The movie
I had a hard time coming to grips
with The Corporation. I ought to have been an instant fan; not
only was I already interested in the subject matter that the
documentary deals with, what I'd already learned predisposed me to
agree with its highly critical approach. Let's give credit where it's
due: The Corporation is an ambitious and idealistic film, one
that manages to bring together an amazing variety of interview
subjects to voice their thoughts on the various topics associated
with the idea of "the corporation." These are some very
smart, very well-educated people, and as we can see in the extensive
uncut interview footage in the special features section on the DVD,
they have a lot to say that's worth listening to.
But when it's all put together into
the feature-length piece... the total effect is less than the sum of
its parts. I kept wanting to like The Corporation, but in the
end I didn't. I could intellectually appreciate certain parts, but I
never engaged with it; I never felt that the film was taking me
anywhere, or developing a coherent larger picture. The problem is not
with substance, but with style and structure. To begin with, the film suffers from an excess of style. I
find it rather ironic that I'm criticizing a film that's thoroughly
anti-big business and anti-aggressive marketing on the basis of being
too self-consciously manipulative of the viewer, but that's the case.
I'm not arguing that a documentary should be dry and stodgy –
far from it! -- but I do find it a bit off-putting when it seems to
have borrowed the style book from music videos and television
advertising.
The Corporation's style is
glib and visually fractured. We get rapid-fire cuts between interview
subjects and pieces of film footage; sometimes these clips are
directly related to the subject that's being discussed, but often
they're not. The film seems to make heavy use of these images as
symbolism and to evoke emotional reactions in the viewer, to the
point that I found it somewhat disconcerting. If the interview
subject has been discussing the negative effects of corporate culture
on society, and we're shown a montage of images of unhappy children
and dying wildlife, the immediate emotional connection is of cause
and effect. But is the connection really there?
In some cases, the answer is clearly
"yes," as in the section in which an interviewee discusses
his discovery of how a paper mill was dumping its pollutants into a
local river: here, the footage of a disgusting, foam-covered river
with sad-looking ducks is both factually correct and viscerally
effective. We need to see things like this, to drive home the fact
that "industrial growth" has consequences. On the other
hand, this technique is repeated often throughout The Corporation,
and many times there's no explicit connection made between the image
and the content. We have to trust that the filmmakers chose those
images for their accuracy in representing what's going on, and not,
for instance, for their emotional impact in convincing the viewer
that corporations are evil. But if we're not given any factual
context, we can't really know. In that sense, The Corporation's
use of images of dying fish and smoking trash heaps as an implicit
criticism of corporate structure is just as much propaganda as a
corporation's use of images of clear streams and lovely fields to
imply the company's commitment to the
environment. I lean toward believing The Corporation, but I'm
not exactly inspired by confidence when the filmmakers use cheap
stylistic tricks to make their points for them.
Unfortunately, the somewhat
suspicious style of The Corporation is only one of its
problems as a film. As I've said before, the actual subject matter of
the documentary is quite interesting... but it's presented in such a
way as to actively make it difficult to really learn anything from
the film. Instead of delving into the subject directly, the
filmmakers chose to explore the subject through the lens of an
extended metaphor: that of the corporation as a psychotic. It's a
mildly interesting comparison, for a few minutes... except that The
Corporation picks it up and hammers it to death. Analyzing "the
corporation" as a psychotic person becomes the dominant thread
through most of the film, with the various topic areas arranged to
support a "diagnosis" based on features like lack of guilt,
inability to relate to others, and so on.
This extended metaphor does nothing
to enhance our real understanding of the way that corporations
function in our society. In fact, it gets in the way. Using this idea
to structure the documentary means that no one topic is ever focused
on for very long; examples of corporate behavior are mentioned and
then tossed aside, perhaps to be returned to later in the film. This
kind of circular structure makes it hard for the film to develop an
overall argument or fill in the big picture coherently; we're never
quite sure where we're going (or where we've been).
Interestingly, the last third or so
of the film hints at what The Corporation could have been. The
heavy-handed use of the "corporation as psychotic" is
almost entirely dropped, and instead of jumping frantically from one
topic to the next, the film actually settles on a few topics that it
explores in more depth. While earlier in the film, the topic of
bovine growth hormone had been mentioned and then tossed aside, here
the film returns to the subject by focusing on two Fox News reporters
who were prevented from reporting their findings on the dangers of
rBGH because of pressure from the drug manufacturer. It's an
excellent example of how corporate pressure directly affects the
government of the U.S. as well as individuals who are kept in the
dark about important health information. (The use of bovine growth
hormone is banned in Canada and Europe because of its negative
effects on the health of people who drink milk from rBGH-treated
cows. If you haven't switched to drinking organic milk yet, maybe now
would be a good time.) The issue of advertising to children is also
given a reasonable amount of time, with the film giving us the
example of how companies aggressively encourage anti-social behavior
like nagging because it sells more kids' products.
Even with this better ending, there
are still elements of The Corporation that don't work at all.
The narrator is at the top of the list. Her half-whispered narration,
with its odd intonation, is like nails on a blackboard. The narrative
voiceover is supposed to help us understand the material; it
shouldn't try to be stylish, at least not if we're expected to listen
to it with interest for more than two hours.
