In the mid-1800s, corporations began to be recognized as individuals by U.S. courts, granting them unprecedented rights. The Corporation, a documentary by filmmakers Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott and author Joel Bakan, delves into that legal standard, essentially asking: if corporations were people, what kind of people would they be? Applying psychiatric principles and FBI forensic techniques, and through a series of case studies, the film determines that this entity, the corporation, which
has an increasing power over the day-to-day existence of nearly every living creature on earth, would be a psychopath. The case studies include a story about how two reporters were fired from Fox News for refusing to soft-pedal a story about the dangers of a Monsanto product given to dairy cows, and another about Bolivian workers who banded together to defend their rights to their own water supply. The pervasiveness of corporate influence on our lives is explored through an examination of efforts to influence behavior, including that of children. The filmmakers interview leftist figures like Michael Moore, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, and Noam Chomsky, and give representatives from companies Burson Marsteller, Disney, Pfizer, and Initiative Media a chance to relay their own points-of-view. The Corporation won the Best Documentary World Cinema Audience Award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
The 150-year old legal construct of the corporation, as a "person," is dissected for all to see how its lack of accountability has enabled the faulty model to become a ruling institution, acting beyond the reach of any government.
As a clever joke, the filmmakers run down a list of the traits of a psychopath and find a corporate action to match each one. Diagnosis: psychopath. It's cute, but it's a logical fallacy.
The undercurrent of this exhaustive critique is really all about good and evil, and in what ways often sordid human history is determined, not as a product of malice, but by the most typical people who could care less.
The undercurrent of this exhaustive critique is really all about good and evil, and in what ways often sordid human history is determined, not as a product of malice, but by the most typical people who could care less.
It's the Lord of the Rings of modern documentaries: epic, vivid, wise, well-paced, expansive%u2014the kind of movie that makes you want to do more with your life.
compacts a great deal of complex information into a thorough, well-designed, and entertaining presentation that is bound to evoke a reaction of some kind
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