FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies 

Anyone familiar with Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz (1978) knows too well the abounding tedium of music documentaries. Despite its stature among the greatest of all rock docs, Waltz often serves merely to showcase how insufferably boring and pretentious rock deities can be when provided a platform upon which they’re invited to pontificate about their craft. If the musicians themselves decline to natter on about cultural legacies, rock critics with dubious credentials and penchants for hyperbolic appraisal are more than happy to fill in the blanks. Rock documentary belongs, on the whole, to a very sorry class of filmmaking. It’s almost certain that if you’re not interested in a particular rock band or artist, a documentary about that performer will not appeal to you. If the music in question does float your boat, you are more likely to find value in said film, though that isn’t to say that you’re very likely to find much value at all.  More often than not, the films lack imagination, trusting instead that the supposed genius of their subjects can be relied upon to form a coherent, engaging narrative. What’s more, these fawning portraits are then padded with lame duck concert footage, because, by the time a documentary crew arrives on the scene, the group in question is likely to be long past their prime.  If the band has broken up, grainy archival footage blandly suffices.  Most “rockumentaries” have more in common with the insipidness of This is Spinal Tap (1984) than with any great tradition of documentary cinema.

The growth of fan cultures, the escalating public interest in “reality”-based programming, and the democratization of professional-grade video equipment have conspired to birth a surplus of these documentaries in the digital-era.  All a band requires is a few obsessive devotees and some mild group tension for a documentary to practically unfurl itself.  Most vexing about these films is that their directors are so entranced by their love of the music that they neglect to vet the worthiness of the narrative.  Consequently, most fail to exceed the breadth and depth of their subject’s Wikipedia entries.  From this outpouring of enthusiasm a few are released theatrically every year, while the rest are intended as mere promotional tools, packaged alongside reissued albums or in limited edition DVDs for the faithful.  Their very failure at journalism or documentation makes these films most viable as facets of promotional campaigns. There are music movies and there are movies about music; both have their place, but only the latter can claim a potential for artistry.

When considered as cinema (that is, separately from their status as fan paraphernalia) quality rock docs are so few and far between that a nearly comprehensive list will fit inside of a short paragraph (1): Instrument (1999), The Decline of Western Civilization (1981), Lonely Boy (1962), Don’t Look Back (1967), Dig! (2004), Gimme Shelter (1970), Let It Be (1970), Hype! (1996), Meeting People is Easy (1998), Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004) (1).  For this group, an interest in the music under discussion isn’t required (and, really, who gives a shit about the discography of Paul Anka or The Dandy Warhols, let alone Metallica’s St. Anger album?) for audiences to feel satisfied with the product.  These films succeed because they effectively document the alchemical processes of creating, performing and selling popular music.  They are not laurel wreaths bestowed upon demigods, but are, instead, thoughtful considerations of art-making and performance, created by artists in their own right.  Each exhibits a detachment from their subjects, a critical distance that provides them a perspective unobstructed by idolatry. These films, rare exceptions to the rule of pop documentaries, refuse to regurgitate lore and legend.

It may be that Steven Galkin and Matthew Cantor, co-directors of loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies, are indeed transfixed by the grandeur of their subjects. Ty Burr of the Boston Globe read the film’s verite unobtrusiveness as a sign the pair were “too awestruck” to challenge the band into accounting for their enduringly popular collaborations and acrimonious breakup (3).  There’s a great deal of merit to this interpretation, but the filmmakers’ timorousness has the (perhaps unintended) consequence of elevating the film from hagiography to a subtly probing snapshot of middle-aged rockers in pursuit of reunion tour fortune and glory.  Whether the group merely declined the invitation to wax nostalgically about their shared history, or the filmmakers simply lacked the desire or courage to ask, the film itself is a welcome respite from the dominant strain of such portraits.

