Zeitgeist (2007)

Zeitgeist (2007) and its companion piece Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008) are the work of Peter Joseph, and are well-discussed on the internets. I still haven't figured out exactly who Peter Joseph is yet, but the films are essentially personal essays, dissecting our social, political and financial cultures, and the intersection of all three. It falls among a growing number of voices that are questioning the validity of our current socio-economic system that effectively requires consistent debt and warfare.

I think documentary film genres will need to expand over the next little while, as more people take to this form of expression and use it intellectually more than cinematically, which is not to say the latter is absent. It's an interesting form; a crafted lecture of sorts with an agenda. Michael Moore might be the father of this genre, but it seems to be coming into its own in the open-source and social-networking communities.

As for the content, there's also ample back and forth on the validity of Joseph's claims. Again, this is great example of the additional content and discourse such films can generate; it's not just metadata - it's meta-information. I think it's awesome. As a bleeding-heart liberal, I tend to align with many of his views. I think Joseph lays out his argument neatly, and delivers his points well. It's an interesting hybrid: the academic document crossed with the cinematic artform. I think it can be truly powerful. Clearly, there are times when Joseph goes for the emotional response over the intellectual one. Isn't that appropriate, given the form, or should that be judged similarly to a written academic text? It will be interesting how those guidelines shake out in the academic world, and in popular acceptance. If this is the way we're going, I do hope that visual media education becomes a bigger part of our general education. We're lacking. Joseph would agree, but add that that's the point.

In brief, the film provides: (1) an examination of the concurrence among documented deities and religious beliefs, a la Joseph Cambell; (2) a look at the political underpinnings of 9/11; and (3) an argument linking financial hegemony and socio-political oppression. The Addendum expands on information about the fractional reserve system, and provides a call to action and activism. Does he have a point-of-view (aka "an agenda")? Absolutely. That's the point. Is he fair and balanced? Not always, but he makes strong arguments and backs them up. If there are elements in his overall theory that seem somewhat weak, his overall logical framework is sound. Is he histrionic? Not necessarily. The economy is collapsing around us as we speak.

I really enjoyed this doc. I found it entertaining, engaging, and successful in its intention to spur action and social reflection. More than that, I think it's really interesting how film/moving images can be very powerful modes of communication and cannot be merely categorized as fiction/documentary or Objective/Subjective but range across both of these variables. Too, the use of the internets to not only distribute the document (whether watching online, or downloading via torrent) but also to comment and notate the document is exciting. Cinema is dead; long live cinema.

See this movie online at http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/