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Official press poster for Fuel
Summertime in Hollywood is special for those of us who love movies. Every week it seems like a new multi-million dollar blockbuster is released. As of this writing the city is plastered with billboards of two larger-than-life figures, Optimus Prime and Johnny Depp. The major motion picture studios look to cash in during the summer seasons by trying to deliver a great popcorn flick. This is an annual custom as American as baseball and 4th of July fireworks.
While the big studio films will dominate screens across the country as they always have, a new phenomenon has arisen quietly over the past few summer film seasons: the political documentary.
Opinions may differ when the trend started or who started it, but for the purposes of this article let us use the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 as a starting point. The release date was June 23, 2004, five years ago. With a worldwide gross of $222,446,882, the film was an astounding commercial success that dealt with political issues, especially the relationship between aspects of American foreign policy (war) and energy dependence (oil).
The next major success for a documentary was in 2006. Former Vice President Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth highlighted the environmental impact of energy policy, winning two Oscars (including best documentary) in the process. The film is still praised by environmentalists and scorned by climate change deniers to this day. Partisan views on this films will continue to be contentious for some time.
That same summer at the Los Angeles Film Festival, a documentary entitled Who Killed the Electric Car? was screened. This film dealt with the economic factors and special interest groups that saw to the discontinuation of GM’s EV1 (Electric vehicle 1). In hindsight, the film can be viewed as a portent of General Motors future collapse due to its fierce resistance to energy efficient vehicles and its deeply entrenched political relationships with energy companies and allies in government.
Michael Moore came back in 2007 with Sicko, which compared the American health care system to those of Europe and Cuba. While not as big a commercial success as Fahrenheit 9/11, it did raise a number of points about the American health care system and its shortcomings. As the health care debate between the Obama administration and the private insurance companies is currently intensifying, it is clear that this documentary certainly brought the issue to the fore of public debate.
Now the energy debate via the documentary is set to enter the spotlight with the film Fuel. Opening in some markets this June, fuel explicitly deals with America’s energy consumption. From viewing the trailer, the main focal point seems to be on the development of alternative fuels and getting the United States off of its oil dependency. Reviews are in and they are mostly positive. Internet review site Rottentomatoes.com gives the film a respectable 75%. Advocates of alternative energy development would like to see this film raise public awareness of the consequences and repercussions of American energy policy.
Documentary filmmakers are now bringing the energy debate to the fore and trying to instigate change.
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