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NEW Manufacturing Consent-noam Cho (DVD)

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With the recent media frenzy surrounding Michael Moore's documentary, Fahrenheit 911, it is interesting to observe how the controversy currently swirling around it (Disney backed it financially but won't distribute it) has been documented in the press. It makes a film like Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media all the more relevant more than ten years after its release. Chomsky is a soft-spoken professor at MIT who has become quite a vocal political activist and critic of the American media. He believes that ordinary people can comprehend and act on the issues he raises, but this is not always an easy task because of the thick web of doublespeak that the government creates to blind us from what he calls the "elementary truths" that are right in front of us.

However, people are indoctrinated to be apathetic so that they don't want to make the effort that is needed to see what is really going on. And the media doesn't help either. In fact, one might say that they promote this sense of apathy by showing redundant, repetitive sitcoms and reality shows that turn us into mindless couch potatoes. Now, you might be thinking, this sounds like a lot of conspiracy theory garbage, but Chomsky does not look, act or speak like some crazed conspiracy nut. He is an intelligent man who talks to a BBC reporter the same way he would talk to an ordinary person. Chomsky is a clear and concise speaker who backs up everything he says with an ample supply of facts and unfaltering logic. He is a man dedicated to uncovering the deception and atrocities that are committed by governments all over the world and teaching others how to become aware of and act on these acts.

With funding from the National Film Board of Canada, Peter Wintonick and Mark Achbar followed Chomsky around the globe for five years. The result was a two hour and forty-five minute documentary that explored Chomsky's view of the media and his relationship with it. The film acts as a sort of "stepping stone" to Chomsky's books, which are filled with pretty heavy concepts and a lot of information to absorb. The film doesn't water down his ideas, but rather represents them on a visual level so that they are a bit easier to grasp.

In Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky reveals that all major decisions over what happens in our society are controlled by a heavily concentrated network of corporations, conglomerates and investment firms. This network also has considerable influence over positions in the government. Just looking at the big Savings and Loans scandals that plagued the U.S. a few years ago reveals this link. Corporations also own the media and therefore decide what we watch and hear for the most part. They control the resources and as a result show only what is in their best interests. This is achieved by propaganda or the "manufacturing of consent," a term borrowed from political philosopher and journalist, Walter Lippmann. Manufacturing consent is a technique of control over the masses-in other words, propaganda or the creation of necessary illusions to marginalize the general public or reduce them to apathy in some form. The news media participates in this manufacture of consent by simplifying, selecting, and dramatizing events.

Wintonick and Achbar take a look at various forms of alternative media, from the successful independent publishers, South End Press to Alternative Radio that is dedicated to reporting events that the U.S. media conveniently ignores and giving people like Noam Chomsky more exposure. The film has certainly exposed Chomsky's ideas to a wider audience creating a sort of cult following in Canada and in Europe where he is more popular than in his native United States.

The film doesn't talk down to the viewer and brilliantly conveys Chomsky's ideas on a visual level utilizing all forms of media. The directors also dedicate time to show some of Chomsky's detractors like William F. Buckley, Jr. and Tom Wolfe who come across like pretentious bullies while Chomsky appears calm and rational in response to their vicious, snide attacks. They are ironic scenes that add more credibility to Chomsky's views.

Manufacturing Consent is a fascinating look Chomsky and his ideas that are guaranteed to provoke discussion. It also makes one want to check out some of his work and sparks a desire to wake up and realize what is going on in our society. The film is a real eye-opener to the behind the scenes mechanics of our government and the media and how little we realize what they are really up to. The film does not dip into tabloid or conspiracy depths, but presents a logical and intelligent analysis with a good sense of humour that is often missing from such material. Chomsky is a man who sincerely believes that we can identify and react to the problems in our government and media, but realizes that it cannot be done by just one man, it will take a massive grass-roots organization. First, people must be educated and this is hard because it is so easy to do nothing. Realizing that there is a problem is the first step, correcting it is the next.

Often fascinating, if arguably overlong (167 min of talking heads). While it only scratches the surface of Chomsky's many ideas, this is a worthwhile introduction to both the man, and one particular element of his theories - namely that all major US media is only serving the interest of the corporate/government oligarchy. Never boring, but sometimes repetitive.

Gets points for being willing to clearly present intelligent opposing points of view, despite the film's obvious siding with Chomsky. Loses points for stylistically doing some of the very sort of manipulative story-telling Chomsky is railing against, and for focusing on certain aspects of his ideas too long at the expense of others. Another DVD where the extras (especially the complete creepy/fascinating face-off between Chomsky and William Buckley) are sometimes even more exciting than the film itself.

Chomsky is a man of fact, reason, and simplicity. This documentary highlights some of the basic ideas of his important books about the domination of the media by indoctrination, the elites who own them, and how this affects the average person's access to information about the world and thus his view of his community and its relationship to outsidce societies.
This is a great film if you're becoming disaffected with our current political situation and looking for a way out of the mess we're in.

A must see for all Americans. I believe Americans are one of the most misled of all people. No one in South America would ever believe that Cuba was developing WMD's. However, as soon as the Bush Administration claimed that Cuba had WMD capabilities (bio warfare), the American press was all over it.
This is an excellent follow up to an excellent book.
One of the best books i have ever read and definitely the most insightful.

