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Storyline
Linguist, intellectual and activist, Noam Chomsky discusses and reflects on the state of world events including the War in Iraq, September 11th, the War on Terror, Media Manipulation and Control, Social Activism, Fear, and American Foreign Policy in both large forums and in small interactive discussions with other intellectuals, activists, fans, students and critics. Interwoven, is Dr. Carol Chomsky, Noam's wife and manager who reflects on what drives Noam and what life is like with him. Other candid reflections about Noam Chomsky and his thoughts, work and influece are offerred by others throughout the film. Written by
Steve Lawrence <telawrence@hotmail.com>
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Quotes
Noam Chomsky:
You look through hundreds of years of history, the West has a virtual monopoly of violence, so, massive terror is the kind of thing *we* do to *them*, you know. They're not supposed to do it to us. September 11th was the first break. It was the first time in hundreds of years that any Western country has suffered on home soil the kind of the thing they do routinely everywhere else.
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Connections
References
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
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Soundtracks
"You're So Cool"
Composed by
Hans Zimmer
Courtesy of Morgan Creek Music Group
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There are some poor production values in this documentary, but I'm a Chomsky devotee, so it didn't bother me that much.
Chomsky is dazzling as usual, a man of effortless eloquence. Almost everything he says is interesting, well-researched and well-considered.
Chomsky is very persuasive because he so often bases his arguments on government documents and news reports that are already in the public domain. He analyzes them and displays the blatant fallacies behind them. This is one of the principal reasons why he's deemed a 'dangerous' thinker who isn't welcome in the U.S. mainstream media. He USED to be welcome at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), but that once-great public broadcaster has been looted and neutered over the past 15 years or so.
An annoying feature of the DVD extras was that questions from the audience were barely audible, and in some cases INaudible. What it creates are rather silly scenes: Chomsky staring at the camera for 30 seconds or so, listening to a question DVD viewers cannot hear. Then he responds, and we must wait for another 30 seconds before we can understand what question he is responding to.
Still, it doesn't really matter that much. Chomsky can distill 20 years of reading and analysis into five minutes. His mind is brilliantly ordered, and his memory is prodigious.
Chomsky comes across not as a pedant or a shrill master of dogma, but as a quiet voice of radical reason. He reminds me of everyone's favourite grandfather: a kindly, gentle, soft-spoken man who rarely needs to raise his voice. He just tells you what he knows, what he has learned, and you can use this as ammunition for rebellion against the state, or, conversely, you can do nothing. (This has been one of the criticisms levelled against Chomsky by the so-called 'hard' left: that he doesn't vigorously exhort, he merely explains and quietly tells you to resist. In other words, he's not 'explosive' enough.)
He is still a very impressive and persuasive voice of reason. But he's now 80 years old (born in 1928). How much longer can he keep doing this stuff?