The Corporation
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Corporation |
| Original title | The Corporation |
| Country of production | Canada |
| original language | English , Spanish |
| Publishing year | 2003 |
| length | 144 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mark Achbar , Jennifer Abbott |
| script | Joel Bakan , Harold Crooks , Mark Achbar |
| production | Mark Achbar , Bart Simpson |
| music | Leonard J. Paul |
| camera |
Mark Achbar , Rolf Cutts , Jeff Koffman , Kirk Tougas |
| cut | Jennifer Abbott |
| occupation | |
| |
The Corporation is a Canadian documentary from the year 2003 . The film analyzes the behavior of large companies in business life. He comes to the conclusion that such companies usually meet all the criteria for a psychopath if evaluation standards were applied to human behavior. In addition, it is shown that such a comparison is definitely justified - because companies as legal persons are for the most part legally equated with people ( natural persons ). One of the essential aspects of the film is that large companies only pursue their own interests and in principle do not take into account the interests of other people - especially people. The film was written by legal scholar Joel Bakan and produced by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott .
action
The film analyzes the actions of large companies from the point of view that they are legally “persons”, in this case legal persons - however, according to the film, this has only been done since the end of the 19th century when the Supreme Court was the highest court the United States granted business enterprises as legal persons the same rights as humans as natural persons . This legal construction has since prevailed almost worldwide. For the actual development of the legal instrument, see Legal person , for the situation in the United States on which the film is based, see United States Company Law .
On this basis, the filmmakers then analyzed the actions and behaviors of a number of real large corporations ( corporations ) in a way as if they were actually human beings, using the DSM-IV used by doctors and psychologists to assess the psychological state of a patient - Guidelines served as a yardstick. Only activities of well-known companies that had actually happened and were documented by media reports, mainly from the USA, were evaluated, with the result that all corporations examined - viewed as human - fulfilled the criteria of the most severe mental disorders. Robert D. Hare , professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and FBI advisor, interviewed for the film , concluded that a profit-driven corporation would be clinically equivalent to a psychopath .
Searching for the causes of this circumstance, the film provides a brief historical outline of the history of entrepreneurial legal forms, with the result that the development of the irresponsible behavior documented in the film began with the replacement of the entrepreneur personally liable for his company by the anonymous corporation, in which nobody is really liable for the actions of the company as a whole.
Other topics include: Smedley Butler and the 1933 coup against Franklin D. Roosevelt ; the privatization of Bolivia's urban water supply by the Bechtel Corporation in 2000 and the resulting protests in Cochabamba .
The film also contains interviews with prominent capitalism critics such as Noam Chomsky , Naomi Klein , Michael Moore , Vandana Shiva and Howard Zinn on the one hand, but also opinions from well-known managers such as Ray Anderson , as well as positions from Peter Drucker , Milton Friedman and other proponents of the free market economy on the other like the Fraser Institute . Furthermore, Samuel Epstein Company Monsanto interviewed that the controversial growth hormone Posilac sales, to increase the milk production.
Background information
The film was shot in Celebration (Florida) and Vancouver (Canada).
The documentary was broadcast worldwide on television as a three-part series and is available on DVD. In addition, the original English version can be downloaded free of charge and legally via the BitTorrent network. The documentation is also available on Youtube with German subtitles.
Reviews
The Economist magazine, known to be very business-friendly, wrote of the film: “Both camps in the globalization debate should pay attention. The Corporation is a surprisingly rational and intelligent attack on the most important institution of capitalism. "
Awards (selection)
- In 2003, Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott took third place in the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival .
- In 2003, The Corporation was named Most Popular Canadian Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival .
- In 2004 Jennifer Abbott and Mark Achbar won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival .
- In 2005 the film won a Genie Award for best documentary.
literature
- The end of the corporations: The self-destructive power of companies ( ISBN 3-203-75543-2 ) is the name of the book that Bakan wrote during the filming (American original ISBN 0-7432-4744-2 ). There he also makes proposals on how the power of corporations should be limited.
Web links
- Official website with the possibility to watch the film
- The Corporation in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Interview with the director and press review
- The Corporation atRotten Tomatoes(English)
Individual evidence
- ^ The Economist, et al. a. ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
