Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore and Climate Change
An Inconvenient Truth (2006) won two Academy Awards, and turned former Vice President of the United States Al Gore into an international celebrity.
More importantly, it brought the climate crisis, climate change and global warming to the forefront of our collective consciousness. It also brought to global attention the issue of climate refugees. An Inconvenient Truth is definitely one of the best climate change documentaries that you can watch in our lifetime and is one of the top viewed climate change documentaries on Amazon Prime.
Drawing on his own research, our guest Dr James Lyons shows how director Davis Guggenheim uses performance to dramatically animate risk in the film.
In doing so, does he change the focus, away from climate change? Do the camera lights instead shine more brightly on the former senator from Tennessee, rather than the existential threat facing our planet?
Time Stamps:
00:58 - Introducing the guest and our topic: the animation of risk in modern documentary film
01:45 - Dr James Lyons’ background and work
04:40 - What documentary performance and risk research is about
06:04 - Two documentary films we will be looking at today and why James chose them
08:37 - Synopses of Inconvenient Truth and an Inconvenient Sequel
10:45 - Commentary on Al Gore and his performance as a presidential candidate in 2000
11:50 - Watching the first clip from Inconvenient Truth on climate change
13:10 - Why James chose this clip
15:40 - How the trailers for both films present the risk of climate change and the climate crisis
18:40 - Watching the clip from Inconvenient Sequel on the terrorist attack in Paris in 2015
22:00 - James’ commentary on the clip and why he chose it
25:50 - How Inconvenient Truth is actually about Al Gore and not climate change
27:50 - Trying to keep a documentary on topic, and the influence of performance and risk
30:00 - The beginning of a successful wave of independent documentary filmmaking in America
36:45 - Commentary on James Lyons’ interactive documentary Risk Taker’s Guide
39:20 - Commentary on James’ book and different categories of risk
Resources:
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power (2017)
The Risk Takers Survival Guide
Documentary, Performance and Risk, a book by James Lyons
Free Solo (2018)
Roger And Me (1989)
Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)
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Transcript for Factual America Episode 8 - Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore and Climate Change
You’re listening to Factual America, this podcast is produced by Alamo Pictures, a production company specializing in documentaries, television and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Instagram and Twitter @AlamoPictures, to be the first to hear about new productions, festivals we’re attending and how to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk and now, enjoy Factual America with our host Matthew Sherwood.
Matthew: Welcome to Factual America, a podcast that explores the themes that make America unique through the lens of documentary filmmaking. I’m your host Matthew Sherwood and in each episode it’s my pleasure to interview documentary filmmakers and experts on the American experience.
Today we’re talking about risk, yes, risk, as a society and certainly as American we seem to be quite worried people. We worry about what we eat, the air we breath, the strangers we might meet, I think broadly we’re afraid of succeeding and afraid of not succeeding. So, without further due I want to introduce my first guest here, Doctor James Lyons, he’s associate professor of English at the University of Exeter so, welcome James.
James: Thank you.
Matthew: Those followers at home will notice that we’re speaking of risk we’re shaking things up a little bit, we’re in different studio, we’re coming to you from Soho, in London, England, and we’re gonna change the format slightly, that’s me taking a risk, and the other reason, well I just needed to take a pause to get some breath cause there is a lot to talk about here in terms of Doctor Lyons and your background.
So welcome again, you’re the author of several books and articles, one called Selling Seattle, which the New York Times said is a “visitor opt to read truly understand American cities and regions where they live, work and travel”.
But we’re not talking about that, another article, Think Seattle at globally special commodity, biographies and promotion in place also featured in cultural studies aside that in New York Times, you’re one of the first scholars to analyses Starbucks power as a global brand. But we’re not talking about that either.
So Miami Vice is a book you’ve written, one reviewer describes it as the richest account of a single television program I’ve ever read. We’re gonna have to do a podcast about that some time, but we’re not talking about that, but before I go any further, I have to ask you one question, Crocket or Tubbs?
James: Such a difficult decision, such a difficult decision.
Matthew: A false decision.
James: Yeah. I think so. Always both I think, always both.
Matthew: Always both. That’s true.
James: Yeah.
Matthew: Alright. Research interest, role of a producer, I think we have a chapter American independent producer in the film value chain, we’re not talking about that, although I know Emmett our producer, and Sebastian our executive producer, I think will be very keen to talk to you about this and we’ll have to meet up for a drink sometime.
