The Corporation

After a relatively straightforward start exploring the definition of incorporation, this documentary made some fairly meaty punches on its target material.

With the exception of a few sentimental and outdated "the poor people fight back" strands, most of the attacks were well constructed. Beyond simply saying that to a corporation profit is everything, the more difficult case was made: that everything can be turned into a profit. And that includes life, death, and the truth.

The depiction of the Corporation as a psychopath was used to link most of the material. The talking heads were usually on the money, including both Michael "9/11" Moore and Noam "Manafacturing Consent" Chomsky.

But what the film does well was report specific cases that certainly included a few gems. An attempt to privatize water, IBM servicing Nazi accounting, an attempted coup in the US, Fox burying news and of course Monsanto being Monsanto. You couldn't make those guys up.

The attempt to look at alternatives to the worst forms of Capitalism were not so successful. Right wing defenders of profit-at-all-cost use short sentences with single syllable words. The poor want to be rich. We make things you like. We don't care. Much of the left wing however, cannot counter this clarity.

And the last frame had the ebullient Mr Moore telling us to get off the sofa and do something. Yeah, like vote for Bush again?

most people who have an interest in progressive causes will be somewhat familiar with the outline of the film - corporate personhood has essentially led to corporations having an insane amount of control over what we see, eat, drink, breathe and consume in general. corporations have become part of our consciousness at an unshakable and unwashable level. they are ubiquitous, single-minded (profit), subversive parasites that erode our society from within. with this in mind you'd think the film was a marxist commercial out to bring capitalism to its knees. you'd be wrong. the film is remarkably even-handed in its approach.

governmental as well as market fixes are proposed by different interviewees. i'm very much into the work of noam chomsky and michael moore (both are interviewed), i've read fast food nation, i'm a big fan of adbusters, i own naomi klein's "no logo" and korten's "when corporations rule the world" so a lot of this stuff wasn't all that new to me, but some of it was and the film is a perfect amalgamation of all this information. archive footage is used extremely well, like a hip-hop artist melding together samples in ways that create an entirely different tapestry of sound. interviews, archival footage, and good old investigative journalism are used to present a solid case about the role corporations have in our global society; as well as how we've gotten to this point and where we may be going. despite the heavy nature and brutal pacing of much of the film, there are a few moments of ironic comedy.

i do think the film would have done well with a few momentary pauses early in the film to allow things to soak in. in feature films a director might cut to an exterior for a beat or two to allow a bit of a cushion from one scene to the next, something similar may have aided the pacing of this film. it's actually remarkable that i wished it had taken a little more time considering its 2 hour and 25 minute runtime. i think it's testament to the film's strength. i also want to note that the long runtime and heavy nature of the film never came off as dry or overly-academic. in other words, it's not a boring film to watch - quite the contrary, it's a rather engaging and almost fun film to watch. i say "fun" reluctantly because learning about the ways in which a corporation is bilking America and the world out of our natural resources and hard-earned money isn't fun, but if you're interested in learning then it is an exciting film. a quick side note - the narrator had a perfect voice for the material and she reminded me a lot of the narrator in the "second renaissance" portions of the animatrix. generally i don't give films i've only seen once anything better than a B+, but this film blew me away from start to finish on so many different levels...A.

Our daily lives have come to be so dominated by corporations that we can easily fail to notice it. Most goods, services, information and entertainment now flow from huge multinationals. But what if this dominant player in our existence is certifiably insane?

The Corporation explores this disturbing possibility with mix of wit, opinion and hard facts. It takes us through the visible "personality traits" of these business entities and shows us that, for all intents and purposes, corporations are psychopathic. The film points out that this is not an aberrant state for corporations, but rather an inherent part of their nature. It even portrays high-ranking business executives as people so caught-up in the madness of the corporate world they must act not from their own conscience, but rather from a bottom-line mentality of what is most profitable.

Despite its length and the fact that it features some forty different talking heads (ranging from the former CEO of Goodyear to Noam Chomsky), The Corporation keeps you engaged both visually and intellectually. It is by turns informative, amusing and thought provoking. It does not attempt to present remedies (which would be beyond the scope of a single documentary) but rather challenges its audience to view their world from a different perspective and seek out their own solutions. In this way, it reminds me of Michael Moore's excellent documentary Bowling for Columbine.

I saw this film at the True/False Film Festival and was fortunate enough to hear a Q&A with co-director Mark Achbar after. Many questions seemed to be "Well, what can we do about it." The website for the film has many links available to explore further and learn about actions that individuals can take. Mr. Achbar said half-joking that he may have to bring a handout to future screenings with a list of websites.

Whether you are a longtime activist, or someone who has never thought much about issues of corporate dominance, this film is definitely worth a look.

