Friday, January 25, 2013
‘I Am' (2011) directed by Tom Shadyac
I try not to be too much of a cynic, I really do. Snidely pointing out flaws in people’s
arguments, especially when they seem to be a person of principle makes me feel
innately unhappy. I think it’s important
not to prejudge people on their past. So
the director of ‘Ace Ventura’, ‘The Nutty Professor’ and ‘Patch Adams’ wants to tell me about
what’s wrong with the world, and how to fix it.
Fine. I’ll give him a fair
shake. Hell, I like ‘Ace Ventura’
(granted, I haven’t seen it I was 12 but hey).
So I went along to watch ‘I Am’
in Leicester Square
Some background.
A few years ago obscenely rich and successful director Tom Shadyac was
cycling around California
 |
| Tom Shadyac |
Realising that his material possessions weren’t
bringing him happiness he sold his vast Beverley
Hills mansion, donated some of his
fortune to setting up a homeless shelter and moved into a mobile home in Malibu
Fuelled with the characteristic zeal of the new
believer he then set out to try and engender this awakening in a wider
audience. To this effect he’s made ‘I Am’, a documentary that consists of
him travelling around the world meeting intellectuals like Noam Chomsky,
spiritual leaders like Desmond Tutu and new age quacks like Rollin
McCraty. Interspersed with this are vast
amounts of stock footage, the occasional animated explanation of a concept and
the odd bit of film of Tom himself.
 |
| Tom chats to Desmond Tutu |
Let’s leave aside the validity of the philosophy
and message behind ‘I Am’ for a moment and focus on its merits as a piece of
cinema. It is awful. Stock footage is cut
together in a crushingly literal way, so for example when he talks about
loneliness we see a man walking through the desert, when he talks about water
we see a shot of a drop of rain hitting a pond and so on. It’s a numbing exercise in saying what you
see, a cinematic tactic that, ironically in a film about raising consciousness,
stops us from thinking for ourselves.
The meat of the film are the interviews with
various luminaries. These are edited
together in such a way that it’s generally impossible to tell what question
they’re responding to, and suspiciously you hear the audio of their answers
being clumsily chopped together.
Naturally none of the interviewees in the film had any idea what the
other talking heads were saying, so inevitably things get confusingly
juxtaposed, twisting some of the messages.
One of the reasons I was eager to see the film was that Noam Chomsky and
Howard Zinn were involved. I figured
that their involvement with this, signified a certain mark of quality. No such luck.
Chomsky and Zinn’s involvement is minimised, they get perhaps 5 minutes
of screen time. Unfortunately, what’s
concentrated on more is smug, moronic Californian new agers talking utter shite.
‘I Am’ begins
spiralling down this inane rabbit-hole by questioning “the official story” of
science. Shadyac points out that the
scientific consensus has been wrong in the past, so why can’t it be wrong
now? He follows this up with a
half-baked analysis of Charles Darwin, then misunderstands the Selfish Gene
theory. The thrust of the ‘science’ that
Shadyac presents us is to convince us that co-operation and kindness are the
true nature of mankind, rather than (as we are apparently lead to believe)
competition and conflict. To support
this notion, he travels to meet some incredibly dodgy looking characters at places
like ‘The Institute of HeartMath’ and the ‘Institute of Noetic Sciences ’.
These people set out to prove to us that we’re all connected through
various pseudo-scientific ways and therefore we should all be kind and
compassionate.
 |
| Here, we see Tom Shadyac and a petri dish of yoghurt that is detecting his emotions. |
I watched this portion of the film through
gritted teeth. We see Tom Shadyac
talking to a petri dish of yoghurt that can detect his emotions. We hear that the heart can predict events “3
to 5 seconds” in the future and that it might even be the true centre of human
consciousness. We hear about how the
biggest disruption to the human emotional magnetosphere was September 11th,
which had such an impact that random number generators worldwide stopped being
random. Inevitably ‘I Am’ brings quantum
physics into the equation, predictably equating subatomic events to humanity on
a macro scale.
Even if this ‘science’ wasn’t a crock of shit it would still be irrelevant. Why should anyone need scientific justification to act in a humane manner? We are kind
and compassionate not because it’s the logical thing to do, not because we’ve
been convinced of benefits to ourselves, not because there is some ill-defined energy
field connecting us all, but simply because any considerate empathetic human
being finds the needless suffering of living creatures to be repulsive.
