Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times (2002)

Synopsis: Whether Noam Chomsky, the MIT linguist and political philosopher, is "the most important intellectual alive," as the New York Times once famously called him, is open for debate. But without a... Whether Noam Chomsky, the MIT linguist and political philosopher, is "the most important intellectual alive," as the New York Times once famously called him, is open for debate. But without a doubt, Chomsky, now 73, is one of the most straight-talking and committed dissidents of our time. A steadfast critic of United States foreign policy for decades, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11 his profile took a quantum leap as he provided much-needed analysis and historical perspective to concerned citizens throughout the world. In the months that followed, he gave dozens of talks on four continents, conducted scores of interviews, and published a book 9-11 that was published in 22 countries and became a surprise bestseller in many of them, including Japan, where POWER AND TERROR: NOAM CHOMSKY IN OUR TIMES was produced.

Chomsky's voice may be unpopular (he is almost totally ignored by the mainstream American press) but his incisive arguments, based on decades of research and analysis, deserve to be heard and considered. POWER AND TERROR presents the latest in Noam Chomskyıs thinking, through a lengthy interview and a series of public talks that he gave in New York and California during the spring of 2002. As he has done countless times since 9.11, he places the terrorist attacks in the context of American foreign intervention throughout the postwar decades ‹ in Vietnam, Central America, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Beginning with the fundamental principle that the exercise of violence against civilian populations is terror, regardless of whether the perpetrator is a well-organized band of Muslim extremists or the most powerful state in the world, Chomsky in stark and uncompromising terms challenges the United States to apply to its own actions the moral standards it demands of others.

What emerges from the footage is a compelling portrait of the activist intellectual, who has been called the "rebel without a pause" by Bono, lead singer of the band U2. He is the most important voice of dissent in the United States today.

POWER AND TERROR: NOAM CHOMSKY IN OUR TIMES is directed by John Junkerman, director of the Academy Award-nominated HELLFIRE: A JOURNEY FROM HIROSHIMA and Emmy winner DREAM WINDOW: REFLECTIONS ON THE JAPANESE GARDEN. Producer: Tetsujiro Yamagami. Photography: Koshiro Otsu. Editors: John Junkerman, Takeshi Hata. Sound: Yutaka Tsurumaki. Japan. 74 minutes. A First Run Features Release. Unrated. -- © Film Forum [More]

Director: John Junkerman

Director: John Junkerman
Producer: Tetsujiro Yamagami
Studio: First Run Features