Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in our Times

(Movie Review)

I remember reading about this movie in "The Japan Times" when it first came out back in 2002. I wanted to see it then, but I never had the opportunity. There were no movie theaters in my town, and this film only played in independent theaters even in the bigger cities.

One of the reasons this film got reviewed in "The Japan Times" (link to review here) is that the film-maker,　John Junkerman (IMDB), is based out of Tokyo. Although with a name like Junkerman, I'm guessing he isn't a native Japanese, but probably a foreigner who, like me, came to Japan years ago and then just kind of got stuck here.

(Incidentally, speaking of "The Japan Times" and Noam Chomsky, they did an interesting interview with him back in 2002 which you can read here. I also remember reading in the Japan Times once about a Japanese film which had taken the rather odd step of combining the tomes of Noam Chomsky with soft porn--that review here.)

After this film finished it's short theatrical release, it dropped into obscurity. Despite being made in Japan, I never saw it at any of my local video stores. And I just kind of forgot about it.

But of course that was before the days of Google video and youtube. Everything Chomsky is available on-line these days, and this movie is no exception. I watched this version here, but a quick search reveals multiple copies.

Media of Chomsky seems to be growing exponentially all the time. I remember when I first heard about Noam Chomsky back in 1999, when a Calvin professor recommended him to me. I was writing a paper about Nicaragua , and the professor told me, "If you want to learn about how issues in the 3rd world get reported, you have to read Noam Chomsky". (Because Chomsky never gets mentioned in the mainstream media, this is how people learn about him--by word of mouth).
I got a few books out of the library, but my main introduction to Chomsky's life and work, as for many people was the bio-documentary "Manufacturing Consent", which I checked out of the public library. (And which, by the way, is also available on-line here).

"Manufacturing Consent" was released in 1992, and was for a long time the only video footage of Chomsky many of us ever saw, back in the days before streaming videos became widely available on the internet.
And, although there are now more Chomsky documentaries appearing all the time, according to the filmography in wikipedia, "Power and Terror" was the first film length documentary on Chomsky to break the 10 year gap after "Manufacturing Consent".

And considering people had waited so long for another Chomsky film, this is a bit of an odd follow up. All the filming was done in the US, but the editing was apparently done in Japan. The subtitles that announce times and places are in both English and Japanese, and the ending credits are bilingual as well.
Japanese singer Imawano Kiyoshiro provides the sound track to this movie, so Japanese folk music works as the transition between scenes of Chomsky's lectures.
And although Chomsky usual focuses primarily on the US, during the interview portions of this film he makes several references to Japan, presumably in answer to off camera questions by Tokyo based John Junkerman.

(By the way, although I consider myself a fan of Japanese folk music, if I was in the editing room I would have picked a different musician. To me Imawano Kiyoshiro's music and voice comes off as sounding whiny. But that's just my two cents. )

Unlike "Manufacturing Consent" this film is not meant to cover all of Chomsky's life and work. It stays firmly focused in the year 2002. It is made up entirely of interviews with Chomsky inter-mixed with Chomsky lectures.

The film is somewhat dated in the sense that it is from back in the good old days when we were fighting only one (unfunded) war in the middle east. But the examples Chomsky uses to illustrate his points move back and forth through history so much that it doesn't seem to matter. Much of what he has to say about power and the way it is used is timeless anyway.

Since I'm a bit of a Chomsky nut, a fair amount of what he said I had heard or read before. (He does tend to repeat some of the same examples over and over again). But I did learn a couple new things. It was interesting, for example, to hear Chomsky talk about the complete media black out on the US selling military helicopters to Israel.
Chomsky also had an interesting anecdote about conservative icon Winston Churchill that I had not heard before. It turns out Churchill was strongly in favor of using poisonous gas against the Arabs in 1919,and got frustrated when his colleagues had moral concerns about it.
"I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas.... I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes." (full quote here). Now there's something that they don't teach you in school.
(Although to be perfectly fair, if you follow the link and read the whole quote, Churchill was talking about using a mild form of nausea inducing gas as the humane alternative to bombing the Arabs to smithereens. Perhaps Chomsky should have qualified this).

One of Chomsky's most vicious critics, David Horowitz, once summed up Chomsky's place in American society fairly well. "No one in mainstream America has ever heard of him, but if you go to college campuses he's treated with cult like worship." (All misquoted here because I can't find the link).

I've never been to a Chomsky speech myself. The closest I ever got to him was at the protest against the FTAA in Windsor Canada in 2000. He was speaking at an event there, but I didn't go because tickets were $100 each (or something ridiculously expensive like that) and if memory serves they were all sold out anyway.
It was interesting, therefore, to see some of the footage of what goes on at a Chomsky lecture, such as vendors outside selling Chomsky memorabilia and Chomsky T-shirts. Can you imagine any other intellectual receiving this kind of rock-star treatment?

Also you've got to feel for poor Chomsky. There is some footage of him after the lecture getting mobbed by people wanting to ask him questions, get his autograph, and take pictures with him. The man was already in his 70s when this film was made. (He's over 80 now). At one point, after signing several autographs his hand becomes so tired he can't even write the letters of his name, and has to return the last book unsigned.
I also found interesting all the people in this documentary who try and ask Chomsky for advice about their lives. "Nobody can answer that question but you," he tells a young man who asks if he should go into activism full time or get a real job.
"She knows 100 times more about the situation than me, so I can't give her advice," Chomsky says when asked if a young Afghanistan woman should go back home to be a teacher, or stay in the United States.

Still, through it all Chomsky seems to have maintained a surprising level of humility. He looks and sounds just like everyone's kindly old grandfather, and is continually flashing his sheepish, self-deprecating smile in front of the crowds.

As with any Chomsky film, I can't recommend this enough. After being exposed to the mainstream media all day long Chomsky is a breath of fresh air.
If you, like me, are one of those people who use your computer as a TV, you can watch the film online by following the links above. Otherwise this film is also avaliable on DVD (A).

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky on Pornography

Also: My favorite Brit Pop group in Japan--Nanbanjin's Website. I haven't given them a shout out in a while, and I don't think I've linked yet to their new webpage. So here it is guys, and sorry for not giving you shout outs more often.

and for all those recovering Dutch Reformists--I thought it was neat hearing Christopher Hitchens quoting Peter Devries in this video (I know some of you are big Peter Devries fans).

Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in our Times: Movie Review (Scripted)