A film about the noted American linguist/political dissident and his warning about corporate media's role in modern propaganda.A film about the noted American linguist/political dissident and his warning about corporate media's role in modern propaganda.A film about the noted American linguist/political dissident and his warning about corporate media's role in modern propaganda.
- Awards
- 4 wins & 1 nomination
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (as William F. Buckley Jr.)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (voice)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (voice)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (voice)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- Self - Tel Aviv University
- (archive footage)
- Self - Journalist
- (archive footage)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaUp until the release of Mark Achbar's film The Corporation (2003), this was the most successful documentary in Canadian history, playing theatrically in over 300 cities worldwide. It won 22 awards and appeared in more than 50 international film festivals.
- Quotes
Noam Chomsky: It means you have to develop an independent mind, and work on it. Now that's extremely hard to do alone. The beauty of our system is that is isolates everybody. Each person is sitting alone in front of the tube, you know. It's very hard to have ideas or thoughts under those circumstances. You can't fight the world alone. Some people can but it's pretty rare. The way to do it is with organization. So of course if there's to be intellectual self defence, it will have to be in the context of political and other organization.
- Crazy creditsCanadian and U.S. copyright laws allow "fair dealing" and "fair use" of a copyrighted work for purposes such as comment, criticism, reporting, teaching, scholarship, research, review and quotation.
- ConnectionsEdited from L'affaire Bronswik (1978)
- SoundtracksFor What It's Worth
Written by Stephen Stills
Performed by Buffalo Springfield
Produced by Charles Greene and Brian Stone
Courtesy of Ten East Music, Springalo & Cotillion (BMI)
Published by Warner-Tamerlan Publishing Corp.
By Arrangement with Warner Special Products
© Warner/Chappell Music Inc.
Let's start by getting something out of the way. Though he'd laugh at me for saying this, Noam Chomsky is one of the most intelligent and (an important distinction here) knowledgable human beings on the planet. Not only is he gifted with incredible intellect...he has used that intellect to absorb volumes upon volumes of information that most people have never been privy to...let alone memorized and analyzed, as Chomsky has. That said, let's move on.
Chomsky is an anarchist. And the fact is that while everybody in the world thinks that they know exactly what an anarchist is, in reality, it seems that, for the most part, the only people who understand anarchism are anarchists. Everything the media has ever said about anarchists is a lie. Their use of the word "anarchy" to describe chaotic situations and chaos in general is an utter corruption of the word anarchy, which, from its very roots, means quite simply "absence of a governing body"...nothing in there about chaos that I can see.
Chomsky subscribes to many of the ideals put forth by Michael Bakunin, a contemporary (and fierce opponent) of Karl Marx, and the recognized father of international anarchism. So, because Chomsky is an anarchist, he will obviously be viewed by many as a delusional paranoid. Then again, those who classify him as such wouldn't recognize Big Brother if he was bulldozing their homes to build a new shopping center.
What you will find in this film (and in Chomsky's book, which is far superior) is compelling evidence (based not on delusions, but on facts) that American media is controlled by a corporate elite who use it essentially for propaganda purposes in order to, if I may lift a phrase from Chomsky, "control the public mind." Once you realize how consolidated the corporate media really is, and how they twist the facts in order to pump disinformation into the homes of unsuspecting citizens, you'll never be able to look at CNN the same way again.
As for the critics, who feel much safer and infinitely more free than they have any reason to...their dismissals of Chomsky as a left-wing crackpot who doesn't know what he's talking about (despite the fact that he's studied extensively and most of his critics have gotten the bulk of their information from the same media sources he proves unreliable) only further strengthen his case. Not only does the corporate media distort the facts in order to lull the masses into a false sense of security...quite obviously, they're doing a tremendous job.
- james_oblivion
- Sep 29, 2003
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Fabryka konsensusu - Noam Chomsky i media
- Filming locations
- Erin Mills Mall - 5100 Erin Mills Parkway, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada(as Erin Mills Town Centre)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime2 hours 47 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1