The Corporation

The Corporation is a Canadian Documentaire carried out by Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar, left in 2003. This film is based on the book The corporation, the pathological pursuit off profit and power (multinationals, the pathological research of the profit and the capacity) of Joel Bakan. The film is divided into three parts, taking again the three parts of the title of book.

After a distribution reduced in rooms, Mark Achbar decides to return film to the remote loading on BitTorrent. It is accompanied for the occasion by a 40 minutes maintenance with Joel Bakan.

Synopsis

A person " morale"

In Right, a Moral person is a grouping of people having a legal existence, just like a Natural person (an human being). If the Entreprise has, legally, same the right S as an individual, why does it act in a way if not very human? The realizers of this film had the idea to question a certain number of heads of undertaking on the good practices of Gestion. The answers are the following ones:

to deal with the interest of the company and him
not to only make assume by the company of Cost S which can be dealt with by the community
to lay off in a flexible way in order to adapt well to the Gone
etc

In the middle of the XVIIIe century, the company emerges in the United States like a person " légale" , with a legal personality. On the basis of amendment 14th of the American Constitution, passed at the end of the civil war to release the blacks of slavery, no State can deprive a person of her life, freedom or property , the company will be seen sanctioning the same rights as the natural persons, but with less responsibilities and obligations…

The pathology of the trade, a psychiatric study of the world of the company

In parallel, the realizers notch the answers to the ell of a handbook of reference of the Psychopathologie: DSM-IV, and it is established little by little under the eyes of the spectator that if the company has well the characteristics of an individual, it is not any individual either, but an individual Psychopathe: egoist, liar, indifferent to the wellbeing and the respect of others as with its misfortunes.

Using the diagnostic criteria of the the World Health Organization and the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic tools of the Psychiatrist S and Psychological S, the documentary one draws up a list of antisocial behaviors of the companies in the contemporary world through four examples: dangerous behavior towards the workers, the health of the human beings, the animals and the biosphere. The final diagnosis makes companies of the psychopathes.

Who is responsible?

More personal interviews however show that this characteristic of the company does not constitute necessarily a feature of their leaders. Those appear often on the contrary intelligent and of high moral direction in the private one. What is in question is not the company itself, but the rules of the game that one gives him, and who transform it into machine to create what one names of the Externalité S.

The film sticks to the responsibility and the capacities which the implied people at various levels of the company have, and poses the problem of contradiction between individual human will and logic of the company whose immediate interest is the profit. This contradiction is expressed through various testimonys and examples, in particular the dialog between the chairman of Royal Dutch Shell and his wife with a group of activists (Earth first) come to express in front of the house of the chairman by deploying a streamer: Assassins. The answer of the couple was not to call the police force but to engage a dialog on the various problems on which they shared same concerns as the militants: human rights, environment, etc

Publicity with the cradle

The film then attacks the use which is made by the large companies of psychiatry to influence the children as of their more young age in their future purchases like on their parents. You can handle the consumers so that they want, then buy your products, it is a play (Lucy Hughes, vice-president of Initiative). Publicity reaches such a level of influence that people are sold like billboard to finance their studies, of the companies can buy cities or the culture (ex: the song happy birthday belongs to AOL-Time Warner).

Freedom of the press?

The documentary one then attacks the influence of the companies on the media through the example of the journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, laid off by Fox News to have refused to edulcorate a report on the dangers, with the human health and bovine, been dependant on the rBGH, a synthetic hormone, used in the United States but prohibited in Europe and Canada, which increases the production of milk.

Capitalism against Democracy

Through various examples, the documentary one attacks the aversion of the capitalist companies for the democratic regimes, that it is by the relation of the American companies with the Nazi regime (creation of Fanta by Coca-Cola to continue to distribute drinks in Nazi Germany, Participation from IBM in the administrative organization of the concentration camps), or the fallen through attempt at coup d'etat in the United States against New Deal de Roosevelt.

Democracy against Capitalism

Movements disputing the illegitimate capacity of the companies appear on all planet, of the contractors seek to create companies making of the profit without damaging the environment, of the citizens organize a referendum against the chains of restoration, Indian resistance to genetically modified rice, Bolivian resistance against the privatization of water, of the scattered but impressive victories against of large companies in the ocean of the globalisation.

The film ends in a pathetic sight of pionners of aviation finding death by controlling badly designed apparatuses: those did not have the bearing pressure enabling them to fly indefinitely, and were dedicated to be crushed little time after their launching (the top of a Falaise or a pylon), by exhaustion of their potential energy. In the same way, if one does not rebuild it on different bases, the company could lead us to the catastrophe by exhaustion of the natural resources or the environment.

Keeping of all Manichéisme, and aiming more at soliciting at the spectator of the questions that to provide answers, this film utilizes several personalities and was several times preceded.

Data sheet

Title: The Corporation
original Title: The Corporation
Realization: Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar
Scenario: Joel Bakan, Mark Achbar and Harold Crooks
Production: Mark Achbar
Production companies: Big Picture media corporation
Music: Leonard J. Paul
Photography: Henry Faber
Assembly: Jennifer Abbott
Country of origin: Canada
Format: Colors - Dolby SR
Kind: Documentary
Lasted: 145 min
Coming out date: 2003

Detailed synopsis of the DVD

(exit in September 2007, video TF1)

Which is what a company?
Birth
a " nobody morale"
Externalités
Case studies
the pathology of the trade
monstrous Obligations
Mentality
Exchanges on September 11th, 2001
Questions of border
basic Drive
Management of perception
Like a good neighbor
private Festival
Triumph of clandestine the
Of advancing the face
disconcerting Reports
Project of expansion
To choose the hostile good side
tender offer
Democracy SA
Therapy of the psychopathe
Generic Forecast
of end

Distribution

Mikela J. Mikael: the narrator
Robert Monks: itself
Michael Moore: itself
Noam Chomsky: itself
Naomi Klein: itself
Vandana Shiva: itself
Jeremy Rifkin: itself
Milton Friedman: itself

Rewards

25 international prizes of which:

Special price of the jury to the international festival of documentary film of Amsterdam, 2003.
Price of the Canadian film most popular to the international festival of film of Vancouver, 2003.
Price of the public, documentary category better to the festival of film of Philadelphia, 2004.
Price of the public, documentary category international to the Festival of film of Sundance, 2004.
Genesis Price of documentary film, 2005.
Price Genius of best documentary, 2005.

Notes and references of the article

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