If the entire film had been
structured more clearly, with a better sense of what information the
filmmakers wanted to convey to viewers, then The Corporation
could have been a great success. As it is, though, it fails not in
its ideas, but in the execution of its ideas. Ironically (I've been
using that word a lot in relation to this film), as I was watching
The Corporation, I was reminded of another program on
corporations: Commanding
Heights. That documentary was well structured, well
organized, and interesting to watch, despite being horribly biased
and misleading: the whole thing is slanted toward global capitalism
(and was underwritten by several large corporations). Why couldn't we
get that kind of presentation, but with decently critical content?
The Corporation ought to fit the bill, but it doesn't.
I think that The Corporation
has an important message, but I don't think it's put together the way
it should be; it doesn't inform as much as it could (or should), and
its glib, stylized approach may very well turn off as many viewers as
it appeals to.
The DVD
The Corporation is a two-DVD
set, packaged in a double-wide plastic keepcase. A small insert has
comments from the filmmakers on the film.
Video
The Corporation appears in an
anamorphically enhanced widescreen transfer, at the film's original
aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The film makes use of footage from a wide
variety of sources, including older television broadcasts and
educational films, so it's not surprising that the image quality
varies. It looks reasonable on the whole, and the interview footage
is clean and crisp-looking.
Audio
The Dolby 2.0 soundtrack handles the
material well, with all the participants' voices coming across
clearly and sounding natural. A Dolby "descriptive video"
soundtrack is also included, as are English closed captions and
Spanish and French subtitles.
Extras
The makers of The Corporation
certainly didn't stint when it came time to collect special features
for the DVD. Several features appear on the first disc, and the
second disc is completely loaded.
On the first DVD, two commentary
tracks are included. The first is from Mark Achbar (the executive
producer and co-director) and Jennifer Abbot (the co-director and
editor). Their comments were recorded separately and then edited
together into one track, so there's no interplay between the two of
them, but they do offer some interesting thoughts on the film, as
does Joel Bakan (the writer and co-creator) in the second commentary
track.
Several other special features are
included on the first disc. A 27-minute question-and-answer section
has the filmmakers answering eight different questions about the
film, taken from different sources. Eight deleted scenes, running a
total of 16 minutes, are also included here. A "play all"
feature is provided for each of these. Next, we get a 39-minute
interview of Joel Bakan on "Majority Report," and a
seven-minute segment of Katherine Dodds discussing the marketing of
The Corporation. Lastly, trailers for The Corporation
and Manufacturing Consent are included.
Disc 2 has fewer sections but far
more content. What we have here is a gigantic collection of
additional interview footage from 40 people interviewed for The
Corporation, running over five hours in total length. Each person
has their material broken into various segments by subject; you can
access them either by selecting the person (from the "Hear More
From..." section) or by selecting the subject area you're
interested in (from the "Topical Paradise" section). The
one problem here is that the menus are badly designed. The "Hear
More From" menu presents the interviewers by picture, with no
names or titles identifying them unless you select the person
individually. At that point, you can move through the whole set using
the "next" and "previous" buttons, but it's still
a bit awkward.
In the "Topical Paradise"
section, you should be aware that there are actually three columns
of subject headings, with only the currently selected one appearing
at a time. The un-selected columns are faded out into the background
so much that I almost didn't notice that they were there, which would
be a shame, since the topical index is, in my opinion, the best way
to browse through this material. Oh, and I noticed that the top-level
menu locks up (not allowing you to select anything) if you return to
it from a sub-menu, or if you let the DVD sit for too long before
selecting anything.
The additional interview footage on
Disc 2 is really impressive, showcasing a wide variety of people and
a broad range of topics. It's interesting just to browse through the
"Topical Paradise" section and see what's available: there
are great topics including branding, corporate crime, social
responsibility, corporations and government, ethics
and values, externalities, marketing to kids, the market in general,
trading, and so on. If only the film as a whole were better
structured, to have made better use of all the material the
filmmakers gathered! At any rate, if you were intrigued by the
material presented in The Corporation, the mass of additional
interviews here will keep you happy for hours. (Literally.)
Final thoughts
I ended up being dissatisfied with
The Corporation as a film; I think the stylistic and
organizational choices that the filmmakers made are really
counterproductive, making what could have (and should have) been a
gripping and informative piece into a flashy, glib, and unfortunately
rather unengaging film. I was already interested in the subject
matter, as well as being inclined to agree with the filmmakers' point
of view, to begin with, which I would have thought would make me
appreciate the film more than I did. Would viewers be even more put
off if they weren't already sympathetic? Perhaps – but perhaps
The Corporation would play better to an audience that wasn't
already familiar with its subject. The film really didn't have any
surprises for me, and I suspect that may have sapped it of some of
its effect. If you aren't familiar with the topics covered here,
especially corporate manipulation of the news and government, and
high-powered advertising techniques (especially those aimed at
children), you will probably find more merit in The Corporation.
With that in mind, and considering the really outstanding bonus
content that's presented on the DVD, I'll go ahead and give the film
a mild "recommended," though for myself I'd consider it
more of a rental choice.
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