’ rather scary mastery of many, many fields that all make their way into his books creates the kind of literature that never makes a best-seller list, let alone Oprah’s seal of approval. I don’t read Pynchon to learn about physics.
Still, my main point isn’t about your comparison to Powers, but about who exactly this film was meant to reach. I’m not sure off the answer, but I think that it tried rather hard NOT to preach to the converted solely. It was closer to the apolitical Fog of War than to any Michael Moore film, even if, like Fog of War, on paper it seems as if Republicans would never give it a chance.
How can a film like The Corporation appeal to a broader audience? And by that, I mean red staters? To move the target further to the right would probably require letting the right-wing argument framers get more attention that they deserve (“Unions are destroying America,” “market forces are always good for Americans,” and of course screaming “Class War” at the drop of a hat
wage.)I think one of the best ways to de-politicize the corporation argument might be in the way that Mondovino does; by using a single example of a very tradition laden occupation and examining how the state of the business has gotten to where it is.
The Corporation is such a superior film to Mondovino in its style and professionalism, but they really are complementary in the way they work. The Corporation really was a film I enjoyed a good deal; like Mondovino, it is not a chore of a documentary at all, and I recommend it highly.
I wasn’t really pushing on the preached-to-and-converted. Your complaints about such dismissals are fair, just not on-point with my complaint, which was more about what I saw as the limitations of “the story”.
I found this film to be a reasonable, and reasonably-entertaining, overview of the issues. I did not find it particularly illuminating, nor particularly provocative to me (‘though I ambiguously suggest it might provoke someone else), nor particularly interesting. I found myself wishing for some more extravagant or thorough or idiosyncratic or just plain exciting approach to the subject.
For instance, I bring up Gain because it cross-cuts a long history of one corporation and its broad, degrading effects on economy, ecology, culture with one story of a woman battling a cancer caused by (perhaps) the detergents made by aforementioned corporation. I learned actually quite a bit about how corporations evolved, I thought a lot about histories (in the descriptions of the rise of a particular industry), I thought about individual and institutional effects. I suppose it isn’t fair to compare a novel to a doc, but I was trying to suggest that other methods of telling such a story might have more effect. Powers succeeds because he is both as broad in his studies of corporations AND far more focused in his illustration of their effects.
My other comparison was Michael Moore, who sacrifices that breadth and depth and history for a much more in-your-face provocation. The Corporation is far from apolitical (and I don’t think your comparison to Morris’ film on McNamara therefore accurate), and that doesn’t bother me, but it’s also “New Yorker” sly rather than New Yawker aggressive–it lets a CEO talk solemnly and seemingly fairly (like the Shell exec discussing his company’s environmental record), then the narration says something slyly dismissive over footage that contradicts the former account (footage/discussion of Nigeria, where the environmental consequences of Shell industry are severe), then brings on a talking head (I think it was Chomsky again) who more academically attacks the former account. I far preferred the footage of Moore himself going after the Nike CEO from The Big One–and I prefer a story more pronouncedly, pointedly challenging. It’s just more my cup of tea…
…but it’s also, I think, a better documentary. This film seemed to want to be a little Moore while being a little less, so that it could — what? — educate more broadly, I think. Yet its educational information struck me as far thinner than a good book–and… well, fuck, I’d rather go read a good book than watch even a decent three-hour movie. What a movie/doc might do well–provoke, tell a clearer more focused story (and I’m intrigued by your account of Mondovino, which is now high on my queue), have a stronger point of view, develop a particular case study… (Barbara Harlan’s documentaries strike me as far more challenging)–this film didn’t do.
I don’t know. I’m less critiquing the film for being familiar than for it being less effective as film, as well as less effective at politics. We may just differ on that evaluation. When I suggested I could teach it–well, instead of assigning that good book, I might try to cover the ground more quickly, with a more palatable form. But I would also be far more likely to teach Moore.
I caught some of The Corporation on the Sundance Channel this past weekend. I was compelled to see it through but, alas, had other responsibilities. The little that I saw made me want to show it to my students for no other reason than they need to see it. So, I need to see it all the way through first, but then I’m coming after the theatre students (bless ’em).