Orwell Rolls in His Grave (2003)

Director:

Robert Kane Pappas

Writers:

Tom Blackburn, Robert Kane Pappas

Stars:

Charles Lewis, Robert McChesney, Mark Crispin Miller

Cast

Credited cast:
Charles Lewis	...	Founder of the Center for Public Integrity
Robert McChesney	...	Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Mark Crispin Miller	...	Author, Professor, New York University
Bernie Sanders	...	Congressman from Vermont
Danny Schechter	...	Author
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Vincent Bugliosi	...	Attorney, Author
Jeff Cohen	...	Himself - Founder of FAIR
Dennis Kucinich	...	Himself (as Rep. Dennis Kucinich)
Mark Lloyd	...	Visiting Professor M.I.T.
Michael Moore	...	Himself
John Nichols	...	Himself
Greg Palast	...	Reporter
Tim Robbins	...	Himself (archive footage)
Helen Thomas	...	Herself

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

media manipulation | politics | george orwell | deregulation | spin | 

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Genres:

Documentary

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 November 2004 (UK)

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$6,059 (USA) (23 July 2004)

Gross:

$19,257 (USA) (6 August 2004)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Sag Harbor-Basement Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

84 min 103 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente)

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Quotes

Narrator: Starting with Ronald Reagan, the Holy Grail of "de-regulation" has been sold to the public; and the news media has largely ignored its disastrous results.
Mark Lloyd: Once the Reagan administration was done, there were more rules. But they called it "de-regulation." It's, err, almost an Orwellian use of language: You create new rules, but the rules change, they benefit industry now, and you call it "de-regulation," because people *like* de-regulation, like fewer rules.

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Crazy Credits

War Is Not Peace Freedom Is Not Slavery Ignorance Is Not Strength

User Reviews

Informative and well done

There are some other great comments about this film, so I'll instead

try to give out some detail. The film is done in a calm, non-ranting,

informative manner primarily via interviews with journalists. Many

points about the corporate domination of the corporate mass media are

brought out well; the citing of GE Inc.'s top management interfering

with NBC news is one case in point. The portrayal of the media

industry itself as a political "special interest" similar to the

tobacco lobby or other traditional special interest is both insightful

and strong. The film also does an adequate job of painting the change

in "ethics" of government officials over the years, and gives a few

citations to support its point.

If there is a knock, it's that the film covers a vast amount of points

and therefore cannot go in depth unless you want to watch a ninety-hour

documentary. This is not a big knock -- it seems that one goal of the

film is to try to tie many disparate issues and trends together to

paint the big picture, which is something our regular mass media simply

does not do.

To me, two points are worth special mention and applause. (1) the film

mentions the original 1980 "October Surprise" and while it does not go

in depth, it does flush out the basics and gives a reference to the

book by Carter's Nat'l Security Adviser ("October Surprise"), which one

can use to read for more information. Still, it would have been nice

to mention Jimmy Carter's quote about the October Surprise or the fact

that the former Iranian president has publicly said the October

Surprise did indeed happen while he was president. (2) Despite it not

being a focus of the film, the film brings out the class gap (aka the

growing gap between the rich and poor) and issues of Americans working

long hours. This is done in a way related to media self-censorship but

I'm always surprised when this issue rears its head -- simply because

reporting about it is so very rare in the mainstream press. The film

gives a few stats but its message that the poor are poorer now than a

couple of decades ago and the rich are much, much richer comes through

well; it notes the current gov'ts solution to this problem is a tax cut

for the rich stands out starkly in its plain-face absurdity. While

there was a few of those conventional-wisdom-turned-upside-down moments

in the film, that one stood out.

Overall, like the other reviewers, I highly recommend the film. While

it's not done in a Michael Moore-like funny manner, the material

presented is on the money, is not preachy and is easily followed, and

the film runs along coherently in an easy to watch pace. In some ways,

it's scary, depressing stuff; in other ways, it's invigorating because

it illustrates the depth of what's happening to our republic and paints

a picture of just how much work we've got to do to return our gov't to

some semblance of rule by/for the people.