manufacturing consent: noam chomsky and the media (1992)

directed by mark achbar and peter wintonick

i certainly needed a couple days to digest this after watching it to truly form a whole opinion on the film. i think, if i want this to be a film review and not a political critique, i have to tread carefully around addressing anything noam chomsky really says, but i will say this: i appreciate that noam is the kind of person who will make his point without trying to be the loudest guy in the room. when interviewers disrespect him, speak over him, or try to devalue his character, he waits his turn, slams down the cold hard facts AND sources, and makes he sure he can finish his sentence uninterrupted. hugely disappointed to have recently learned of his affiliations with jeff epstein, but imma just.... anyway....

as per a recent journal entry, its no secret that i've been trying to educate myself on media literacy and the power of propaganda in everyday tech. i've been watching a lot of marshall mcluhan as i try to unfold his quote "the medium is the message" and what that means to me. all that to say how i got to manufacturing consent. its remarkable how much of the content of this documentary film is persistent good advice, and even more remarkable how much of it is still controversial, if not more today than then.

as far as the actual filmmaking goes, i really liked the style this doc took on. it could just be because it was made in the early 90s, but it kind of feels like an episode of bill nye the science guy but for adults. there are artsy interpretations including a scene where two surgeons perform surgery on an article (that link is to the exact timestamp of the scene in the film, which is available in its entirety on youtube), there are a mix and match of scenes with noam speaking, his adversaries speaking, people asking him really genuinely interesting questions, and relevant b-roll. quite honestly, i could be looking through filtered glasses considering i'm watching this nearly 30 years later, but i genuinely think theres an incredible amount of charm and intentionality in the way this film was edited. i find that the structure has a very well-determined and expressed throughline, and the grand majority of the credit goes to the editors and directors.

did this have to be almost 3 hours? no. but i sat down with a pair of jeans i was hemming and i really enjoyed it. so yknow. whatever.

also considering getting a dog named noam chompsky. no relation.

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