What we are talking about is your recent research that looks at modes of performances and discourses of risk, explores how some of the most significant recent featured American documentaries use performance to dramatically animate major categories of risk. You’ve done work with Robert Republic about risk in everyday life, you can see that I highly recommend it, you can watch it, it’s at risktakersguide.com winner of the Ramijas, interactive fund award at the Sheffield International doc fest and your latest book, Documentary performance and risk, and again welcome to the show, James.
James: Thank you, thank you, delighted to be here.
Matthew: How do you do all that?
James: Takes a lot of time, takes a lot of time, that’s been done in a number of years, and I’m just working steadily at each project and trying to get it right. [smiling]
Matthew: Reminds me when I was a kid, thus, people back in the States who are old enough to remember this, US postal service has these adverts for people who they like be astronauts and sports players and things like that and then they would ask them, what do you do with your free time for excitement and they go, I collect stamps.
James: [smiling]
Matthew: [smiling] I kind of- so I do wonder what you do with all your free- your amounts of free time. So, again we’re gonna diverge a little- we usually dive in straight away into the films that you’ll be discussing, but, I’m your student, our listeners are your students, performance and risk 101 what is this research about?
James: It’s really a trying to sort of place those three topics or subjects together, so documentary and recent trends in documentaries and specifically area of interest as American independent documentary with the increased prominence of performance within documentary, over recent decades as well. The idea that the performance is becoming such a powerful tool in documentary, particularly commercially successful documentaries that we’re looking for those kind of gripping and compelling performances in front of camera with an examination of risk. And risk is something I’ve been interested in most of my life as a subject, but it’s something that I think has really come to the forefront in terms of how it’s been used to shape some of the most compelling documentaries.
So it’s really an attempt to try to understand how those three things go together. How documentary is performed by some of the major ideas about risk in our society and how often, not always of course, but I think in many of the most successful and interesting instances, harnesses performance to really enable the audience to understand risk to give them a way to kind of see risk in action, I guess, to see risk embodied.
Matthew: And then to illustrate this point we always ask our guest to choose a documentary film, you’ve chosen two, we’ll let you get away with that [smiling]
James: Thank you [smiling]
Matthew: [smiling] You welcome. The first is, well, it’s a biggy, Inconvenient Truth, from 2006, director is David Guggenheim, director of three of the top 100 of the highest grossing docs, of all time, won two Academy Awards, you listeners you probably know it’s best documentary, but who can name the second one, because I’d had no clue. I’ll give a pause while you’re having debates of whom, best original song, had no clue.
James: [smiling]
Matthew: Anyway, and we’re also talking about an inconvenient sequel, so the sequel too and Inconvenient Truth, which came out in 2016. So why did you choose these films?
James: Well, I mean, I think, climate change is, I’ll give you most pressing issue of our time and Inconvenient Truth, the first documentary it was really, I guess the most high profile and important documentary example of that on the big screen. So I think it’s one of the most important and certainly one of the most successful critically acclaimed documentaries of recent decades, certainly the most important to represent climate change. I also think it really speaks clearly to my thesis about performance in risk, I think those are things of absolutely why documentary works and why it is compelling experience for the audience. And Inconvenient sequel, I think I wanted to add, to talk about as well, because I think in many ways, [smiling] as the title applies intends to pretty much following the footsteps of the first documentary. Partly it was made because of the kind of change that Gore was seeking hadn’t happened actually. So that’s why the follow up exists. But also it wasn’t as commercially successful it wasn’t widely seen, and there are lots of reasons, we might get into that about what that is, but it also I think it speaks important ideas and interests in terms of performance and risks as well.
Matthew: Okay. I think to help further illustrate this, I know you’ve also picked some clips first, thank you so much, the first one is very early, right at the beginning of the film, I think roughly around the first thirty seconds and it’s- well actually maybe we can be going into that, maybe you can give us a little synopsis of the films because we assume most people have seen this, but, you know, for those who haven’t.
James: I mean, an Inconvenient Truth was often, sort of, critiqued when it came out because it was Al Gore presenting the slideshow, that have been travelling around, not just America but travelling around the world, presenting this slideshow that he’d being diligently putting together on his MacBook.
Matthew: Yes.
