Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times

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.

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.

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.

'If you want to stop terrorism, then stop initiating it and participating in it.' So says the irrepressible Noam Chomsky, who takes U.S. power brokers to task in this film when they pretend that everybody ELSE engages in terrorism, but not them.

I'm slightly biased, because I would pay to hear Noam Chomsky read a menu. He is sublimely interesting despite his low-key manner. But, as others have noted on this board, this film is not exactly his finest hour. It's disjointed and a little unfocused. He shifts back and forth from California to Boston and the Bronx. Since he gives countless lectures around the world in a given year, it's not surprising that the venues would change so frequently.

What makes Chomsky so unique is that he lays out his arguments like a stone-mason lays stone -- each idea follows from the other. His theses are so well-ordered, thoughtful and profoundly articulate (befitting a linguist, he uses precise and powerful words) that he is difficult to refute, which is a major reason why he's officially more or less persona-non-grata in the mainstream media. There are very few pundits who relish the opportunity to challenge Chomsky. He really does know whereof he speaks. His encyclopedic memorization of data from actual government records (some going back hundreds of years) are things to behold.

It matters little to me that he's not a so-called 'dynamic' speaker. He doesn't need to be. He's much more persuasive using soft and often witty techniques to indict monopoly capitalism and the illusion of democracy.

What this film shows quite clearly is that Chomsky is not anti-American or a gloomy pessimist, two charges regularly levelled against him by his opponents. He cares more about his country than most of those loud, cartoonish Americans who think wrapping themselves in the flag is the ultimate display of patriotism. Chomsky is a regular messenger of optimism and hope; he doesn't hide behind pillars of doom. He tells people constantly to resist, to never capitulate to lies and propaganda, to return America to the democratic control of the people. As he has said many times, it's all up to us.