After forming in Boston in the mid-1980s, the Pixies were modestly successful as an indie rock act, playing international festivals and releasing five acclaimed albums before disbanding in 1993.  After acolyte Kurt Cobain hyped them in interviews as a key influence, the group became known for instigating the now-familiar alt-rock formula of quietly singing the verses before screaming the choruses (hence the film’s title) (4).  At the time they called it quits, the band's influence on other musicians exceeded sales of their own albums as well as their mainstream recognition.  Rock music fandom has since caught up with the group. In 2004, their resurgent popularity among aging post-punks and the newfound enthusiasm of the Hot Topic set culminated in a reunion tour, the chief subject of loudQUIETloud.

Since the dissolution of the Pixies, songwriter/lead vocalist Black Francis and bassist Kim Deal have pursued recording careers successfully, the former with a slew of groups, the latter with beloved critical darlings, The Breeders.  Lead guitarist Joey Santiago stumbled in jumpstarting his own career, while drummer Dave Lovering took to performing as a magician.  Lovering is the semi-tragic figure of the four, and the most forthcoming during the film’s interview sections.  He admits that the offer to reunite with his bandmates came not a moment too soon, for his royalty checks had started to dwindle thanks to online file-sharing.

Later in the film, while grappling with the news that his father has died, Lovering launches an impromptu drum solo (likely the product of nervous energy and valium, though he denies intoxication to his bandmates) at the outset of their Chicago show, marking the lone moment of explicit tension within the ranks. Francis storms off stage, the band reconvenes, and Lovering chalks the whole thing up to a faulty PA system. The rest of the time they scarcely talk to one another. Struggling with newfound sobriety, Deal travels on a separate bus with twin sister Kelly, who at one point claims that she’s never observed a group of people for whom communication is so difficult.  An onscreen title informs us that the band has agreed to prohibit alcohol and drugs in the dressing room in deference to Deal's treatment.  Titles are the film’s preferred method for providing historical and personal context.  If the band won't tell their own story, the filmmakers will tell it for them via concise, one-sentence summations. It's not an uncommon strategy today, but in this case, informative titles provide too much contour for an otherwise (fantastically) shapeless portrait.      

By most accounts -- especially if you ask the legion of fans camped outside the venues -- the music hasn’t suffered since the hiatus, though the voices of Francis and Deal can’t work up the frenzy of 20 years ago.  All the same, they are adored by their fans, who at this point have the entirety of the band’s relatively scant discography memorized.  The entire tour sold out in a matter of minutes, another title tells us. Since the tour featured in loudQUIETloud, the band has played numerous festivals and are reportedly, as of early 2010, completing a comeback album.        

It seems perverse to describe the lack of melodrama as exciting in its own right, but the film’s intrigue exists in unvoiced frustrations and pent up resentments.  Multiple times, Francis tells rock journalists about the hows and whys of the band’s demise and rebirth, but he fails to state any of these feelings to his bandmates.  After telling an interviewer that he’d love to make a new record with the group, he neglects to tell everyone else. Interactions are uniformly respectful and deeply political.  These four have united toward a common goal, like divorced parents attending a softball game.  In an odd way, it’s comforting to know that these people might not get along, or at least that they’re not going to pretend to get along for the benefit of the cameras.  loudQUIETloud isn’t nearly Wisemenian in its commitment to the quotidian, but it’s a relaxed, unhurried snapshot of pop music-making.

Appropriately, the film’s most poignant moment is one of silence: A young fan -- who speaks of Deal in religious terms -- flags down her idol after the show and the two share a moment of mutual appreciation.  The adolescent girl had discovered the Pixies while reading a YA novel (Louisa Luna’s Brave New Girl) in which the band’s music and indie cred capture the protagonist’s heart.  Deal and her disciple chat amiably enough, but the girl forgets to slip her hero a cherished, highlighted copy of the book.  The scene ends as the girl sobs at having been so absent-minded.  The next scene features a solemn Deal (heretofore the most loquacious of the four) aboard the tour bus going through the book’s highlighted passages, which reference the music she made two decades previously (it's safe to assume a hanger-on or the filmmakers passed the book along).  It’s a weirdly cosmic moment, but Deal wears a silent, puzzled expression.  Confronted by such a tangible example of her impact upon a generation, what could she possibly be thinking? Like the rest of her bandmates, she just doesn't say. (5)

loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies / USA / 2006 / Color / 85 min. / Directed by Steven Cantor and Matthew Galkin /  Featuring: Charles "Black Francis" Thompson, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago, David Lovering and Kelley Deal.

