Holding big business to account

By CATHERINE HARRIS


The producer of Michael Moore's blockbuster Fahrenheit 9/11 has been on the phone to Mark Achbar, indicating his interest in Achbar's next project.

Problem is, the Canadian film-maker hasn't got another movie lined up yet. He's too busy promoting his film The Corporation.

He laughs when asked why he chose big business as his topic. "I thought, 'What would make a really commercial feature documentary? Let me think now'."

Yet the movie has enjoyed critical and box-office success. Tracing the history of the corporation, Achbar and his co-creators Joel Bakan and Jennifer Abbott take the viewer on a journey that tackles privatisation, pollution, free trade, patents and sweatshops.

There are interviews with 42 chief executives, business professors, marketers, industry heads and even a corporate spy.

The film contends that the corporation has replaced the church and monarchy as society's dominant institution; reveals that a corporation is legally regarded as a "person" in the United States; and uses a psychiatric checklist to conclude corporate behaviour is the same as a psychopath's.

Achbar draws a distinction between big business and business per se. His targets are the likes of Nike, Shell, Monsanto and other corporate giants that are "tougher to hold to account" than smaller businesses.

He defends the film against those who would label it an anti-business tirade, or heavily slanted - a criticism sometimes made of Michael Moore.

"I think it's the duty of documentary film-makers to take a critical perspective and I think films, you'll often find, are made to a large degree in opposition to mainstream presentations of a certain issue. You watch the TV enough and you think all there is is corporations doing good in the world."

Achbar feels his film is fair to "the opposition".

"I guess ours is a little different in its 'crusading-ness' in that we're not out to get the individuals. They weren't ambushed interviews, we didn't run up to people in parking lots and expect them to talk to us off-guard.

"People sat down quite consciously in front of our cameras, they were given an opportunity to correct themselves, or repeat an answer if they weren't satisfied with the previous answer, so it was done perhaps more in collaboration with our subjects in an attempt to define the nature of this institution and how it impacts on all of us and how it impacts on them as individuals."

He was particularly impressed with the honesty of some of his subjects. Sam Gibara, former chief executive of the world's biggest tyre company, Goodyear, admits on film that if they could follow their personal inclinations, CEOs would often act differently.

Other interviewees include Michael Moore and left-wing author Noam Chomsky. The latter was the subject of Achbar's other major co-directorial effort, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media.

Usually, Achbar says, he is filming short films or playing multiple roles in other people's movies. The Corporation began life in 1997, long before the corporate scandals of Enron and Worldcom, when Achbar met law professor Joel Bakan at a funeral.

"He wanted to write a book and I wanted to write a film," he notes.

The topic went right against the grain at the time. "CEOs were cultural heroes at the time, and the stock market was absolutely booming."

But in the wake of anti-globalisation protests and Enron, the film has gone on to win 20 film festival awards.

It become the highest grossing Canadian feature documentary ever - a box office take of C$1.6 million ($1.9 million) - and has had a successful run in the United States.

Corporate reaction so far has been muted. "We're in the clear, so far, in the realm of lawsuits. The film is quite carefully constructed. Joel himself is a law professor. Truth still is a defence."

And support has come from unlikely sources. The Wall St Journal gave the movie a favourable review, the Economist disagreed with the conclusion "but couldn't fault the analysis" and Forbes magazine reviewers gave it between three and four out of four stars.

Most gratifying to Achbar was the knowledge that business schools are planning to integrate the film into their MBA courses.

Achbar has a theory as to why his film has enjoyed relative success.

"I have a feeling that part of the explanation is the narrowing of what people are able to get in the mainstream media, and especially on TV.

"I think there is so much unreality in the so-called reality programming that people are really craving an alternative analysis with some substance, and if they're not getting it on their TV sets they're going to go pay for it at a movie theatre."

It's unlikely to escape keen moviegoers that Achbar shares producing credits with one Bart Simpson. A glimpse of humour in this otherwise serious film?

"That's his real name! He's been working with me for five years."

And, Achbar notes, thinking of the channel that owns The Simpsons: "It'll be even funnier if Fox shows our film."

On screen

*What: The Corporation

*Where and when: Village, Hoyts, opens today



- NZPA