Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times

I saw this documentary in New York its second week in the theater, and I doubt it will get a lot of play elsewhere in the country. Some interesting things were done, such as the usage of Asian pop-songs and translations to quotes to give the film a more international/global feel. However, this doc is no where near as good as Manufacturing Consent, what I think is a masterpiece and a true showing of the brilliance of Chomsky. Yes, this film is important, but it focuses solely on Chomsky speaking. Now I love Chomsky, but he is not a dynamic speaker, the power in his oration come from his well structured syntax and ideas. Listening to 74 minutes of Chomsky monologues is wearing. Nobody spouts the truth like Chomsky, and this film didn't show that as well as Manufacturing Consent. 8/10... only because it was about one of my intellectual heroes. 5/10 for filmmaking.

This particular documentary is not the greatest one to recommend for pleasurable viewing. It is basically 74 minutes of Chomsky speaking. He is a quiet man and not a great speaker, but what he has to say is very important.

Lately, his position is to questioning how the U.S. can be engaged in a "war on terrorism" when the mountains of civilian corpses we've left in Southeast Asia, Central America, the Mideast, and western Africa qualify our most sanctimonious of nations as Champion Terror-Monger.

His grasp of the facts and ability to recall information and present it in a fashion that all can understand serves to recommend this as a valuable 74 minutes to listen, learn, and ponder.

In this documentary Noam Chomsky shares with us his crispy clear view of the world and how it is being ruled. Chomskys oratory superb and his views about the world are founded upon sound facts. However, the documentary itself isn't anything special.

I recognize the difficulty of using the medium to make Chomskys message stronger, because Chomsky himself doesn't come on strong with his message. He is the kind of guy who says his thing quietly and calmly so using gimmicks to enhancer the presentation would probably drown out his voice.

Anyway, I urge everyone to watch this documentary. It was great.

I got into Chomsky in a big way in the past year, with his 9-11 book and then reading his older stuff. I saw a documentary on TV in Canada called "Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause" which I thoroughly enjoyed. So when I saw this film advertised in Vancouver I went to check it out when I was there and was thoroughly disappointed. For a film that is playing in the theatres, this seemed sloppy and poorly done. Its Chomsky giving a lecture for a while, Chomsky in an interview, and Chomsky giving another lecture. Meanwhile there is some Japanese pop music which makes no sense at all and seems to come from nowhere. Chomsky really just talks about September 11th and that the US did things elsewhere and before that lead to this horrible event. "Rebel Without A Pause" is a much better and more in-depth look at Chomsky's views (including Iraq which "Power and Terror" doesn't mention). "Rebel Without A Pause" also looks at Chomsky the man as seen through his wife Carol Chomsky who also manages him

(which she tells in a great story as to how that little relationship came about) and through the eyes of other people who know him. "Power and Terror" just seems like a lazy attempt to cash in on Chomsky's new celebrity in a post-September 11th world. Skip this film and try and get "Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause" if you want to learn a lot about several relevant topics and more about Chomsky as a person.

I went to this movie expecting something similar to "Manufacturing Consent", which took Chomsky interviews and interspliced them with interesting film clips to create a compelling film about the power of the Media to shape our perception of the world. Instead what we get is one Chomsky lecture after another interspliced with a Japanese rock song.

Chomsky is not the most dynamic speaker at the best of times, and he is getting older (he's 73) and speaks slower and even more monotone. What he has to say is still some the most revealing and bravest ideas expressed in the United States by an American about the extreme hypocrisy of the U.S. government's foreign policy. But I've heard it all before, Nicaragua, Vietnam, North Korea, that's old news, albeit import pre cursors to events such as 9-11, but this is hardly touched upon, which is what I was hoping to hear.

My biggest complaint with Chomsky is that he is preaching to the converted and the reason for this revealed in the film. He disagrees with the idea of confronting power with the truth because he feels they already know the truth and therefore it's a waste of time. However, talking endlessly to college students who all agree with what you are saying anyway is just as much a waste of time. It's more of the typical academic intelectual masturbation. For once I'd love to Chomsky in a debate with some articulate right wing person and see him dismantle him/her with his obvious intelligence and encyclopedic memory. Alas, until this happens, it's just more of the same, and a waste.