Notes:

1 - I’ll cop to not having seen these well-regarded rockdocs: Woodstock (1970), Stop Making Sense (1984), Cocksucker Blues (1972), Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009), No Direction Home (2005), Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten (2007), or (most embarrassingly) Buena Vista Social Club (1999).  Even if each of these count as genuine masterpieces, the final tally of great music documentaries would still rest at a pitifully low number.

2 – Indie icons Fugazi star in Instrument; Decline charts the emergence of American Punk in the southern California; Lonely Boy is the brilliant short doc, by Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor, about the fabrication of Paul Anka’s career and personality (which can be viewed here); the surly Bob Dylan lets D.A. Pennebaker’s camera tail him in Dont Look Back [sic]; Ondi Timoner captures the feud between the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols in Dig!; the Maysles do Altamont in Gimme Shelter; The Beatles disintegrate while finishing their worst album in Let it Be; Doug Pray exposes the effects of corporate and media malfeasance on Seattle's early 90's grunge scene in Hype!; Radiohead become an Important Band in Meeting People; and Metallica disintegrate and regroup while finishing their worst album in Some Kind of Monster.

 3 - The review, from an acknowledged enthusiast, can be found here.

4 - Cobain claimed that "Smells like Teen Spirit," was merely a Pixies "rip off" in Rolling Stone magazine shortly before his death: 

Fricke, David "Kurt Cobain: The Rolling Stone Interview." Rolling Stone, #674. 27 Jan. 1994.

5 - loudQUIETloud can be viewed in its entirety here.

NEXT-GEN MAD MEN

Ad Execs Self-Congratulate in Doug Pray's Art & Copy

“I like to think that [with my advertisements] I’m entertaining people, using my client’s products.”

- Rich Silverstein of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners.

"You do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll-call forever. End of story. You're another corporate shill, you're another whore at the capitalist gang-bang... there's a price on your head, everything you say is suspect and every word that comes out of your mouth is like a turd falling into my drink."

- Bill Hicks, comedian

The most gorgeous, riveting span of cinema released in the past few months reveals at its close that it has an explicit purpose: it wants you to buy blue jeans. Blue Jeans from Levi’s, specifically, the American Institution. If you’ve gone to a multiplex for a movie recently, you’re probably familiar with the Levi’s Ad Campaign that bears the name “Go Forth.” It’s been on television, and it’s effective there, and stilled images of a similar quality grace billboards and posters on subway walls. Seen on the big screen, however, it is simply wondrous in its budget of sound and image. It is a more rapturous use of theatrical motion picture technology than any of the summer blockbusters released this year, with images made for a massive screen and a crackling soundtrack that begs high, immersive volume. In a series of slow, crisp black and white images, the texture of which recalls Robert Frank and Bela Tarr, the pace and content Terrence Malick, we see the American landscape and its denizens cascade proudly, unpretentiously before us. There are fireworks, muggy ponds, slums, trains, flags, corporate suits, rolling hills, interracial kisses, high rises, young muscles flexing and even some horseback riding. May sound kitschy, but these images have an undeniable power. On the soundtrack: the only known recording of Uncle Walt Whitman reading a particularly rousing passage from the poem "America" (1). Taken together, the images and sounds soar. All of this creates a yearning, a palpable emotion, and the Levi’s logo being stamped onto the image unceremoniously at the end inspires either a jarring emotional plummet or self-conscious laughter (“how could I have been so stupid?”). It’s the greatest short film that doesn’t really exist; it’s a trailer for a long-lost abandoned David Gordon Green film. What it is, really, is an attempt to associate these images of fantastic beauty and the most brilliant of American poets, and the sentiment constructed via their simultaneity, with a brand of pants. It’s an advertisement. And to those still sensitive to such things’ intrusiveness and cynicism, a beautiful, absorbing ad is still just a wolf in sheep’s clothing, definitely not to be trusted, and to be admired at one’s own peril. The director, Cary Fukunaga, has also released a well-regarded feature, Sin Nombre, released about the same time as the Levi’s campaign (2). It’s doubtless that he and his stunningly talented director of photography, Darren Lew, will go onto brilliant careers. But what will it have taken to get them there? (3)

