Film Review - "The Corporation"

'The Corporation's' power comes through in its personalities

The rise of the corporation as the dominant institution in the modern world is perhaps the most important story of our time. Few people on this planet are not affected by its incursions into spheres formerly considered too public to be controlled by private interests.

Taking their cue from Joel Bakan's concept of the pathology of commerce, developed in his book "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power," directors Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott have constructed a film as multifaceted and monolithic as its subject.

With the corporation recently accorded the rights of a person, Bakan uses the personality diagnostic checklist of the World Health Organization's Manual of Mental Disorders to define the corporation's personality. Not surprisingly, it scores as a criminal psychopath.

Editor/co-director Abbott has constructed a convincing labyrinth of interviews and archival materials to support the diagnosis.

The 40 subjects interviewed by Achbar cover a span from cool intellectualism of Noam Chomsky to Michael Moore's underclass rabble-rousing. The most intriguing subject is Ray Anderson, Interface CEO, whose recent epiphany has led to a turnaround in his company's policies.

If Interface is the film's hero, then Fox is its villain. A "60 Minutes"-styled exposé on the network's suppression of a story about the health dangers of Monsanto's bovine growth hormone is a chilling example of the corporate control of media. Reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, who ultimately were fired as a result of their story, offer first-hand accounts of their experiences.

Recent films like "Spellbound," "Winged Migration" and "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" have brought a new popularity to the documentary. With this has come a pressure for the films to be as entertaining as they are educational. As a result, the charisma of the interviewees is sometimes as important as what they have to say.

An extreme example of this is Mark Barry, whose flamboyant style makes him come across, not as the corporate spy that he is, but as an actor playing the part. Michael Moore, bellowing about orange Fanta being a conspiracy between the Coca-Cola company and Nazi Germany, is even worse. He speaks in headlines, rarely bothering to explain the facts of his stories.

Like them or not, all these voices are part of a great untold tale. At 2 1/2 hours, "The Corporation" is too short to tell the whole story. It is, however, a fast-paced, highly enjoyable and provocative introduction.