An Inconvenient Truth – A Review
The Academy Award winning movie „An Inconvenient Truth“ is about the slide show with the same title by the Former Vice President Al Gore.
The movie is directed by David Guggenheimer. Guggenheimer is best known for directing episodes of series. Most recently and most famous series for which he directed episodes were “24“, “Alias” and “numb3rs“. He has also some experiences directing documentaries similar to “An Inconvenient Truth”. The movie basically brings the slide show about Global Warming by Al Gore to „the Big Screen“.
After having lost the Presidential Elections in 2000 due to a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, he decided to fight against the problem of Global Warming by addressing it to the people.
Gore toured through the US and through the whole world (with great success in Japan) with his slide show and states himself that he must have done the presentation for more than a thousand times. The show has not only been transformed into a movie but also into a book with the same title. In general there are just little differences between the movie and the book. The movie features some scenes, which are not included in the book. For example a humorous explanation of the phenomenon of the Global Warming, which is taken out of the series „Futurama“ and another animated sequence with a frog in boiling water. Both scenes would not have worked that good in the book. Also is the movie more political than the book. In the book he says: “We have everything we need to begin solving this crisis, with the possible exception of the will to act.” in the slide shows he altered the “will to act” into the “political will”. In general the movie puts more emphasis on the dry humor of Al Gore (with which he captivated his audience) than the book.
The movie is the recorded slide show of Al Gore but is punctuated with little filmsequences. These filmsequences show Al Gore’s past, his travels over the world and also very astonishing pictures of the work of scientists and the change of nature due to Global Warming (see book: pale greenish pages). During the whole film the audience hears and most of the time sees Al Gore talking. The audience is being introduced to the topic in a very easy and comforting way. The scientific facts are simplified, so that everyone can understand them but not simplified to a degree where it would become overly didactic or childish. The audience is also addressed personally. Al Gore gives examples about what the world would look like to our children or grandchildren and in the end there are words of advice about what „every one of us“ could do against the Global Warming and how to reduce the CO²-Emissions per person.
The prophetic message can be summed up as follows: The Global Warming is true, not just a myth. Everybody could help to avoid the problems that would occur if the trend goes on. The United States are responsible to a lion’s share for the CO²-Emissions and therefore for the Global Warming. The politicians and the people have to change their mind to prevent a pretty dark future.
The message of the movie is taken very seriously by Al Gore and the producers. The DVD Case, in which the film is packaged, is made from 100% recycled cardboard and „this is the first carbon-neutral documentary. NativeEnergy, which works with individuals and organizations to help them compensate for their contributions to global warming, calculated the "carbon footprint" from producing the film, including all travel, office, and accommodations related emissions. The company then offset emissions through renewable energy credits or "green tags from new renewable energy projects. Paramount Classics and Participant will split the cost of these tags; the funds will go towards helping build new Native American, Alaskan Native Village, and farmer-owned renewable energy projects, creating sustainable economies for communities in need and diversifying our energy supply. As Participant founder Jeff Skoll explains: “It would be ironic, not to mention wrong, if we added to the global warming that Al Gore warns about in his film. Plus, these renewable energy projects offer options that will decrease our demand for fossil fuels and otherwise would likely not happen without these kinds of investments.”[…] This follows on from the first "carbon neutral" film The Day After Tomorrow (2004), which director Roland Emmerich paid for out of his own pocket.“
Furthermore, there have been given 50.000 copies away to teachers in the United States, who have subscribed on participate.net. This also says a lot about the understandability of the movie and about its target group. We would recommend sequences of the movie to pupils from the forth year on – in this case of course in their mother tongue.
One point that could antagonize the audience is the way Al Gore talks. He is a politician by heart and he uses the same devices a politician uses to get elected. He uses his family and the emotions of the audience to support his cause. Due to the fact that his cause is a good one and the tools are working nobody could really use it against him. At some time however, his own story of how he got tricked out of the presidency, sounds like he is still crying over spilled milk.
Nevertheless, he is demolishing every „but…“ that a critique could and most probably already has mentioned with scientific facts – facts that have to be believed by the audience, because the ‚Average Joe‘ won’t be able to recheck them without an enormous effort. But since Gore was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, these facts should be alright and been proved by capable personal.
All in all is this movie is an eye opening experience, which gets the audience to think about our future, our planet and our responsibility towards both.
Interesting links:
• official site:
http://www.climatecrisis.net/aboutthefilm/ • Interview with Guggenheim:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004388.html • more on Guggenheim:
http://creativecommons.org/about/people/#20 http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0346550/ • Al Gores energy use:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1544135/Al-Gore-faces-truth-about-his-own-energy-use.html • „9 inconvenient untruths“:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/11/scigore111.xml • Al Gore Doesn’t Back Away From ‘An Inconvenient Truth’:
http://www.washdiplomat.com/June%202006/b_filminter_06_06.html
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Kazum - 6. Mai, 12:59
