| So yeah, it's spring break 2006, me and my friend Kayvon walked into
UMass Boston - it's like one big building - uninvited, trying to get a
gauge on whether or not I'd like this school. I don't know if this was an
illegal activity. Do university buildings count as private property? I
hope so, that'd make the story killer sweet.
We're walking around aimlessly, trying to stumble onto some sort of
adventure that we could regale to our comrades back home, our endless
search for an experience for the sake of experience (this was pretty much
the definition of my high school years). Me and Kgay are getting pretty
frustrated though - UMass kinda sucks. At the climax of our discontent,
when we'd all but given up hope and settled on trekking back to the
train station, some girl sticks her head out of a classroom and says "Hey,
you guys want pizza?".
Now, being the appropriate amount of mooch it takes to have an
experience worth pontificating about, we accepted (this was pre-veganism).
Taking food from a stranger was probably one of the smarter things I did
that spring break, actually. She asked us our majors, and we luckily BS'd
our way through that. Turns out their class was holding an
extra-curricular film showing, which like 2 kids showed up to, because really, I
wouldn't have gone either if I was legitimately invited.
I asked what they were showing, I got some Boston-accented gibberish.
Well, how bad could this be, really? Free food and show, so of course we
stuck around. They stuck the DVD in, and as it progressed (with a
trailer of the movie before the movie, cause that's classy), I realized what
we were watching. What the BLEEP Do We Know?. The bane of physicists,
philosophers, and anyone who isn't a complete sap. I hadn't seen the
movie, but I had heard stories. Horrible, horrible stories. College
professors gleefully holding hands and jumping front of subway trains en
masse because they can't stand the absolute madness of a world that
tolerated such pseudo-science. Still, they gave me free food, I couldn't bail
out now.
What I witnessed was one of the greatest acts of attempted retardation
of the human mind in the history of the Earth. Incoherent idiocy at its
most refined. Like Timecube: The Motion Picture. The basic premise, if
you've been spared the pain so far, is some poppycock about how the
universe is created from our thoughts, not from matter, and how we can
change reality with our thoughts if we try really hard. One of the
scientists featured prominently in the film, David Albert, has since come out
and said his ideas were completely misrepresented in the film and is
disgusted with how the film turned out.
Needless to say, it sucked. I think we stayed about 30 minutes.
Now Matthew Gilbert is trying to pass this movie off as the preeminent
example of a cultural movement. Even worse, it's some kind of strange,
ill-defined movement encompassing any film that has an uplifting
message. Strangely, he references The Corporation and Syriana, two movies
that have considerably bleak outlooks on the world. Another bizarre
inclusion is The Left Behind film series, whose Evangelical fans would
probably find themselves disgusted with the free-wheeling and open theology
of What the BLEEP Do We Know?. Aside from the leftist documentaries and
born-again Christian stuff, most of what is left is your standard New
Age philosophy, the same kind of stuff Da Vid has been pushing for
years.
So Gilbert gets the movement wrong. This isn't about an overall lifting
of consciousness in cinema; this is a marketing decision from the New
Age philosophers to move into the DVD and indie-film circuits. And this
is way more about technology than social progression: digital
filmmaking and online distribution has made it possible for these guys to get
their religious theories into the public eye. Of course, this can be
applied to any film genre: leftist propaganda, conservative propaganda,
B-grade horror movies, porn. Technology just makes this stuff easier to
get out.
Am I the only one who is worried about this, or is Gilbert a lone nut
on this one (well, okay, a lone nut representing the ideas of a couple
million nuts)? I don't have any problem with New Age religious beliefs -
they make about as much sense to me as anything else. But I do have a
problem with this bad science they're selling. Look at how they used
David Albert. Not only was he misrepresented in the original film, but
they used him again for the sequel. No wonder the New Age movement (and
the political left and the political right) has proved to fall in love
with cheaply made documentaries: they're easy to manipulate as they are
to produce. Of course these guys have the right to put their stuff out
there, I would never say they don't, but let's not confuse this with
another Enlightenment.
This pseudo-science stuff is sick, though. It's just as bad as
elevating Intelligent Design to the level of scientific theory in schools.
There's a blatant disregard for facts and a shutting out of opposing
viewpoints. Movies like What the BLEEP Do We Know? are sublimely
anti-educational. Why should we commend the proliferation of this junk? Would we
call a documentary supporting the veracity of The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion a courageous reinterpretation of history? Why is it that just
because a guy wears crystals and listens to CDs of whales singing means
that he isn't a threat to scientific progression? These guys have an
audience, and it isn't a good thing.
And Andrew, you're not getting off light here. "Movies have really come
a long way in the last couple decades". In what possible way can you
defend this statement? As early as DW Griffith's Intolerance (1916) were
filmmakers making socially progressive and uplifting cinema. Godard was
doing radical political stuff in the 60s. Capra was making movies about
the indomitable human spirit in the 30s and 40s. Look at how successful
Michael Moore's early work was. Even Hitler commissioned films that
attempted to try to "make a difference in the world". Not to knock Al Gore
or anything, but what's different about An Inconvenient Truth is the
fact that it was made by a former vice president and its relevance to the
global warming issue. Pretending that it's important in the sense of
adding a message to documentaries, or even popularizing the concept, is
silly.
"As time goes along, I believe more and more movies will come out 'on a
mission;' a mission to change how we look at the world for the better."
Well yeah, of course. And more movies will come out glorifying war.
More movies will come out depicting that or proving how we're a species
that murders, rapes, maims, sometimes eats, and unleashes Carlos Mencia
on each other. Lots of more movies will come out in the future of all
kinds. But is there any kind of relevant trend of this kind of
filmmaking? Is there some kind of substantial movement? I think all there are is
blips of "message" films in the public. They may be individually
important, but do they mean anything in the development of cinema? Nah.
But this isn't a bad thing. Merely making people happy, whether it's
through action, adventure, horror, comedy, drama, erotica, Bhangra
dancing, whatever, is a commendable enough objective. Good art does a service
merely by being good. Hell, art does a service merely by being art.
In conclusion: If I ever meet the guys who made What the BLEEP Do We
Know in person, I'm punching them right in the baby makers. Same goes for
Michael Bay, Tom Cruise, and Carlos Mencia. Actually, I'm punching
Carlos Mencia twice.
In further conclusion: I'M BORED AND WORK SUXXX. |
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