Sunday, September 12, 2004

The Corporation

I saw the movie The Corporation today at The Loft. Here is a complete list of venues in the United States.

If you would like some opinions on it you can read some of the many reviews of it. Almost universally people consider it overly long. I do too, though I cannot think of much that I would be willing to cut. For all the intense leg-crossing and foot waggling that its 2 and 1/2 hours inspired, it was well worth watching, even for me.

Being a lawyer, and a political science major, there were few facts that surprised me in this film. The one thing that struck me as novel was how balanced the the film was. It included not just critics of the corporation, but many of the most ardent defenders of free market capitalism and the corporate form. A host of pro-business intellectual heavy-weights fill the cast of interviewees; Joe Barradacco, Professor at Harvard Business School; Peter Drucker, management guru extrodinaire; Milton Freidman, Nobel prize winning economist and hard-core free-market legend; Ira Jackson, Director of the Center for Business and Government at the Kennedy School of Hardard; Robert Keyes, President and CEO of the Canadian Council for International Business. A slew of corporate CEOs and top managers are also given screen time, Sam Gibara of Goodyear, Tom Kline of Pfizer, Chris Komisarjevsky, CEO Burson Marsteller Worldwide, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Former Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, and finally, Ray Anderson of Interface (who I would be in favor of electing President of the United States).

This is not a one sided story. It is a clear and detailed explication of the role of corporations in todays capitalist society and it is very troubling no matter what your politics may be. Take your friends to see it. Take you boss to see it. Send tickets to a CEO as a gift. This is a one of the those rare films that transforms the way a society sees itself. It would be a shame if it were not seen by as many influential people as possible.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home




Feeds:
RSS/Atom Feed Site Meter
Powered by Blogger