DVD Review: The Corporation

Posted by: Showbiz Monkeys  •  April 5, 2005 @ 12:00am

Filed under: Reviews

The Corporation is an educational documentary saturated with information outlining the nature, evolution, and impact of today's corporation. The combined efforts of filmmakers Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, and Joel Bakan bring us the eye-opening film based on Joel Bakan's book titled "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power". The documentary examines how corporations operate under the law as individual persons with legal rights as a person; considering this, it draws attention to the feelings, politics, and belief systems of existing corporate citizens. Squeezing to the surface are attributes that have lead to their successes such as being visionaries and transforming the lives of people with power, persistence, and products.

Devastatingly, the documentary exposes us to the reality that corporate responsibilities are outweighed by their obligation to themselves to get large and get profitable at anyone's expense. In the film, comparisons are made between psychopaths and corporations, which Joel Bakan identifies some people may find inflammatory and controversial. Characteristics of corporations are unveiled through footage of pop culture, advertising, TV news, corporate propaganda, and interviews with insiders like Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore to name a few. The Corporation installs strategies for change, dissects case studies, and allows a stage for those who bring forth true confessions.

The Corporation 2-disc DVD offers 8 Hours of Extras!

Disc One:

The Corporation offers more than just the documentary, but a long list of resourceful tools to better connect viewers to the information displayed in the film. The DVD menus on both discs have a very intricate image and soundtrack combination to aid the visual effectiveness of the display that delightfully boosts The Corporation's theme. The bonus material begins with Disc One, which also has the 145-minute theatrical version of the film with 34 different chapters to choose from, but also includes Deleted Scenes and Q & A's with the filmmakers.

The first disc offers a look at an interview between Joel Bakan and Janeane Garofalo. "I actually loved this movie, and I took notes last night when I was watching it because it was like taking a class." says Janeane Garofalo to Joel Bakan during an interview through The Majority Report. "Not a boring class," Laughs Joel Bakan. This interview draws more attention to the film and its purpose, and is entertaining to watch a well-known and respected celebrity digging her hands into the depth of such a valuable documentary.

Following, we have a chance to look at the grassroots marketing strategies behind The Corporation, with Katherine Dodds who explains the marketing avenues they pursued from the first screenings that took place at The Toronto International Film Festival. This segment explores everything from their objectives and website design, to image branding and its importance. This is an interesting look at the various ways The Corporation's marketing team pursues promotion of the documentary and the messages encapsulated therein.

The special features included on the first disc end with the option of looking at both The Corporation and Manufacturing Consent trailers, as well as DVD credits.

Disc Two:

The second disc included in the Mongrel Media DVD release has a more interactive template as it offers viewers an extended menu to further explore interview clips from the film. It allows the user to scroll through a grid composed of photographs displaying the individuals interviewed within the film. You can glide through the grid and highlight the individuals you wish to hear more from and those who you want to recapture in full detail. This is a very effective ãÆ'»and easy ãÆ'»way to recap the points each person stood behind in the documentary and continue to gauge the various points of view.

You can dive into more information with an additional option called "Tropical Paradise" that allows the user to not only choose to recap the information by subject, but breaks down each subject by the persons interviewed as well. It is an in-depth, extremely organized look at the topics explored in The Corporation and narrows down the various aspects to make it an easy-to-access menu. I was impressed by not only the amount of information available, but the visually pleasing set-up.

What You Can Expect:

With The Corporation, you can expect lots of information that will surely open your eyes to the nature of the corporate world. It is presented in a fluid, non-stop progressing documentary and the resources available within the new 2-disc DVD from Mongrel Media is nothing less than helpful, thorough, and fascinating.

5 out of 5

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