The clip comes courtesy of the advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy, and both Dan Wieden and David Kennedy appear in Doug Pray’s new documentary on the advertising industry’s innovations of the last 60 years, Art & Copy. Considering the surging popularity of AMC’s drama Mad Men and with television commercials now uploaded by the millions on Youtube (that is to say, the willful consumption of advertisements), there has never been a better time to discuss the aesthetics and practices of marketing and the extent of its effect on our culture. Pray’s film, through its rosy-colored glasses, may embody contemporary attitudes on the ad men (and women) who provide us with much of our favorite (and inescapable) sounds and images, but he does his viewership no service with such an unthinking, uncritical portrait of the process.

Appallingly, though understandably, there aren’t any but massive, clear consciences and earnest smiles on display in Art & Copy. Each interview participant (all advertising bigwigs responsible for such indomitable memes as "got milk?" and “Just Do It”) offers a unique variation of Silverstein’s dubious justification and self-satisfaction, making them the most deluded, cynical group of documentary subjects since the Friedman family or Fred A. Leuchter, depending on one’s point-of-view (4). These tycoons have convinced themselves that they’ve only followed a calling, performing a useful, indeed, necessary, function in a society with the desperate need for market-place clarification. None offers any sort of meaningful self-awareness in admitting they’re essentially charged with manipulating consumers and promulgating corporate lies (about running faster, feeling better, looking better, eating better). In a society of seemingly infinite capitalistic choice, the public’s attention must be controlled, their manifesto goes. These are the individuals who’ve proven capable at directing the consuming populace at the behest of the highest bidder, but this relationship is curiously not portrayed as being problematic in the slightest. One surfer-turned-Ad Exec claims that his dog food commercials not only make you love his client’s dog food, but also make you love your dog more. The hubris runs rampant, and Pray struggles to keep up.

This puzzling effort from Doug Pray, most notably the director of two near-brilliant documentaries (the semi-obscure 1996 music movie Hype! and 2008’s acclaimed Surfwise) and a mediocre one sandwiched between (Scratch from 2001), broadly concerns the world of advertising in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In fact, the broad regard Art & Copy has for its subject may be the film’s greatest weakness, as it keeps the film from developing any sort of engaging through-line. One can stomach a film boasting offensive ideals and politics (and Errol Morris has made of career out of providing a forum to nauseating interview subjects) if the filmmaker manages a worthwhile form of execution or compelling argument. But this is a mixture of talking head interviews organized around no discernible narrative constraint, accompanied by frustratingly tangential urban tableaux with common-knowledge statistics pasted over them (ones concerning how much advertising the average American is exposed to in a given day, the cost of Super Bowl ads, etc.). The film bores on a narrative level and infuriates thematically.

Pray’s admiration for these soulless hucksters is alarming for a director whose first (and still best) film Hype! hilariously mulled the countless transgressions of corporate media and ad agencies while they disrupted and poisoned the once-vibrant Seattle music scene during Grunge Mania in the early 1990’s. Almost two decades removed from that debut, Pray has since evolved a dispiritingly amorous relationship with the very mechanisms he’d already convincingly dismantled with nothing more than a genial wit and a keen ear for his subjects’ emblematic commentary. All of that’s gone now, he’s sided definitively with Goliath, and it’s a bit ironic that this, his least appealing film, both visually and structurally, should focus on a business intent upon using images and tight narrative patterns successfully and aggressively in pursuit of profit.