‘I Am’ is
especially frustrating because Shadyac has accurately worked out a good chunk
of society’s problems. He’s right when
he decries the never-ending rush to accumulate possessions. He’s right when he points out that a global
economy is a man-made illusion. He’s
right when he shows the problems with raising and educating children in competition
with each other. But his crucial problem
is that he either consciously or unconsciously fails to join the dots. One word is never uttered throughout the
film, the word that’s the root of practically all his problems with modern
society, one word so obvious that it’s the elephant in the room: capitalism.
 |
| Tom in conversation with Oprah Winfrey |
Whether through cowardice or stupidity, Shadyac
avoids directly criticising capitalism for the entire film. Considering the subject of the film is what’s
wrong with the world, it’s an outrageous oversight. I suppose the argument could be made that
politics is inherently divisive, that if ‘I Am’ came right out and said that
capitalism inevitably leads to misery and exploitation then he’d be branded as
anti-American and lose much of his Oprah-friendly audience. But this reeks
of hypocrisy. He’s trapped in a particular
kind of fuzzy Californian liberalism, frantically trying to justify his continued
greedy suckling on the teat of global capitalism. His enlightenment is the most shallow kind of
political awakening, a willingly shortsighted altruism that allows him to act like he’s
a modern Diogenes for downgrading from Midas-like opulence to ‘mere’
luxury.
Throughout ‘I
Am’ we hear about the many ways in which we’re all interconnected with each
other. We hear how inert atoms of argon
pass forever between living organisms, and how the beating of a butterfly’s
wings cause hurricanes and that outpourings of human emotion can even affect
the mood of the earth. Shadyac rides
waves of elation on discovering these universal connections, but ignores the
dark side. We are indeed all connected
to each other, but primarily through inflicting human misery via the developed
first world’s exploitation of third world labour. You want to see a real picture of the
connection you have to the teeming masses worldwide? Take this test and find out how many slaves
work for you to support yours and my cosseted Western lifestyles. I’ve got 26 slaves working to support me. How many do you have?
By ignoring the political implications of his
conclusions, Shadyac has inadvertently created something monstrous; a
philosophy that espouses guilt-free capitalist exploitation. Ironically, in merely seeking to make us feel
better about ourselves rather than pushing for genuine societal change, Shadyac
ends up reinforcing the very chains he’s trying to break. A personal philosophy that concentrates on
disconnected, small acts of kindness in a vast sea of cruelty is the equivalent
of spitting at a hurricane. Ultimately, the impression ‘I Am’ gives is that Shadyac is either
unable or unwilling to conceive of true change in the world, preferring to
swaddle himself in a comforting blanket of pseudo-scientific bollocks than
engage with the consequences of his continued pampered existence.
After the film there was a Q&A with the
director, author Ed Halliwell, writer/comedian Tony Hawks and Director of Communications for 'Giving What we Can' Stephanie Crampin. Tony Hawks was the only person
to come out of this unscathed, politely pointing out some of holes in Shadyac’s
philosophy. Halliwell was a complete
non-entity, afraid to put even the most mildly controversial question to
Shadyac, and Stephanie Crampin was largely ignored, apparently not even warranting
a round of applause at the end even though she was easily the most qualified
person there. Shadyac on the other hand
blathered on endlessly, to the extent where in over an hour’s Q&A there was
only time for 3 questions.
The first was a question about the potential of
technology to bring humanity together.
Shadyac didn’t seem to understand the point of the question, launching
into an extended and rambling response without much content. The second question was less a question, and
more an advert for someone’s prayer based poetry YouTube channel. The third, and most important question was
whether Tom Shadyac would return to making populist comedy films. The answer, predictably, was ‘yes’, although
Shadyac assures us that he’ll take the minimum salary allowed by the Director’s
Guild of America. Naturally, he could take his normal full wage and
donate the difference to some kind of charity, but for some reason this option eludes
him. FYI, the minimum salary for a DGA
director on a major film is $16,797 per
week. Truly, a pittance.
After this some tweets are read, the most
memorable being a comment that tonight is “Rich
people telling poor people that money doesn’t matter”. Shadyac defends this by essentially
explaining that yes, people living in poverty may be starving to death, they may
be riddled with preventable and treatable diseases, they may be harried and hunted
by armed militias, they may have their homes and lifestyles destroyed by
pollution, agribusiness or urban development, they may have horrifying levels
of child mortality, they may be under constant threat of rape and murder but in
a way - in a very real way - aren’t they
the truly rich, and aren’t we the
ones living in poverty? Really makes ya think huh?
In conclusion:
Fuck ‘I
Am’.
Fuck moronic new age bollocks.
And Tom Shadyac, fuck you in particular. Piss off back to your sunny life of
Californian luxury and do what you apparently do best, make films about people
talking out of their arses.
No stars / *****
Tags:
bollocks ,
crappy film ,
documentary ,
film ,
HeartMath ,
Howard Zinn ,
I Am ,
movie ,
Noam Chomsky ,
Noetic Science ,
pseudo science ,
pseudo-science ,
review ,
rubbish ,
Tom Shadyac ,
wank ,
woo woo
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1 Responses to “‘I Am' (2011) directed by Tom Shadyac”
May 5, 2013 at 9:34 PM
Great review. I agree whole heartedly. But Noam Chomsky is just an intellectual Tom Shadyac. Great for articulating problems but never a single sreal solution. A master of the college bull session school of solving the world's problems, then having another pint.
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