An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

A picture of the planet earth from outer space.   Taken from http://www.treehugger.com.

I don't know how I managed to miss seeing An Inconvenient Truth in an actual movie theatre some time in the spring of 2006.  But on  the other hand, I would have never anticipated that it would be such a pleasurable and engaging visual experience compared with other big box office documentaries such as Sicko and March of the Penguins, which is not to devalue either of these films.  I liked both Sicko and March of the Penguins but when I saw them on DVD, I didn't find myself wondering what it might have been like to see them in a movie theatre.  

For the most part, almost every movie I see via netflix on DVD (because I've got a pretty good set up in my Mom's basement--a vintage maxi-screen Sony), I find myself thinking, 'boy I sure am glad I didn't waste my time getting to a movie theatre to see that: more than likely nothing much was lost in that translation.'  

But with An Inconvenient Truth, not only do I find its visual attributes intriguing (from the melting glaciers to the full color planet earth from outer space to the creative and glitzy graphics) but the various back stories  just keep getting more and more interesting.  From Gore's loss of the election in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the violence in Darfur, Niger and recently in Mumbai, Obama's election, the collapse of the stock market and the global economy, everything seems connected to one or more aspects of the predictive elements of this film. 

Ever since first learning what global warming was, I have wondered how long Americans would be allowed to shuffle along in denial concerning the short-sightedness of their gas and fossil fuel guzzling habits.  When I first saw An Inconvenient Truth, the blown up version of Al Gore's PowerPoint presentation on the dangers of global warming, on HBO in Demand, I knew right away that I would have to return to it for further study more times than HBO in Demand was willing to accommodate.  HBO in Demand, and indeed much of HBO, is generally a blessing amidst the pervasive heathenism of mainstream television but even HBO has strict limits on the extent of attention it is willing to give to serious and philanthropic programs.  They will do absolutely wonderful programs in which there isn't even a glimmer of economic motivation, such as the endless series they did about a year ago on substance abuse and drug addiction.  I watched every single one and grew ever more fascinated by the range of approaches and doctor interviews but thinking to myself, for how long can HBO afford to do this?  Am I like the only person watching this right now?  

Americans just hate downbeat stuff, unless of course it has something to do with someone who is a star, and then they can't seem to get enough.  As for myself, I stopped being an American in this sense a long time ago.  Downbeat is one of my stipulated viewing preferences.  Which brings me back to the difficulty with An Inconvenient Truth.  Mixed in with this brilliant and essential presentation of an urgent problem with political and economic life on this planet, the way they got around the innately unmarketable character of the material was by weaving it into the narrative of Gore's own upper class, Phi Beta Kappa type, flawlessly patrician affect.  

This can get annoying.  On the other hand, where else can you learn in 2008 that there were terrible floods in Mumbai, India, 37 inches of rain in 24 hours in July of 2005?

Global warming causes both flooding and drought.  And both conditions lend themselves to mass violence.   I think these things are really interesting.

I should make it emphatically clear that I really really like just about everything I know about Al Gore, including the fact that he is related to Gore Vidal, on of my favorite writers ever.  I would imagine they don't have much appreciation for each other although I wonder how Vidal feels about Al now.  There is all this amazing filmic footage and in the commentary provided by the director (one of the few occasions when this isn't more annoying than not), he goes through in detail the illustrations of the environment in particular places where changes ripple out to the far ends of the earth.  

Photo of the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific, 

one of the destination of Charles Darwin and the Beagle on Planet Earth

Despite the overall format of a lecture on a scientific topic, the film really moves in terms of a series of transitions from topic to topic: the melting of the glaciers, the range of species of animals and sea life experiencing extinction, drought, hurricanes, flooding, the rising of sea level in major cities around the world.  

After WWII, the population of the earth reached two billion for the first time.  Since then the earth's population has grown to nine billion putting pressure on water demand and food demand.  This is a really important film.  This is a really moving film although it doesn't tell you what to do.  All things considered, it is pretty damn scary.  There are other films as well which connect to this film and are helpful to thinking about how we can collectively respond to the issues threatening to destroy the planet.  How could you not care about the planet? 

Speaking of which, the continuation to this film is to watch the series The Planet Earth.  It is perhaps an 18 hour series, the very best of its kind.  My sister gave me the series last Christmas because she and I have always shared a love of nature and a fascination with conservation and animal life.  I had hoped she and I would get to watch it together but in my world, nobody has the time (or takes the time) to watch such things besides me.  

Planet Earth is a great big series about all the places on the earth where there are still significant populations of animals living in a state of nature.  It always astonishes me to think how few animals can actually be domesticated.  Most cannot.  Most are completely wild and, in fact, depend upon having very little contact with human society for their own survival.  Or in other words, their lives and ours are mutually exclusive.  But not really because it turns out that if they don't get what they need, we probably won't be getting what we need.  So our lives are in some ways complimentary.