In its strained-smile awkwardness, Art & Copy often resembles a touchy-feely corporate training video wherein ad execs promote a “creative/corporate lifestyle” that their graphic design flunkies can hope to obtain eventually, should their desperate salesmanship and unscrupulousness never falter. The attempts by the executives (several former longhairs) to masquerade their contradictory vocation as mere paradox are laughable, and the human interest subsections of the film in which they share the moments in which great ads occurred to them, or bureaucratic obstacles were overcome (casting themselves, the creatives, as puny Davids against the gray flannel Goliath) are reprehensible. Advertising junkies may swoon over the discourse, but those infuriated by the constant erosion of public space in favor of mega-budgeted ad campaigns will experience little but insult after insult.

The notion of advertising’s inherent “creativity” is proposed again and again, and the figures (with no objection from the doe-eyed Pray) each fancy him- or herself equal parts artist and entertainer. That each truly works as glorified salesmen is a fact buried deep within insipid personal narratives but never manages to reach the surface. Midway through the film we are privy to commentary on the transition from utilitarian advertising through the 1950s, which told audiences what the thing was and what it did, to a modern, smarter, graphics-infused form that sought to show and not tell, and thus inspire consumers to emotion response. The first half of the twentieth century’s ad men needn’t be celebrated either, but their craft was a little less shrill and definitely less pervasive than that of their progeny. The implication here is that selling things is so natural an endeavor that it hardly needs to be named in this context, thus its exclusion from the proceedings. The illusion of modern advertising is that it’s not selling, it’s providing. Providing entertainment, motivation, beauty, emotional stimulus, visions of celebrities, music, a sense of community and inspiration.

With such a promising resume, it’s flabbergasting that Pray would dedicate an entire film to the veneration of what’s become a social menace. We’re meant to wait, sweating it out with bated breath, as they unspool the story of our most famous television clips, as though such backstage intrigue is somehow informative, inspiring or interesting. Detailing the process behind any industry or operation can generate interest (Georges Franju captured the beauty and terror of slaughterhouses in Le Sang des Bêtes, the Canadian documentary series How It’s Made turns syrup making into riveting spectacle, and the legendary Frederick Wiseman is apt to dedicate four or more hours to public housing offices or state legislatures), but the tenor of Art & Copy’s wonk narratives is disconcertingly grandiose. A similarly pitched documentary concerning the herculean effort to construct a similarly offensive product, like gasoline or shotguns, would be met with fierce resistance and accusations of corporate collusion on the part of the filmmakers. Speaking of which, sapping the film of its objectivity and independence of thought is the fact that the “original concept” for the film is credited to Gregory Beauchamp and Kirk Souder, the two founders of an advertising firm called Ground Zero (they also serve as executive producers). In light of this involvement, what else could one expect but a sterling portrait of the industry, Mad Men on Mad Men? How have we come to view advertising so innocuously? (5)

Pray offers us pristine examples of what we’re really talking about when we talk about an emergent “creative class”: mediocre art school alumni, sell-outs, burnouts and opportunists, who now design pretty methods of psychological manipulation on a mass scale and call it art. Pray cursorily opens up an ethical debate at picture’s end, but with no outside interference, the lunatics are left to police themselves at the asylum. The few times any of the myriad ill-effects of their vocation are voiced, any marketing malfeasance is quickly deemed “bad advertising,” and the conversation continues without a missed beat. “Bad advertising,” they all seem to be saying, is like pornography: they know it when they see it, and its distinguishing feature is a paucity of creativity when compared to the good guys providing us with the good advertisements. The thinking here goes: the business of selling and marketing is not itself crass, the corruption of public spaces isn’t a lamentable loss and tampering with children's education (all tangible effects of ad culture) is not itself a bad thing, but they become so in the hands of those lacking proper decorum. To treat an ethical and social question entirely in terms of aesthetics feeds an industry-wide delusion that’s spread beyond marketing boardrooms and into the mindset of a good chunk of the American people.