The first time in a long time that I've seen a movie audience launch into applause at the end -- and I was as enthusiastic as everyone else.

While quite long (2 hours, 45 minutes)this film piles detailed examples on top of interviews on top of documentary film clips. Liberally laced with interviews with folks like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and Michael Moore, it also includes insightful commentary from a (small) handful of liberated corporate executives.

The sum total is a compelling story of the evil that can be and is done by and in the name of corporations. I say this as one who has worked in a corporate environment my entire career, and who for a very long time has had difficulty getting past the 'but these are almost all nice people -- I don't know any ogres out to intentionally rape & pillage' perspective.

What I'm gradually wakening to is the realization that yes, the corporate structure is very efficient at doing what it's designed to do -- which unfortunately does not include taking social responsibility or the greater good into account. Instead it's ruthlessly focused on the bottom line, come hell (literally) or high water -- or polluted water.

I highly recommend this film. I know I'll be going back for a second viewing -- there's that much content, that I know I didn't absorb it all the first time around.

This extraordinary documentary is based on the book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (2004) by law professor Joel Bakan (see my review at Amazon). Bakan's thesis is that the corporation is a psychopathic entity.

In his book he notes that the modern corporation is "singularly self-interested and unable to feel genuine concern for others in any context." (p. 56) He adds that the corporation's sole reason for being is to enhance the profits and power of the corporation. He shows by citing court cases that it is the duty of management to make money and that any compromise with that duty is dereliction of duty.

Directors Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott bring these points and a slew of others to cinematic life through interviews, archival footage, and a fine narrative written by Achbar and Harold Crooks. The interviews cover a wide spectrum of opinion, from Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky on the left, to Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman on the right. Friedman is heard to agree with Bakan that the corporation's duty is to its stockholders and that anything that deviates from that duty is irresponsible.

What emerges is a view of the corporation as an entity working both for and against human welfare. Designed to turn labor and raw materials efficiently into goods and services and to thereby raise our standard of living, it has been a very effective tool for humans to use. On the other hand, because it is blind to anything but its own welfare, the corporation uses humans and the resources of the planet in ways that can be and often are detrimental to people and the environment. Corporations, to put it bluntly, foul the environment with their wastes and will not clean up unless forced to.

An interesting technique that Achbar and Abbott use is to go down the list of behaviors cited in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that identify the psychopathic personality and show how the corporation has all of those behaviors including a criminal disregard for the welfare and feelings of others and a complete absence of guilt. Indeed corporations feel no compunction when they break the law. Their only concern is whether breaking the law is cost-effective. The result is a nearly constant bending and breaking of the law. They pay the fine and then break the law again. The corporation, after all, has no conscience and feels no remorse.

Bakan notes that "corporations are designed to externalize their costs." The corporation is "deliberately programmed, indeed legally compelled, to externalize costs without regard for the harm it may cause to people, communities, and the natural environment. Every cost it can unload onto someone else is a benefit to itself, a direct route to profit." (pp. 72-73) We are shown how rivers are polluted, environments destroyed and people placed into something close to servitude by the corporation's insatiable lust to profit.

The answer to this, as presented in the film, is to make corporations pay for their pollution. What many people are proposing is the creation of bills or certificates that would allow the barer "the right to pollute." The cost of these bills would reflect the societal and environmental costs of the pollution. This sounds scary, but what it would do is make those who pollute pay for their pollution instead of having the costs be externalized as they are now. Consequently, to protect their bottom line, corporations would pollute less.

Another problem with the corporation as emphasized in the film is that the corporate structure is essentially despotic. It is not a democracy or anything close. The owners hire officers to exercise control over everyone who works for the corporation. This is in direct contrast to democratic governments whose officers are elected and who are subject to the checks and balances of a constitutional government with shared powers. It is true that if you are a shareholder of a corporation you may be able to indirectly vote for the CEO. However, such a "democracy" is a democracy of capital in which the electoral power is inequitably distributed. Some people have hundreds of millions of votes. How many does the average shareholder have? Bakan, Achbar and Abbott play fair, and give both sides of the case--although that is not to say that the weight of evidence or sentiment is equally distributed. After all, who's in favor of pollution or the destruction of the environment? The pathological corporation doesn't care about such things, but its officers should. Some do, but feel constrained by their fiduciary duty to their stockholders. Consequently it is our responsibility as the electorate to get our government to make the corporation socially and morally responsible. The way to do that is make the fines for breaking the law large enough to change corporate behavior. Furthermore--and this is essential--make management responsible--criminally if necessary--for the actions of the corporation.

This is absolutely one of the most interesting, most compelling, and, yes, entertaining documentaries that I have ever seen. But beware of some graphic footage.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)