The overall theme of Planet Earth turns out to be coming to terms with the fact that a record number of species of animal life are in danger of extinction or some other cataclysmic change in their status quo in ways that are ultimately contingent upon the problems humans are facing in terms of drought, starvation and the lack of nourishing food and drinkable water.  But the other story is this--the stunning beauty of the natural world, of the desert, the lakes, the rivers, the sea, the mountains and plains, even as more and more of it is in peril.  I think as human beings we are right to regard any dramatic changes in the status quo of the planet with fear and trepidation.  But the planet has been through dramatic changes and it is probably going to go through more.  Our present civilization on earth may not be the main point of everything but just another point on the continuum of forever.  

At the very least, I am prepared to think that there are more answers out there than most of us are presently aware of. 

Jazz on a Summer's Day (1958)

Mahalia Jackson and Duke Ellington around the time they made their album together.  

Jazz on a Summer's Day is an unusual and unique concert film taken from the Newport Jazz Festival of 1958, the only film of its kind ever released with just some of the greatest performance footage from such artists as Chico Hamilton, Eric Dolphy, Dinah Washington, Mahalia Jackson, Big Maybelle, Chuck Berry, Thelonius Monk, Louis Armstrong. It begins magically with this little piece by Jimmy Guiffre.  George Avakian determined which songs were shot based upon his knowledge of which songs would be cleared for release. 

Tonight I felt the urge to see once again the fascinating sequence of a very handsome and focused Chico Hamilton playing something really special on the drums, almost operatic in intensity with Eric Dolphy on flute the only time I've ever seen him play that I can recall.  Directed by the photographer Bert Stern, who had never done anything of this type before, and shot entirely in a lush color, Hamilton plays against a red background.  

He had some notion of casting Chico Hamilton as a leading man although it seems as though the plot ultimately fell away and it is a concert film.  Nonetheless, Chico Hamilton's time on screen is absolutely magical. 

Otherwise, there is also wonderful footage of the audiences, the town, the seagulls and the sail boats entirely in period costume.  The late 50s seems a strange, photogenic place. 

This is the photographer who took those extraordinary shots of Marilyn Monroe in the nearly nude shortly before her death.  Still he isn't necessarily the kind of photographer I love, very conventional, very mainstream.  Duke Ellington and Miles Davis were there that year but not in the film because he had been told he wouldn't be able to get clearance to screen them.  He actually says he didn't like Miles Davis anyway because he was too far out so this is no musical connoisseur.   Everybody and his brother seems to have played that year and not made the film for some reason or another. 

But I love this film, nonetheless, for what it does have.  It is filled with so many rare musical and visual moments, perhaps because George Wein, who was the Daddy of the Newport Jazz Festival, was rarely in the habit of allowing filmmakers to film and screen films of the Newport Jazz Festival.  Apparently, this deal with Stern did not leave a good taste in Wein's mouth and so there were no more such projects although I would imagine there is quite a pile of footage sitting in some vault somewhere waiting for the dust to settle sufficiently so that it can be re-edited into the version that will be known of the festival by posterity, now that the Newport Jazz Festival no longer exists and that time that no longer is seems so magical with Chuck Berry singing "Sweet Little 16" backed up by Philly Joe Jones on drum and Jack Teagarden on trombone.  

Of course, always the best thing is Mahalia Jackson's set, which ends the film with her rendition of "The Lord's Prayer" the way we use to sing it at Abyssinian Baptist Church when I was a child.

Edison: The Invention of the Movies--Boxed Set

Kino Videos currently has an excellent deal on the Boxed Set-- Edison: The Invention of the Movies on SALE FOR $74.96 down from $99.95 at http://www.kino.com/edison/ 

This collection includes the entire holdings of Thomas Edison films (a total of 140) belonging to the Museum of Modern Art, offering a rare opportunity to see a broad range of the kinds of films that were produced in New York at the Edison Studios during the earliest period of film production, from 1894 through 1919.  

In addition to the meticulous presentation of these historic prints of films from a few seconds to as much as twenty minutes each, there is copious historical documentation provided by Charles Musser, author of Nickelodeon: The Invention of the Movies.  Moreover, each of the films is accompanied by extensive commentary by Charlie, myself, and a host of other silent film experts.  

My contribution includes commentary on Edison's Watermelon Films, his early version of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1903 and films dealing with ethnic stereotypes in general.  I have used this set in a variety of ways with film classes both at Cornell and at the Graduate Center with great success.  Instead of having to begin discussion of silent film in the teens with Birth of a Nation, this set makes it possible to present to students and others this earliest period of film production, arguably the most exciting and varied period, and thereby to better understand how films developed into what they are today. 