Though I found the documentary a bit lacking when first seeing it, I enjoyed the brief excerpt of Chomsky's debate with Michel Foucault. Not that it isn't good that someone was making an effort to get Chomsky better known, but the attempt to cover both his philosophy of language, his political critiques and postive political philosophy (in addition to a biographical account of his activities in these areas) ended up not doing anything remotely resembling justice to any of them. A much better documentary to look out for is "9-11", which was made for japanese television and essentially gives Chomsky the space to proffer his take on the events of that day and how they relate to events before and after. The ego of the documentarians is nowhere to be seen on screen, unlike in Manufacturing Consent, where one of the makers seemed to want as much screen time as he could excuse. Chomsky himself had problems with this documentary, because they left out any mention of the fellow who wrote the eponymous book with Chomsky, Edward S. Herman!
Despite all that, this DVD is worth picking up if you are interested in seeing all the shortcomings of Chomsky (which is not to deny his brillance or contribution to political critique and activism, as well as philosophy of language, even though I and many others disagree with his views, which seem to soften day by day) since you can witness one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century, Michel Foucault, expose them one after the other in a debate featured as an extra. This debate still has relevance today for each person who wishes to do something about what is going on around them, naturally by first problematizing their mode of being and the tacit framework (which they didn't come up with for the most part) by which they dice up the world and make sense of things.

Manufacturing Consent is the 1992 documentary directed by
Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick about the perennial dissident lecturer Noam Chomsky. The focus is on how the media deals with both Chomsky and the issues he raises: mainly by ignoring him. Here we get clips of everything from his discussion with William F. Buckley from the 1960s to interviews in Europe to his 10 second clip on McNeil-Lehrer.

Chomsky is shown as an important force that critiques both the destructive policies of power elites as well as the media that keeps the masses ignorant by spoon feeding them non-critical propaganda. The scenes are cleverly done with some humor, showing Chomsky speaking on Times Square screens and such.

And yet this isn't a quintessential Chomsky film as it does narrow the focus to the media, and spends a lot of time on a French Holocaust denier and Chomsky defending his right to speak (though not his views). This is a bit of a side track from his true significance as an Anarchist, Human Rights, and Peace activist. But when we hear his views on Vietnam, East Timor, Central America, and Iraq we start to see the bigger picture. Namely that everything the media tells us is half-truth if not outright false.

His message is important and it comes through in this film. Is he always right? I would say no, but he always sticks to his guns, never wavers, to the point where his views get predictable. But without him the peace movement would be much worse off intellectually (we'd be stuck with the likes of Michael Parenti wining at us). Chomsky is always low key, not in your face, and this film paints a sympathetic portrait while giving him some exposure the U.S. media usually denies him.

At one point during this film, Chomsky claims that if any of our hallowed leaders were actually questioned closely and deeply and at length, thus revealing the true chains of reasons lying behind his/her actions, eventually they would say things which any normal American would consider absolutely insane. This is Chomsky's main point, and it's a brilliant way of framing it because it addresses all his concerns at once: it's the nature of the news media to compress vastly complex relationships, many of them "secret" or "hidden", into bite-sized morsels palatable to a mass audience; the footnotes, the addenda, the "true history" of any of the "facts" stated in the mass media is at worst suppressed and at best glossed over. There's no conspiracy, no shadow government, no overt collusion; this state of affairs is structural, but it works conveniently to serve the interests of massive corporations. Chomsky's method is at once simple and commonsense: Present a case as a paradigm (a much-publicized human rights abuse by a government, for instance), present a comparable foil to that paradigm (another documented human rights abuse from a different country), and take note of the disparity in treatment both by our government and by media coverage numbers. The reason for the disparity? We should make up our own minds about it, but Chomsky claims that research will reveal that US corporate interests were either not at stake in the latter case or we were supporting the regime because they were friendly to US business interests.

"Manufacturing Consent" is a thought-provoking, well-edited and constructed documentary, and an excellent intro to this media-marginalized and very much despised political dissenter (who also happens to be one of the most important American intellectuals of the 20th century).

This movie is an excellent introduction to Noam Chomsky and the logic behind his ideas. Chomsky's writings and comments can sometimes appear to be quite dense, but Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick do a wonderful job editing this documentary so that the viewer is not completely overwhelmed with the information being presented. In my opinion, this documentary should be required viewing for all high school seniors!

You're never view popular media the same way ever again. Unless, you're cretin and don't get...then just keep living in you prozac laden bubble world of delight in aloofness and obedience.
word.

Undoubtedly, a tremendous production effort by Achbar and Wintonick in portraying the life of the person who in my opinion has represented the leading voice and thinking of dissent for more than three decades in the United States.

It includes excerpts from interviews in the mass media, it shows clearly how a televised opinion program for example, is set up in a way where the dissident opinion is given an extremely limited participation, which obviously obstaculize the interviewee's further explanation about the arguments expressed, with the whole purpose of creating controversy among an skeptical public already subjected through a "manufacturing consent" process, namely, a mediated-oriented brainwashing which purpose is not to question power.

The film also shows the level of a very consistent and political correctnes that Chomsky has impresively kept thanks to his extensive documentation and knowledge on various fields of history, political economy and foreign policy.

In my opinion, it facilitates a better comprehension about Chomsky's texts regarding media manipulation through a visual medium, definetely, a must have for those interested on getting the big picture of the whole system of propaganda subsirvient of corporate interests, as well as an insightful perception on this great intellectual's views. Highly recommended