Art & Copy / USA / 2009 / Color / 89 min. / Directed by Doug Pray / “Original Concept” by Gregory Beauchamp and Kirk Souder, “Narrative Consultant” Timothy J. Sexton / Interview Subjects: Lee Clow, Jim Durfee, Cliff Freeman, Jeff Goodby, David Kennedy, George Lois, Hal Riney, Mary Wells, Phyllis K. Robinson and Dan Wieden

Notes:

1 - To further illustrate the lack of artistic wherewithal of the Levi’s campaign, Whitman’s poem was itself written “in opposition to the commercial and material culture of America and the aggressively capitalist spirit of the time,” according to Betsy Erkkila in her book:

Whitman the Political Poet. New York: Oxford UP, 1989

The power of Whitman’s invocation arises from his belief in an America whose future lay outside corporate strictures. This power is unsurprisingly, unforgivably utilized to commercial ends, and the head spins at the dialectic possibilities therein.

2 - A similar commercial, in color, features Whitmans “O Pioneers!” on its soundtrack. It lacks the startling beauty and wistfulness of the “America” spot, but it suffers from the same problems still. That the tone and imagery are strikingly similar despite a change in directors (the “O Pioneers” spot was helmed by M. Blash, whose debut feature was 2006’s Lying) would indicate that the true author of both pieces is Wieden + Kennedy as a firm, not either filmmaker as an artist.

3 - The fact that many of our premiere filmmakers (David Fincher, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Errol Morris, Wes Anderson and even David Lynch) have either gotten their start in advertising (the three former) or used it to pay the bills or as an outlet for short filmmaking (the three latter) ought to be upsetting, though it doesn’t seem to offend most. There is no real distribution of short films in this country, and the use of short films on television and in cinemas (as is done in other countries), might alleviate some of the pressure filmmakers experience to make advertisements. Possibly in the future we can look to OnDemand and Internet distribution as a way for filmmakers to create short work (a viable art form when not under the influence of multinationals) and not starve.

4 - This refers to the denial-plagued family combating charges of child molestation in Andrew Jarecki’s gripping Capturing the Friedmans (2003), and the execution-equipment engineer turned holocaust-denial poster child in Errol Morris’ Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr (1999).

5 - Pray confusingly states his own ambivalence about advertising practices in an odd, contradictory interview at: http://blog.spout.com/2009/01/22/doug-pray-interview-art-copy-sundance-2009/. His ambivalence could have benefited the film, had he taken it with him into the editing room.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES (TURN AND FACE THE STRAIN)

Body Modification as Spiritual/Aesthetic Renewal in Jason Gary and Greg Jacobson’s documentary, Modify

Modify is a compelling, if one-sided, expose on the increasingly extreme nature of body augmentation and the lifestyles that have sprung up around the practice. Unfortunately for those seeking a worthy narrative (though fortunately for those accustomed to the Youtube Shuffle), it’s more interesting as a gallery of harrowing surgical procedures, liberated self-hood, performance footage and archival curios than as a coherent history of the movement or libertarian argument against those who’d police or disparage it. Interview subjects include a man transforming himself (as far as current technological ingenuity allows) into a tiger via an artificial cleft lip and metal studs in place of whiskers, as well as a handful of industry pioneers who’ve innovated techniques for implants (horns, studs, and various geometric shapes submerged underneath the skin in various locations around the body) and genital piercings. Segments explaining these complex (often ingenious) procedures are of greatest interest: the image of a man splayed across an examination chair, inserting tiny metal balls into his own shaft is not easily forgotten. While it’s nice for those normally offered as colorful extras in film and television to be given a platform for public self-definition, there isn’t much in the way of balance; the filmmakers continually swat at an oppressive status quo that registers as far too distant to create genuine tension. It’s the film’s glaring weakness that its earnest philosophical and aesthetic claims lack polemical depth.

