“The 11th Hour’ feels that long
Have you ever had a teacher write “passive voice,” on one of your papers? I wanted to take out a giant rubber stamp and stamp “passive voice” on the screen while I was watching “The 11th Hour.”
Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, “The 11th Hour” is a documentary about pollution and global warming. Let me just say this, I agree with just about everything stated in this movie. Humans are mass pollution producing beings. Giant, soulless oil corporations keep societies from fixing the problem because they’re only focused on money. The government does nothing because they’re influenced by the soulless corporations. I know all that, so do you. So do all of us.
For the format of the movie they assembled upwards of 50 or 60 experts, scientists, authors, and even Stephen Hawking to talk about pollution, global warming, deforestation, and even the lack of human love. Between the experts the movie is peppered (except it seems that someone unscrewed the pepper cap and it all dumped out at once) with stock footage from seemingly every natural disaster since the beginning of video recorded history.
This is why “The 11th Hour” is so “passive.” It fails to go anywhere, or to show us anything that might make us the least bit passionate about global warming. The filmmakers fail to put any of their talk, talk, talk into action, action, action. Let me compare this documentary to the ones made by Michael Moore. Whether you agree with his politics is irrelevant. He makes effective movies that stir up feelings and emotions. Because he actually goes to places, interviews people that don’t want to be interviewed; in short he acts.
“The 11th Hour” also fails at showing rather than telling. The entire 95 minutes of the movie is filled with talking heads sitting in the same room, and stock footage straight from the natural disaster vault. This doesn’t make me want to do anything. Instead it made me echo the thoughts of the person sitting behind me that said “This movie isn’t over yet?”
The other day on the history channel I learned of “Green Buildings.” How “Green” skyscrapers are being built in Manhattan and other places. A simple show like that, which went to the actual site and showed me why these things are better for the environment, was far more convincing and informative to me than all of the regurgitated information in “The 11th Hour.”
Global warming and pollution are huge issues that face us, our children, and our children’s children. There is a more effective documentary about this subject; it just needs to be made.
-aaron.peck@aggiemail.usu.edu