from Wikipedia Website
 

 

 

The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary film critical of the modern-day corporation, considering it as a class of person and evaluating its behavior towards society and the world at large as a psychologist might evaluate an ordinary person.

 

This is explored through specific examples.
 

 

 

 

 

Directed by

Jennifer Abbott
Mark Achbar

Produced by

Mark Achbar
Bart Simpson (I)

Written by

Mark Achbar
Joel Bakan
Harold Crooks

Narrated by

Mikela J. Mikael

Starring

Jane Akre
Raymond L. Anderson
Joe Badaracco
Maude Barlow
Marc Barry
Edwin Black

Music by

Leonard J. Paul

Cinematography

Mark Atbara
Rolf Cutts
Jeff Koffman
Kirk Tougas

Editing by

Jennifer Abbott

Distributed by

Big Picture Media Corporation

Release date(s)

Flag of Canada September 9, 2003
Flag of the United States June 4,
2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creators


The film was written by Joel Bakan, and co-directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The documentary has been displayed worldwide, on TV (sometimes in 3 parts) and is also available in DVD.

 

Bakan wrote a book, The Corporation - The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, during the filming of the documentary.

 

 


Synopsis


The film charts the development of the corporation as a legal entity from its origins as an institution chartered by governments to carry out specific public functions, to the rise of the vast modern institutions entitled to some of the legal rights of a person.

 

One central theme of the documentary is an attempt to assess the "personality" of the corporate "person" by using diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV; Robert Hare, a University of British Columbia Psychology Professor and FBI consultant, compares the modern, profit-driven corporation to that of a clinically diagnosed psychopath.

 

The film focuses mostly on the corporation in North America, especially in the United States.

The film is composed of several vignettes examining and critiquing corporate practices, and drawing parallels between examples of corporate malfeasance and the DSM-IV's symptoms of psychopathy: callous unconcern for the feelings of others, incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness (repeated lying to and deceiving of others for profit), incapacity to experience guilt and failure to conform to the social norms with respect to lawful behaviors.

The film draws on many commentators, including Noam Chomsky, Milton Friedman, Michael Moore, Naomi Klein, and Howard Zinn, who discuss and criticize aspects of corporate behavior.

 


 

Topics addressed


Other topics addressed include:

Other important topics Bakan brings insight into include:

  • corporate social responsibility

  • the notion of limited liability

  • the corporation as a psychopath

  • the corporation as a person


 

 

Interviews


The film also features interviews with prominent corporate critics such as Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Vandana Shiva and Howard Zinn as well as opinions from company CEOs such as Ray Anderson (from the Interface carpet & fabric company), the conservative viewpoints of Peter Drucker and Milton Friedman, and think tanks advocating free markets such as the Fraser Institute.

 

Interviews also feature Dr. Samuel Epstein with his involvement in a lawsuit against Monsanto for promoting the use of Posilac, (Monsanto's trade name for recombinant Bovine Somatotropin) to induce more milk production in dairy cattle.

"The corporation is an externalizing machine (moving its operating costs to external organizations and people), in the same way that a shark is a killing machine."

- Robert Monks

a corporate governance advisor in the film

and former GOP [Republican] candidate for Senate from Maine

 

 

 

Reception


Film critics gave the film generally favorable reviews.

 

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 90% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 104 reviews Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 73 out of 100, based on 28 reviews.

Variety praised the film's,

"surprisingly cogent, entertaining, even rabble-rousing indictment of perhaps the most influential institutional model for our era" and its avoidance of "a sense of excessively partisan rhetoric" by deploying a wide range of interviewees and "a bold organizational scheme that lets focus jump around in interconnective, humorous, hit-and-run fashion."

In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert described the film as,

"an impassioned polemic, filled with information sure to break up any dinner-table conversation."

 

He felt that "at 145 minutes, it overstays its welcome. The wise documentarian should treat film stock as a non-renewable commodity."

The Economist review suggests that the idea for an organization as a psychopathic entity originated with Max Weber, in regards to government bureaucracy. Also, the reviewer remarks that the film weighs heavily in favor of public ownership as a solution to the evils depicted, while failing to acknowledge the magnitude of evils committed by governments in the name of public ownership, such as those of the Communist Party in the former USSR.

The Maoist Internationalist Movement, in their review criticizes the film for the opposite: for depicting the communist party in an unfavorable light, while adopting an anarchist approach favoring direct democracy and worker's councils without emphasizing the need for a centralized bureaucracy.

 

The film, in their view "offers no realistic alternative to imperialism" and "it shares some of the strengths and downfalls" of Mark Achbar's film Manufacturing Consent, which celebrated the life of anarcho-syndicalist, linguist, and activist Noam Chomsky.

 

In their view,

"corporate power for profit [is] not the same as mega-bureaucracy without profit."

The film was nominated for numerous awards, and won some of them.

 

It won the 'World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary' at the Sundance Film Festival, 2004, and won a Special Jury Award at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival in 2003 and 2004.

 

 

 

 

The Film

 

 

 

THE CORPORATION

by TulsaLiberty

October 20, 2011

from YouTube Website

 

 

 

 


 

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