An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary about Al Gore’s quest to bring knowledge of global warming to light in as broad a spectrum as possible. The documentary is comprised of two parts, basically. One segment follows Al Gore and his personal journey as to how he arrived at his positions on global warming, covering some of his defining moments throughout his political and personal life and establishing their impact on his character. The other segment of the film is presented as an informational piece on global warming, with Al Gore giving a presentation to an auditorium. Both segments are presented at the same time throughout the film by jumping back and forth intermittently.
The informational aspect of the film is effective, using real scientific data to present the facts about global warming in astonishingly real formats. Unlike many other superior documentaries, however, the opinions of the experts are not expressed by the experts but rather simply by Al Gore. Instead of utilizing varying points of view on the topic and bringing in scientists or other experts in the field, we are left with Gore’s presentation of the facts through various charts and graphs. This makes certain segments of the film rather tedious and does remove some of the potential for effectiveness, despite the subject matter’s glaring obviousness.
Global warming is very real and is very much a problem. We all need to do our part, but this is a film review, not a critique on global warming. An Inconvenient Truth lacks the presentation of the science in any real scientific way and we are, instead, lead through a veritable whirlwind of graphs and charts, with very little expert testimony. Other documentaries, such as the amazing The Corporation, utilize a combination of experts and interesting testimony to present their subject. The lack of interesting varied testimony makes An Inconvenient Truth feel, often, like nothing more than “The Al Gore Show”.
The leaping back and forth through Al Gore’s personal journey reaffirms this point. It often feels like a biopic rather than a warning about global warming, taking some of the actual sting off of the subject matter and replacing it with a personal story. This includes an extensive and useless segment about Al Gore’s crushing loss in the election and a meandering tale that loosely grasps for a connection, using Gore’s tobacco farming experience as an allegory to “slow learners”. If the film was designed to outline the life of Al Gore and highlight his cause (global warming awareness), it would be successful. Instead, the films seems more interested in its speaker than the cause, choosing to glaze over big charts and graphs with Gore’s often-humorous commentary instead of a collection of reputable experts with Gore merely serving as a host.
The structure of the film made much of An Inconvenient Truth distracting. The facts and the figures of the film are, indeed, shocking and require attention. The use of applicable ideas throughout the film’s end credits were great news to those that longed for a practical sense after the presentation, too. There were bright spots and the presentation by Al Gore was well-done, but the film as a whole was often lacking in substance, which is tremendously rare and unexpected for a documentary piece with such important subject matter.
Trailer:
I quite liked this film, their was a good directory on British TV a month ago called the great global warming swindle or some such thing. Have you seen it?
I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard about it.
I am interested in how someone thinks they can debunk the natural science of global warming. From what I know of the detractors, the notion is simply to express that “we aren’t to blame as much as *they* say we are”, rather than to debunk global warming. Also featured in those arguments is the logic that “it’s not so bad”.
Frankly, I find that point of view rather arrogant and pointless, but I am interested in any film that rationally sets it up. I’ll see if I can get my hands on it.
Well, the documentary doesn;t deny or underestimate global warming, it just suggests that human carbon emitions are a very slight factor. It goes as far as to directly attack some of Al Gores points directly.
I’m split on the issue personally. There are respected scientists backing both theories.
I’m fairly certain that the whole “blame game” is really irrelevant and is simply politicking at this point, used as a way for different companies with special interests to divide us on the issue and keep us buying their cars, oil and products. If you fact check a lot of the scientists that try to downplay the significance of human involvement, you’d find that a lot of them have very vested interests.
In other words, it shouldn’t really matter who is to blame at this point. The reason for that is that we need to change things in order to stop this from happening to alarming degrees. It’s just like people to argue about who set the fire while the building burns down, you know?