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Inequality for All (2013)
A film that should be mandatory viewing for all citizens
Robert Reich's Inequality for All is an accessible primer on the motion of our nation's socioeconomic barometer over the past century. Together with a range of anecdotal human interest stories, he effectively uses statistical data to show how the country's economic health has waxed and waned over the years, who has benefited and who has not, and just how extreme the concentration of wealth has become over the past 30 years.
At the top of the economic mountain, the 400 richest people in the country have recently accrued the same measure of wealth as the poorest 150 million (i.e., nearly half the country). This extreme concentration of wealth endangers our society by making too much money available for risky speculation (e.g., the stock market crash of 1929 and the mortgage-backed derivatives crash of 2008), producing less tax revenue for government operations (because most of the rich's income is taxed at the much lower "capital gains" rate) as well as making government vulnerable to the exclusive interests of the richest people. For an example of the latter, half a century ago there were 26 income tax brackets, reaching up at least into the middle ranks of the upper class, but now there are only 7. Ronald Reagan presided over the elimination of the higher brackets, thereby generating a huge windfall for the richest that has failed to "trickle down" to the rest of us.
Through a series of graphs, Reich shows the correlation between the current, growing concentration of wealth and the rise of global capitalism, the decline of labor unions, tax law manipulation, the off-shoring of capital and jobs, political polarization, and plain old greed. The average CEO in Reagan's day made about 40X the average worker's salary; that factor has now grown to about 400X. Unlike corporate executives, most of us don't get to determine our own level of compensation.
Reich briefly mentions the favorite red herring of conservative media, which is to incessantly attack government as the root of all evil, while never talking about how the actions of members of the private sector upper class are impoverishing the country, nor how impotent government has become in the face of multinational corporatism. I wish he had said more about this, because it is a major point of misunderstanding for many people.
He also never specifically mentions the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act during the late '90's - an event that paved the way for the crash of 2008. The repeal was driven by the Republican-controlled Congress during Bill Clinton's second term (Clinton had no choice but to sign the bill or else face a Congressional veto override).
But aside from those minor criticisms, overall, this film is a well-organized, fact-based survey of the topic, one that will make many people's jaws drop when they realize how extreme the economic continuum has become, from hyper-rich citizens like hedge fund managers making $4 Billion a year, to working-class parents with children, fighting like hell to keep their heads above water without health insurance nor any prospect for owning a home or saving for retirement.
Another manifestation of inequity is the slow erosion of our public infrastructure - utilities, roads, bridges, schools, transit systems, etc., while U.S. corporations and entrepreneurs hold trillions of dollars of revenue offshore in untaxed accounts. In prior generations, a significant portion of that sequestered capital would have been invested to sustain the "commonwealth." The present extreme inequity is breathtaking, and as Robert Reich infers in his curiously upbeat manner, if we don't change the vector we're on, the prognosis for our society is disturbing.
Revolutionary Road (2008)
Revolutionary Road: a film about Narcissistic Personality Disorder
I haven't read the book Revolutionary Road, but from the reviews I have read, it is apparently about conformity, suburban life, marriage and the search for identity in 1950's America, and the effect that the social norms of the time had on people's psyches. Revolutionary Road the film, however, seems to go beyond a story about socio-psycho-dynamics and cross over into the world of full-blown psychological disorder.
As portrayed by Kate Winslet, April Wheeler is not merely a middle-class housewife suffering from "suburban existential angst" or struggling to find her identity; she is someone afflicted with severe Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and through the course of the film, exhibits many of the classic traits. Here's a list of NPD traits from Wikipedia:
1. a grandiose sense of self-importance 2. a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love 3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique 4. requires excessive admiration 5. has a sense of entitlement 6. is interpersonally exploitative 7. lacks empathy 8. is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her 9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
More than just a period piece, the film Revolutionary Road can be viewed as an indictment of narcissism.
Early in the film, we see that April greatly desires to be an actress, but her acting debut is so disastrous that even she realizes that she has no talent and no future in the theater. Yet she clings to her elitist, entitled self-image as the years go by, without any apparent basis for thinking so. (Our society will tolerate pathological narcissism in our celebrities, of course, but not among the ranks of the talent-less.)
In reality, April is an isolated person with a distant, un-empathetic relationship with both her husband and her children. She can only relate to people who buy into her grandiose self-image, like her neighbors Shep and Milly Campbell. She eventually concocts a desperate, irrational plan to move to Paris to achieve something of distinction, in her mind, in order to bolster her flagging self-image.
Her husband Frank is also a narcissist, but his case is milder, lacking April's pathology. Frank is passive, and basically a lazy person; he "goes with the flow" in most of his life's dealings, including taking a boring job at the firm his dad worked at. He generally accommodates April's narcissism because it entertains him and feeds into his own vaguely-defined self-fantasy. As he goes through the motions of his life, even his affair with an office worker seems like a nonchalant diversion from ever-encroaching tedium and ennui.
A clue to April and Frank's narcissism is the furniture-like role played by their children. April and Frank are not loving parents; they're self-involved people that seem incapable of love.
Only John, the mental patient son of real estate agent Helen Givings (Kathy Bates), had the gall to expose Frank and April's delusions to devastating effect.
Frank and April are not the only psychologically-challenged characters in the film. Helen Givings is a narcissistic and neurotic basket case (it is no wonder that her son is a mental patient), making it up as she goes along, instantly revising her history with Frank and April when it becomes necessary to maintain her own fragile self-image and hollow values.
In the final scene, we witness Helen's husband Howard's method for coping with his wife's exorbitant self-indulgence: he simply turns down his hearing aid. In this closing scene, as Howard's eyes glaze over, the film restates it's core theme: that narcissism takes a heavy toll, both on the narcissist, and the lives of the people they touch.
Microcosmos (2003)
Beautiful Cinematography
I was so impressed with this film. The sharp and crystal-clear footage of a wide array of insects was arresting. The lighting was just beautiful.
Although the subjects of the film will be automatically off-putting to many people, somehow, the makers of this film imbued these bugs with personalities and attractive qualities that made it captivating. I wasn't expecting the humor and the drama.
The section in which various insects fastidiously clean themselves - washing their many little "hands" and grooming their beautiful wings - was fascinating.
And then there's the scene in which two snails make slow, tender, sensuous love over a field of lush, green grass, accompanied by romantic opera music. That scene alone was worth the price of admission!
Toward the end there were a few scenes that seemed a bit repetitious, but it is a minor complaint.
p.s. I found this on Netflix.