Saturday Night at the Movies
Lying bastards and fallen emperors
By Dennis Hartley
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Greedy Lying Bastards: Get the picture?
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I know it’s cliché to quote from the Joseph Goebbels playbook, but this one bears, erm, repeating: “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” That’s pretty much the theme that runs throughout Craig Rosebraugh’s documentary, Greedy Lying Bastards. As a PR consultant seems to reinforce in the film: “On one side you have all the facts. On the other side, you have none. But the folks without the facts are far more effective at convincing the public that this is not a problem, than scientists are about convincing them that we need to do something about this.” The debate at hand? Global warming. The facts, in this case, would appear irrefutable; Rosebraugh devotes the first third or so of his film to deliver a recap of what we’ve been watching on the nightly news for the past several years: a proliferation of super-storms like Hurricane Sandy, rampant wildfires, “brown-outs”, and one of the worst droughts in U.S. history. Climate scientists weigh in.
Granted, this ground has been covered rather extensively via the veritable flood of eco-docs that emerged in the wake of Davis Guggenheim’s 2006 film, An Inconvenient Truth
. And I suppose one could argue that (with the exception of Guggenheim’s film, which is one of the top 10 highest-grossing documentaries of all time) the movie-going public has generally kept away from subsequent genre offerings in droves, leaving many hapless (if earnest) filmmakers merely preaching to the choir (ever attended a matinee showing with 3 people in the audience, including you?). However, Rosebraugh separates himself from the pack by devoting most of the screen time going after those “folks without the facts”, and analyzing how and why they are “far more effective” at this game.
. And I suppose one could argue that (with the exception of Guggenheim’s film, which is one of the top 10 highest-grossing documentaries of all time) the movie-going public has generally kept away from subsequent genre offerings in droves, leaving many hapless (if earnest) filmmakers merely preaching to the choir (ever attended a matinee showing with 3 people in the audience, including you?). However, Rosebraugh separates himself from the pack by devoting most of the screen time going after those “folks without the facts”, and analyzing how and why they are “far more effective” at this game.
Using simple but cannily damning flow charts, Rosebraugh follows the money and connects the dots between high-profile deniers (who one interviewee astutely labels as “career skeptics” who are in the “the business of selling doubt”) and their special interest sugar daddies. The shills range from media pundits (very few who have any background in hard science) to members of Congress, presidential candidates and Supreme Court justices. Various “think tanks” and organizations are exposed to be glorified mouthpieces for the big money boys as well (I don’t think it’s a major spoiler to any of Digby’s regular readers that the two biggest contributors turn out to be Koch Industries and ExxonMobil).
If you enjoy a generous dollop of heroes and villains atop your scathing expose, you should find this doc to be in your wheelhouse. In sheer numbers, the villains (sadly) outweigh the heroes; and again, to regular Hullabaloo readers, they will not be strangers (Dr. Fred Singer, Myron Ebell, Phillip Cooney, Sen. James Inhofe, Clarence Thomas, Mitt Romney, etc). It’s a bit depressing, but as you watch, you’ll thank the gods for the Good Guys (like politicians Henry Waxman and Jay Inslee, and science-backed voices of reason like Dr. Michael E. Mann). At one point, the director decides to get into the act, Roger & Me
style (the idiosyncratic Rosebraugh comes off on camera like a hipster version of Edward R. Murrow and narrates throughout with a tone of bemused irony). After unsuccessful attempts to arrange an interview with ExxonMobil’s chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, he goes guerilla. Hiding his tats with suit and tie, he gains admission to ExxonMobil’s annual shareholder’s meeting, where he is able to ask the chairman (from the audience) if he would (at the very least) acknowledge the human factor in global warming. Tillerson’s answer, while not exactly reassuring, is surprising. What does reassure are suggested action steps in the film’s coda, which is the least any of us can do.
style (the idiosyncratic Rosebraugh comes off on camera like a hipster version of Edward R. Murrow and narrates throughout with a tone of bemused irony). After unsuccessful attempts to arrange an interview with ExxonMobil’s chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson, he goes guerilla. Hiding his tats with suit and tie, he gains admission to ExxonMobil’s annual shareholder’s meeting, where he is able to ask the chairman (from the audience) if he would (at the very least) acknowledge the human factor in global warming. Tillerson’s answer, while not exactly reassuring, is surprising. What does reassure are suggested action steps in the film’s coda, which is the least any of us can do.
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MacArthur’s lark: Fox and Jones in Emperor
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The heroes and villains are not so easily delineated in Emperor, an uneven hybrid of History Channel docudrama and Lifetime weepie based on Shiro Okamoto’s book and directed by Peter Weber. Set in post-WW 2 Japan at the dawn of the American occupation, the story centers on the roundup of key Japanese military and political leaders to be tried for war crimes. President Truman has appointed General Douglas MacArthur (a scenery-chewing Tommy Lee Jones) to oversee the operation; he in turn delegates “Japan expert” Brigadier General Bonner Fellers (tepid leading man Matthew Fox) to see that the task is executed pronto. Fellers is also directed to investigate whether the biggest fish, Emperor Hirohito (Takataro Kataoka) gave direct input on war strategy. MacArthur has allotted him only a week or so to conduct his investigation (no pressure!).
Indeed, the question of the Emperor’s guilt is a complex one (and the most historically fascinating element of the film). Was he merely a figurehead, kept carefully squirreled away in his hermetic bubble throughout the war and occasionally trotted out for propagandistic purposes? Or did he have a direct say in day-to-day military decisions, perhaps even giving a direct blessing for the attack on Pearl Harbor? And there is the cultural element to consider. MacArthur (at least as depicted in the film) was shrewd enough to realize that if he could build a working relationship with Hirohito, perhaps the Emperor could in turn persuade the populace to cooperate with their overseers, thereby expediting the rebuild of Japan’s socio-political infrastructure. Even if he was a paper tiger, the Emperor’s words traditionally held substantial sway over the Japanese people.
Unfortunately, screenwriters Vera Blasi and David Klass shoot themselves in the foot and sidestep this potentially provocative historical reassessment by injecting an unconvincing romantic subplot involving Fellers’ surreptitious search to discover the fate of a Japanese exchange student (Aya Shimada) who he dated in college (the young woman, whose father was a general in the Imperial Army, returned to Japan before the war). The flashback scenes recapping the relationship are curiously devoid of passion and dramatically flat, grinding the film to a halt with each intrusion. While Fox has a touch of that stoic Henry Fonda/Gary Cooper vibe going for him, his performance feels wooden, especially when up against Jones, who makes the most of his brief screen time (even he is given short shrift, mostly relegated to caricature and movie trailer-friendly lines like “Let’s show them some good old-fashioned American swagger!”). I get the feeling that at some point during the film’s development there was an interesting culture-clash drama in here somewhere. But when the denouement is a re-enactment of an historic photo that slowly dissolves from the actors into the actual photo? That is almost never a good sign…