What do you think about
this, the opening statement from the documen-tary
ETHOS -- out this week on DVD: "Every day we turn on television to see more bad news: another environ-mental catastrophe, more starving refugees, and innocent victims in various war zones. Most of us are busy, just trying to make ends meet. We see these horrible images and feel helpless to do anything about them. The deep shame we feel about this is paralyzing -- one of the reasons we turn away." So far, so good, right? This certainly rings a bell with me, at least. So let's continue: "The object of this documentary is to look at the flaws in our system that allow these things to happen -- and the mechanisms that actually work against us -- to show you a simple but powerful way we can change the world we live in." Wow. OK, we say:
Show us!
Unfortunately, what we're shown in
Ethos is pretty much what many of us who follow the progressive documentary have already seen, over and over again. The writer/director/co-producer
Pete McGrain (shown below) is a relative newcomer to film-making (if his IMDB profile is taken as gospel), and in the end credits, he gives thanks to a number of other documentaries, including
Hijacking Catastrophe,
The Corporation,
Zeitgeist, and
Why We Fight. Sure enough, if you've viewed these, most of what is contained in
Ethos will seem pretty been-there-seen-that -- including the talking heads that range from
Chomsky and
Zinn to
Michael Moore,
Karen Kwiatkowsky and
Cynthia McKinney. These people are game changers, for sure, but what they tell us here, they've told us before. And in better films.
If you are going to begin your movie with an array of lying politicians that include
John McCain contradicting himself, then please don't use sleazebag McCain later on to underscore the veracity of an important point you want made. This only leaves your audience wondering, Is that man lying
again? Or is the movie-maker doing it, too? Turns out the supposed "simple but powerful" means of changing the world we live in is simply putting your money where your mouth and heart are: only purchasing things made and/or sold by reliable people/companies. If only it were that easy. In these days of constant mergers, how do we keep up with who owns what? And green companies can have their own problems with pollution. In the background, as narrator
Woody Harrelson (below) talks about the power of the purchase, we see a windmill signifying wind-power, as though that were a reliable alternative. Before you sign up, I suggest you see
Laura Israel's new documentary
Windfall.
Ethos does make a number of important points along the way -- particularly the information about the
Federal Reserve Bank and the
Bankers' cartel, along with the fact that all publicly-traded corporations have been instructed, via a series of legal decrees, to put the financial interest of their owners above all else -- including the public good.
Freud,
Edward Bernays and consumerism make welcome appearances, too, but despite his not wanting to fall into "conspiracy theory" territory, Mr. McGrain allows the taint of that theory to hang over part of the proceedings. Paycheck-to-paycheck living is suggested to be the chosen lifestyle -- by the upper class for everyone who is not part of that class. (The current narrative movie
In Time makes this point a lot better, stronger, more effectively and entertainingly).
If you are new to the progressive-documentary field, by all means take a look at
Ethos. If not, you might want to move on. The film, 69 minutes, is distributed by
Cinema Libre Studio, and makes its DVD and digital-platform debut on Tuesday, February 7 (rather than, as my original post stated, Monday, February 6).
