Title: The Corporation
Genre: Documentary
Director: Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott
Release: (2006)
Here’s an interesting little quiz for you to test your historical acumen. Answers provided at the bottom (no peeking).
What major U.S.-based corporation made a tidy little profit developing and supplying the Nazis with specialized equipment to streamline their own unique “accounting” needs?
What California-based global corporation inked a lucrative contract to own and distribute the water in an impoverished Bolivian city, then raised the rates over 200% and enlisted the aide of the local military to crack down on citizens who dared to try to gather rainwater for survival without paying for it?
What Oregon-based corporation was able to shave its expenditures on international workers salaries down to three-tenths of 1% of the retail price of their products by accounting employee time worked down to tenths of a second?
Executives from which major U.S. corporations, still thriving today, led a failed effort to overthrow President Roosevelt and take over the government in an effort to halt the potential profit losses predicted to come of his New Deal plan?
What major U.S.-based corporation conspired successfully with a major news network to alter a story about the potentially serious health hazards associated with the milk produced with a synthetic hormone of their creation? (Hint: Both companies were “vindicated” when an appellate court ruled that falsifying the news is, technically, not against the law.)
Why would a corporate investment broker excitedly describe the 9/11 attacks on New York City as “a blessing in disguise …on a financial sense.”
What 2003 Canadian documentary and winner of 12 international festival awards, including an Audience Award at Sundance, was actually produced by a guy named Bart Simpson?
I’ll give you the last one, it’s The Corporation. And, yes, the guy who produced this interesting little piece of conspiracy-theorist porn is by all accounts actually named Bart Simpson. The Corporation is a fairly clever attempt to examine the rise of the corporate business structure in both America and on the global scene. Intermixing narration, archival footage and a variety of interviews in Documentary 101 Standard Format, the film paints a portrait of the corporation as an insatiable, predatory man-made monster. More specifically, they look at the modern corporation through an anthropomorphic lens to make the case that standard corporate practices fit the textbook definition for the prototypical psychopath.
For the most part, the film is decidedly one-sided – with even the few corporate defenders set up nicely to look ridiculous in their explanations. And while the veracity of several of the accusations has been called into question since the release of this film, The Corporation remains nonetheless an interesting and occasionally compelling effort at trying to help people grasp just to what extent corporations are influencing life, in the most literal sense. Its ultimate message is nothing new and, in fact, may have been summed up best nearly a hundred years ago when Ambrose Bierce satirically described the corporation as “an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” All that has changed since then is the size and influence of these devices. But if you don’t feel like taking the time to watch this movie, there are plenty of other ways to prove that. Like just make a mental note to yourself to see if you can get through twenty-four hours without seeing a Nike swoosh somewhere, restarting the clock every time you do. That one’s a pisser.
Grading
Story: N/A
Acting: N/A
Visuals: B
Originality/Innovation: C
Enjoyability: B
Overall: B-
*Answers to Quiz: In no particular order: Goodyear, Bechtel, J.P. Morgan, Fox News, Price of gold, DuPont Chemical, Monsanto, Nike, IBM (What? I can’t just totally steal the filmmaker’s thunder.)
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