 There are some really extraordinary gems that would be of particular interest to different people.  Not only does this set pretty much include all the films that might have formerly been excluded because they aren't politically correct, there are many films which don't necessarily comment on the status of African Americans but which reveal other telling things about American values.  For instance, there is a brief actuality (the earliest one shot films) in which an elephant is electrocuted to death.  The image of the smoke coming out of his head and his falling over dead is still seared into my consciousness.  There's an intricate anti-Semitic film in which a shopkeeper goes to elaborate lengths to recover his property.  Among the early actualities, there are Native American performances from acts who participated in the annual Wild West Shows featured at U.S. world's fairs. 

I recognize and accept that lots of people will never much care for silent film. But if you do like silent film, this would be an excellent introduction to this fascinating period of our history.

The Fascinating Career of Anna Mae Wong

The Edison Films and Race

The Fascinating Career of Bert Williams

The Problem Films of 1949

Orson Welles and It's All True

Review of Lost Sounds

Alice Guy Blache and A Fool and HIs Money

Film Noir and African American Culture

The Films of Paul Robeson

Josephine Baker's Silents

More Thoughts on Oscar Micheaux

More Thoughts on D.W. Griffith

More Thoughts on Uncle Tom's Cabin

The Watermelon Films

My Love Affair with Akira Kurosawa

The Film and TV Projects of Nelson George

Everyday People.  Life Support.  American Gangster.  Smart People.

Body of War by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue

This is a great story, or rather a great story within a story within a story.  This is film, which is a brand new documentary--and part of the proliferation of excellent recent documentaries dealing with different aspects of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, critiquing recent foreign and domestic policies emanating from the Bush White House, and so on--follows the journey of an extraordinary young man who is severely wounded as an enlistee in Iraq and who becomes a persuasive and compelling anti-war activist as a consequence of his experiences.  

Phil Donahue of talk show fame a decade or more ago met Ellen Spiro, one of the all-time great documentary filmmakers (and I don't just say this because she was my student at Buffalo and one of my favorite people in the world) on a plane and hatched the idea of doing this project.  I became aware of it when I saw them discussing it and showing clips on Bill Moyer's Show--another location I keep an eye on so far as trying to follow what is going on in this country and the world.   

I haven't seen the entire film yet but I've seen enough to know that it is something crucial to see.  It was aired on Veteran's Day on the Sundance Channel and Phil (yes, I know him too!) was on a range of television and radio promoting the film.  But I am slow because I thought it would get a major release and run in the theatres.  How could anybody not want to see this--admitted it might be a little difficult for people who can't deal with severe disability challenges but that should be nobody given how eager most of us are to send people into harm's way, right?

Of course, the film is basically invisible now.  However it is available on dvd, and once it has made the round of the film festivals, it will be on netflix I imagine.  If you need a copy right away, here's the link to buy the dvd: http://www.bodyofwar.com. 

MORE ON BODY WAR:

I hadn't seen this film when I wrote this but now I have and it is so wonderful to have seen it, fascinating this young man and his physical challenges.  His courage and the purity of his absolute political clarity about opposing the war.  

Saw it on HBO in Demand I think together with a number of other special things about war and recruitment.  I believe HBO in Demand had it in the Documentary section together with another wonderful film about a recruitment station where many high school graduates have been sent to Iraq.  By the time I got finished watching this, I was worried about the draft, the inevitability of its return.  Which would be deeply boring since then I might have to start attending public protest demonstrations again.  Tedious but else could one do?

So in the meanwhile, if you get a chance, take a look at these two films and all the other wonderful documentaries that have been made and are being made about the various wars the United States has gotten itself involved in the course of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.  Every bit of it is deeply intriquing to me now  after having been deeply bored by it for the entire first half of my life.  

What I liked to do most when I was young was read Balzac, Henry James and William Faulkner and tons and tons of stuff like that.  My deepest fear was running out of novels.  Geez.  But then there really weren't any video, dvds or computers.   And there certainly weren't any blogs.  Even now I can hardly read my own handwriting. 

The Birth of a Nation

The Birth of a Nation

Directed by D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation released in 1915 was deeply disturbing to anyone concerned about the state of race relations. It's impact was disastrous and the approval of it and the screening of it in the White House by President Woodrow Wilson is something I still find shocking.

The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow PBS Series

Cinema is the Most Beautiful Fraud in the World

Jean Luc Godard

In honor of this quotation and of my beautiful Uncle Andrew, I have begun this blog to serve as a home for my many writings on film-- some already published, some not, such as my dissertation.

I love film for precisely this reason Godard identifies. The most beautiful fraud sums it up. In particular, I love silent film, about which I will have much more to say.