As the cameras follow the movements of an unnamed consumer, we see packages purposely arranged at the feet of an apartment house doorman. The boxes prominently display the logo, "The Corporation." Moving along the street, a new music CD is being discussed by people paid to promote it in their conversation. The CD is emblazoned with the logo, "The Corporation." And when the anonymous protagonist opens the door of the refrigerator at his office, he finds it stocked with a new brand of bottled water, the label bearing the now-familiar logo, "The Corporation."
The point here is obvious. Corporations and their dominant, often domineering, place in modern society are omnipresent. Consumers, conditioned by the sheer scale of corporate advertising, might miss this point. But the film-making team of "The Corporation" is not about to let ignorance equal bliss.
"The Corporation" is the joint effort of Canadian filmmaker Mark Achbar and Joel Bakan, a law professor at the University of British Columbia. Achbar co-directed the film with Jennifer Abbot. Bakan is the author of the film script and companion book, called The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power.
Curiously, the impetus for the film/book venture began at a chance meeting in 1997, two years before the riots in Seattle against the World Trade Organization. The U.S. economy was in high gear, countries of the former Communist bloc were embracing the principles of capitalism, and plunging stock prices seemed a distant memory. Bakan, however, was already planning a book on corporations while Achbar was interested in making a documentary about economic globalization. As events like the Seattle riots and the Enron scandal unfolded, Achbar and Bakan's sense of timing looked, in hindsight, to be inspired.
The film and book versions of "The Corporation" are closely related in theme and presentations.
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