July 15-21, 2004

movies

Exquisite Corps

SPEAK NO EVIL: An unidentified protester at the 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec.

The Corporation examines the way corporations took over.

by Sam Adams

Insofar as there's such a thing as a layman's perspective on Supreme Court rulings, there are few that seem as wrongheaded as the 1886 decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., which set the precedent that corporations were "persons" entitled to the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal treatment originally intended for freed slaves. Real people have responsibilities, legal and otherwise, but corporations only reap the benefits: Last year, Nike argued in court that its "individual" right to free speech entitled it to lie in public statements. But 118 years of precedent talks a lot louder than common sense, so filmmakers Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar — whose directing credit on Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media tells you everything you need to know about the pair's politics — don't argue the court's decision so much as run with it. Corporations are people. Fine. So what kind of people are they?

One clinically administered personality test later, Abbott and Achbar have their answer. Preoccupied with their own well-being to the detriment of others, with no concern for the consequences of their actions, corporations are by-the-book psychopaths. Too bad they aren't sociopaths; at least they'd be charming.

Abbott and Achbar round up the usual lefty subjects and scroll through the usual anti-corporate complaints, but thankfully they expand the dialogue as they go, drawing in a surprising number of subjects from the pro-corporate side of the fence. Some of the strongest arguments against unchecked corporate power are inadvertently made by those attempting to defend it. You can't listen to Milton Friedman talk about how it's "immoral" for corporations to consider anything but profits — say, safety hazards or environmental catastrophe — without thinking that there's got to be safer ground nearer the center.

One British reviewer called The Corporation "Fahrenheit 9/11 for people who think," but there's no need to set the two films against each other. If The Corporation makes more room for opposing viewpoints and marshals its evidence with greater care, and therefore lacks some of Fahrenheit's fury, the two obviously complement each other, not least because neither film misses an opportunity to use humor to make a point. Chalk the difference up to national identity: Canadians Abbott and Achbar are politely probing where Moore goes for the jugular.

By the way, it turns out that the Supreme Court never actually ruled that corporations were people: The court reporter, a former railroad president, added a judge's incidental comment to the official record, and history was remade. Plus ca change, eh?

recommended The Corporation Directed by Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar A Zeitgeist release Opens Friday at Ritz Bourse