Modify / USA / 2005 / Color / 85 min. / Directed by Jason Gary and Greg Jacobson/ Interview Subjects: Dr. Gary Alter, Allen Falkner, Dr. Julio Garcia, Steve Haworth, Masuimi Max, Fakir Musafar and Erik ‘The Lizard Man’ Sprague

RECLAIMING THE HAMBURGER

Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan mine the catacombs of American Agriculture in Food, Inc.

This documentary detailing the coup by which Big Business overtook the American diet does an admirable job in presenting an easily digestible history of agro-business, following characters both tragic (the grieving mother-turned-food-advocate whose son was killed by tainted hamburger) and comic (an organic, free-range farmer fond of non sequiturs) as it attempts to persuade audiences to re-commandeer their eating habits and restore a healthier, more ethical method of sustenance in the national culture.

Executive produced by Eric Schlosser, author of the classic Fast Food Nation, and with Michael Pollan (of Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food fame) acting as special consultant (both appear extensively as interview subjects and narrators), the film has a substantial pedigree, prominently featuring two of the most visible crusaders for the betterment of the American digestive system. And the natural/healthy foods movements could not have better spokespersons: both men are cool-headed and impassionate in their presentation, as well as exhaustive researchers and unequivocal, plain speakers. That Schlosser is seen devouring a hamburger (“Still my favorite meal,” he says) in the first half hour of the film goes a long way toward dispelling notions of elitism on the part of the filmmakers and their subjects. If anything, the work of Pollan, Schlosser and director Robert Kenner is one of outraged populism, and, unlike the work of Michael Moore, just may be effective in changing minds. Their persistence is never offensively articulated, their confidence is always unwavering and their scholarly insights unimpeachable. With a bit of luck, the other columns of the green movement will unearth similarly engaging and effective figureheads instead of relying on automakers and oil companies to bring a diluted version of their message to the public. They may be short on answers, but at this point the asking of their questions is a worthy enough achievement.

However brilliant its two guides, the film itself suffers from hyperextension, as it fails in truly ruminating on each of its proposed topics. Divided into upsettingly brief chapters, the film surveys a riveting amount of material, but merely skims the surface in most of its presentations. Covering everything from immigrants’ rights to federal oversight and the history of McDonalds, the through line of the film is the rise of multinational corporations and the increasingly nefarious tactics they’ve employed to keep us hooked on the shit they serve while keeping us out of the kitchen. Lawsuits, lobbying and loopholes in immigration policy all contribute to the maintenance of the stronghold that multinational food manufactures hold on the chain of food from the field to the table. That this is the subject of a (semi-)major American motion picture is nothing short of heroic, even if the digital effects employed throughout (an unflattering byproduct of Moore Syndrome) are annoying, the basic decency of the work is unquestionable. If mildly clever digital cartoons (including businessmen on a conveyor belt being ratcheted ominously toward Ma and Pa’s farm) make the difference between Joe Six Pack seeing the movie or staying home, then it would be foolish to say they detract from the film itself. They may annoy, but they do not undermine the message.

Those familiar with the written work (or video lectures and interviews) of Schlosser and Pollan may not find much new here, but Food, Inc. functions well as a square-one document, providing enough information and gung-ho spirit for audiences to leave the theater equipped and primed for action. Fittingly, as the film closes, a series of titles implore audiences to act by shopping at farmer’s markets, eating foods in season and contacting their legislators. This section embodies both the virtue and the flaw of the entire enterprise: the zippy graphics swirl, drop, fade and disappear text across the screen like an eager PowerPoint presentation yet convey useful, pressing information. Could be worse, considering the precedent set by Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock in the past decade, in which the documentary feature has been the most popular and lucrative that it’s ever been. The braying of their contemporaries only underscores how valuable the practiced oratory of Schlosser and Pollan is to the effectiveness of the film.

As with most recent agitprop documentaries, the best Food, Inc. can do is inspire audiences to pursue a more thorough familiarity with the subject via literature or political involvement and consequently become activists in their own right. A documentary like this pleads for its own irrelevance, and rightfully so.

Food, Inc. / USA / 2008 / Color / 94 min. / Directed by Robert Kenner