James: And, so, an Inconvenient Truth was, in a sense an opportunity for a wider audience to see that slideshow and to have that experience in a theater. But it cuts together and I think this was a key part for me in terms of my interest as well, was cut together with a series of vignettes, and those vignettes dive into Gore’s thought processes and dive into his past, in his kind of personal recollection of his childhood, the moments when he became really aware of climate change and why that was important, and so it was really how it intercuts those vignettes, and creates the structure. So you have the power point slideshow, and then you have the vignettes and that’s how you’re kind of intersperses those.
Matthew: And I think that if you were doing a pitch to- we say we got this documentary about a guy giving power point slides and we’re gonna talk a little bit about his childhood, you think that would’ve -?
James: [smiling] Absolutely not, absolutely not, and particularly with Gore as well because he had been- I mean obviously he has been controversially unsuccessful presidential candidate, but a lot of the criticism of him on a campaign trail was that he was very stiff, and the idea that his performance was very stuff and so what I thought was really interesting about the documentaries, bringing in this kind of stiffness and how the film actually I think mobilizes that, uses it, very compellingly, he becomes almost like this kind of slow globe. He’s kind of embodies the idea of the planet and has this sort of gravitas. And so that idea of him being kind of this immovable object, if you like, which was a real obviously, a real detrimental impact on the campaign trail. Within a context of a documentary though, that really worked.
Matthew: I think as an aside, cause we’re not gonna be discussing, in terms of these films, it’s not about Gore, but maybe, but we’re gonna get more in that a little bit later. We’re not gonna be talking too much about the environment, but, one thing that struck me and certainly as an American watching this and who had followed the 2000 election quite closely was, why didn’t he channel this, you know, in 2000, he would’ve won, and all the thing I can think of is, he is, I think whatever you think of him, he’s legitimately passionate about this. And I think for all of us as individuals, if you’re passionate about something, it will come across and yes, he is a naturally stiff fella [smiling] but he doesn’t come off as wooden I would say, he believes this, he lives it, and I think that comes across loud and clear.
James: Yes, I absolutely agree with that.
Matthew: Okay, now let’s go see that clip.
Al Gore: You look at that river, gently, flowing by, you notice the leaves, rustling with the wind, you hear the birds, you hear the tree frogs. In the distance you hear a cow. You feel the grass, the mud gives a little bit on the river bank, it’s quiet, it’s peaceful, and all of a sudden, it’s a gearshift inside you, and it’s like taking a deep breath and going [sigh] “oh yeah, I forgot about this”. This is the first picture of the earth from space that any of us has ever saw, it was taken on Christmas Eve 1968, during the Apollo 8 Mission. “… within relatively comfortable boundaries but we are filling up that thin shell of atmosphere with pollution”. [applause]
Matthew: So James, talk to us about that, why did you choose that clip and what is it illustrate about the work you’re doing?
James: Well, I think it’s so much about what makes the documentary successful actually and why the idea of embodiment is so crucial. It’s really about Gore giving this kind of monologue where he’s sort of putting, it’s not the guided imaging CD meditation [smiling] meditation CD rather, was trying to put you in that place, really, by that riverbank, so part of it what’s doing is to really listening to his voice as well and what’s absolutely crucial I think to how that little scene works is, you become very aware of his breath, and the idea of breathing.
Matthew: Which heard him doing during the campaign actually, was the debate where he got a lot of criticism for his sighs and his-
James: [smiling] For his sighs, absolutely. Yeah, but the sighs here are absolutely perfect and they work, and that sighing and that sense of his breath breathing which comes across so powerfully in that sequence, it’s crucial to the language, the film itself, sort of mobilizes that idea of breathing and of course it’s the in paralleled the air that we’re breathing in climate change which is so crucial. And kind of sets up a way in which the film uses that idea of breathing and in paralleled breathing and in different sorts of ways so it’s another scene where is- he talks about his sister Nancy dying from lung cancer and of course that’s again it’s breathing, an in paralleled breathing.
Matthew: The family had a tobacco farm and he-
James: Yes.
Matthew: And he worked on it.
James: Exactly.
Matthew: Sort of- it almost sounds a bit guilt ridden its voice.
James: Yes. Yes of course, he’s very thorn by that, I think. You know there’s some evidence that his campaign or at least some of his campaigning at some points were funded by tobacco money as well.
