MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA
A film review by Gareth Rees
Copyright 1993 Gareth Rees
Directors: Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick Release: Canada 1992 Length: 165 mins
The media, Chomsky tells us, whether by deliberate intent or through the effect of the power structure of our society, deceives us and diverts our attention from the issues that matter. In a democratic society, where people's actions cannot be directly controlled, it becomes a function of the media to control what people think and to make sure that they do not want to change the status quo. In order for this to work, people must not only be misinformed, but they must also feel that it does not matter that they are being misinformed, that some information is too sensitive to be made public, that there is nothing that one ordinary person can do about this misinformation. Chomsky is trying to challenge our apathy, trying to make us think about the way our opinions and actions are shaped.
Directors Peter Wintonick and Mark Achbar plunge into the awkward situation of portraying a man who has attacked the very techniques they use to present him with, it seems, hardly a second thought. Chomsky stands up on stage to argue his case, but the directors cut and intercut him with pictures, graphics, visual metaphor and "re-contextualisation," until the focus and force of his argument is lost among the videobabble. A mention of an article being cut by the New York Times inspires a scene in which a group of surgeons perform a dissection on a page of newsprint, and the irony is that this is exactly what is being done to Chomsky.
It's possible that I'm just not media-literate enough to appreciate the film, that I'm not prepared for the thirty-second sound-bite, but then neither I think is Chomsky. I kept wanting to hear what he has to say, not what the directors think I should hear.
This is not to say that the film does not have some brilliantly effective moments. A section on the Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor (with the complicity of the United States and other western governments) supports Chomsky with some of the detailed evidence on which his argument depends; a section on Chomsky's defence of the right to free speech of a holocaust revisionist demonstrates more clearly than anything else in the film the extent to which our thinking on important issues can become controlled and inflexible.
What saves the film is Noam Chomsky, whose genius shines through everything his opponents or the directors can throw at him.
--- Gareth Rees
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