The talk and the film are made to convince, thus excluding any other opinion or perspective save those voiced or quoted by Al Gore. Those expecting the film to encapsulate the whole debate will predictibly be irked or even outraged, but from Vietnam docs in the '70s to the Michael Moores of recent years, we also know the value of presenting one side's opinion in the most accessible of manners. It's also inevitable that covering such a vast subject in such a short time is an exercise in issue simplification. The sexy graphics and cute animations do serve Gore and Guggenheim's mission well: they raise awareness of the topic by making it understandable to a wide audience.
Gore mentions at one point that what is unusual is not that he is touring with his lecture, but rather that he was priviledged to be shown the facts at an early age. With Guggenheim's film, he transfers the priviledge and the responsibility to us as an audience.
The collective act of taking in this information translated in a real civic buzz, which could be felt up and down the aisles. Many booed and hissed loudly at our invisible leaders, for example, when Gore mentioned that Australia is the only other developed nation to refuse ratification of the Kyoto treaty. In this respect, watching this film with 2,000 open-minded and responsive citizens was a unique and invigorating cinema-going experience.
As a documentary, An Inconvenient Truth is not particularly original or groundbreaking, but as a way to push a political agenda into the spotlight and spark an international public debate, it is possibly unrivalled.
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.