DVD Review: Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media (B+)

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media
Directed by Mark Achbar, Peter Wintonick
Starring Noam Chomsky, William F. Buckley, Peter Jenning, Bill Moyers and Tom Wolfe
MPAA: UR
Grade: B+

Review by Scott Standish

Winner of the Chicago International Film Festival for Best Best Social/Political Documentary, Manufacturing Consent is one of those totally biased documentaries that you will either love or hate, depending on what your take is on the subject matter going in. Being a liberal with a strong antiwar bias, I found the movie fascinating.

Noam Chomsky has been heralded as the most important intellectual alive, and it's clear to see why. He's smart, well spoken and has thorough research to back up his arguments. He decries the propaganda machine behind the US government and the media outlets in America, and takes them to task over the suppression of news relating to the US supported Indonesian invasion of East Timor. As conglomerates continue to merge and acquire one another, the power of the media continues to fall into fewer hands and increasingly, these parties use the editing of news content to further their own means.

Chomsky is not without his faults by any means. Critics deride him in the film for allowing an article that he wrote about free speech to be included as a prologue for a book insisting that the holocaust did not happen. Chomsky insists that he does not side with the author but was merely hoping to defend the author's right to freedom of speech. Of course, he is right, but sometimes it's just common sense to avoid confusion on these types of issues.

A great documentary about a brilliant political activist, Manufacturing Consent is highly recommended.

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