What a better way to start the Sydney Film Festival than with a packed morning screening of Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth in the magnificent State Theatre? Armed with a media pass, a skinny cappucino, and my already heavily-thumbed program guide, I found a seat near the front and studiously took in Al Gore's lecture on global warming.
Made up mostly of Gore's slick multimedia lecture, a talk given by the ex-future-president-of-the-United-States in over 1,000 cities worldwide, this documentary is really a 90-minute public service announcement on the perils of climate change. Or at least it could have been under a government committed to the issue.
A brilliant exercise in scientific vulgarisation, the lecture manages to convey shocking truths, alarming warnings, and sensible solutions in a manner both didactic and entertaining. Gore has been a crusader on the subject of climate change since the early seventies. Adding to his natural authority is a level of access only afforded to politicians of his stature (who else can matter-of-factly say "I went under the ice cap in a nuclear submarine and surfaced at the North Pole. This is what we saw..."). He comes across not only as an informed and dedicated advocate for change, but as a charismatic politician who, when he won the popular vote but was cheated out of the U.S. presidency, missed an opportunity to attempt change on a truly global scale.
The lecture is interrupted several times by footage of Gore doing his research, flying around the world to attend conferences, and visiting the farm where he grew up. These interludes also delve into Gore's private life, examining how life-changing events — such as his son's accident and his sister's death from lung cancer — informed his political conscience. Though overly sentimental, these episodes provide a clever connection between the political and the personal, using the best Hollywood techniques to tug at the heartstrings and bring home the message of individual responsibility.
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Article comments
1 - Joe
You didn't watch this film with 2,000 open-minded and responsive citizens, you watched with a bunch of tree huggin' liberals with rose-colored reality-denial glasses firmly affixed. Cheated out of the presidency? Kyoto? Ex-future-president? Geesh. He's presenting this farce in 1000 cities worldside - do you think he's traveling coach to preserve the environment? Not a chance.
2 - Bryan McKay
How does traveling coach preserve the environment, pray tell? The first-class compartments don't consume more fuel than the rest of the plane.
3 - Joe
It does when it's just you and your entourage. Gore certainly isn't gonna rub elbows with the peons. Like when he endorses the Prius but rides in his wife's limo.
4 - Josh M
Great film; not about politics, it's about the potential destruction of our environment and...i am not a tree hugger, i own a land rover.
5 - eric
I agree with you, although Joe does have some valid points. But it's difficult to argue that Gore is only "preaching to the choir" so to speak, because that would assume that no one's mind has been changed because of having seen the movie. Having read hundreds of reviews online, good and bad, my personal unscientific observation is that people are having eye-opening experiences from attending AIT.
In short, yes, it is a problem that those who should see this film are the ones most likely to resist it. But now there is a site called Share The Truth ( sharethetruth.us ), that is offering to pay admission for anyone who is skeptical or hesitant about the film. If nothing else, it encourages those inspired by it to say "It's free for you, so go watch it already!"
Share The Truth just launched, but already people have been offering tickets in the forum. One dad took his son to see it and, though he was originally blase about it, he ended up being so inspired that now he's wanting to pay back the money he was given to go see it in the first place!
That's taking action. If everyone does that, we won't need "rose-colored, reality-denial glasses" as much any more.
Anyway, please consider publicizing http://sharethetruth.us to your readers and friends. Thank you!
Eric Pan
P.S.: I've heard that Al Gore, like An Inconvenient Truth, are carbon-neutral because credits have been purchased to offset their emissions. It's not ideal, but Gore's gotta travel somehow, and one could argue that the information he spreads is worth the cost of a few people's emissions. Arguing he's a hypocrite for burning fossil fuels becomes somewhat shaky if we recognize that in this day and age, we ALL burn fossil fuels, and it's more about how we use the energy we use effectively, not about the fact that we have to use it.