So clearly he’s conflicted about this. But also there’s a part in the film where he talks about his son being hit by a car. And of course about his kind of in paralleled breathing after this, horrible, risk event. So I think, in terms of how the film is really trying to get us to think about [smiling] in paralleled breathing and in paralleled air, this is the first and I think really powerful way of sort of focusing and seeing on that idea and that sort of trope. And he uses it I think very effectively.
Matthew: And if you don’t mind, I’m going to interject here, just because, I think what- I think this contrast with, we’re not gonna actually play it, but, I do recommend look up both, when you go to watch them, look at the trailers first, because his trailers are just absolutely almost in the other direction, you think you’re about to watch another disaster movie, an action film, certainly the second one, some of the scenes of the Greenland ice fields, it looks like something- you think it’s CGI maybe, I expect Bruce Willis to come in, maybe go and go to the Paris Conference and kick some butt, you know-
James: [smiling]
Matthew: [smiling] But, that’s the way the clips, even the trailers are and then you’re given this- certainly the first one, especially, I would say is a much calmer, just sort of a- let me just present the facts to you.
James: Yes, and this is very important, I think, I did some work for the government, chief scientific offices reports about how to communicate the risk of climate change. And I use an Inconvenient Truth as an example there of one of the ways in which what one is trying to avoid there really is that sensing in which these issues are completely impossible for us to solve. And so, the idea of the environmental catastrophe and it’s interesting that the trailer kind of cued that up in some ways.
But the idea of the environmental catastrophe that- the problem with that, and this is a lot of climate change communication experts will say is that it makes us feel powerless, there’s nothing we can do, this issue is too big.
And so one of the things is, you know, experts trying to do is combine that clearly, that sense of this is a compelling and important and major issue with what might be the everyday acts that we can undertake as individuals, that we can make a difference. And I think one of the things that the film does very well is that people to kind of reconcile these things. They were to reconcile the global scale, the catastrophic global scale of what’s going on there. With that sensing which we can be empowered as individuals to make a difference.
Matthew: Let’s hold that thought and we will go to a break.
You’re listening to Factual America, subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Instagram and Twitter @AlamoPictures to keep up to date with new releases and upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program, our guests, and the team behind the production. And now back to Factual America.
Matthew: Welcome back to Factual America, James we were talking about an Inconvenient Truth, an Inconvenient- well mainly about an Inconvenient Truth but, you know, also there is an Inconvenient sequel which we’ve discussed briefly, I know there is a clip there that you want to talk about that helps further illustrate this point you’re making. So it’s a clip where Al Gore is in Paris for the- ahead of the Paris Conference.
James: That’s right.
Matthew: And, I’ll hand it over- actually why don’t we see the clip first. And then we’ll discuss it once we’re done.
Speaker 1: I’ve asked them to bring us a car by the trailer just in case we need to get you out of here at some point.
Al Gore: Okay, is it terrorist related?
Speaker 1: They don’t know it yet.
Speaker 2: Shooting around Paris, several dead people, and so it’s pretty sure it’s terrorism.
Speaker 3: They said in France there’s been an explosion in a bar near the Paris stadium and a shoot in a Paris restaurant, evacuate from Stade de France.
Speaker 4: Apparently eighteen dead and police reporting hostages.
Al Gore: Hostages?!
Speaker 4: Yes. That’s coming from police.
Al Gore: Wow-
Speaker 5: Paris terrified multiple people are reported killed in the shooting, there’s also word of possible explosion.
Speaker 6: Paris is under an effective police state. A curfew is in effect-
Speaker 7: Police don’t seem to have a full handle of what exactly what’s going on, but this is exactly the time of a terrorist scenario that the US has long feared-
Al Gore: Before I go on to make my statement I just want to say something, those of us who are Americans stand with you, we express our heartfelt condolences for the tragedy here in your city and in your country, this surge of terrorism in our world [sigh] we’ll have to defeat this. But we have to defeat it not only with force of arms, but with the force of our values, caring about the future and doing what the world needs to do.
But for now, I just want to say to all of you, especially those of you from France, what’s in my heart is in the hearts of all the Americans here who love you and care about you and standing with you. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are suspending our broadcast because of the tragedies that have unfolded here.
Matthew: Alright, well that’s- I guess that’s illustrating your point although has nothing to do with the environment.
James: [smiling] No, no, it doesn’t. I mean, why I think that’s interesting and why I chose it, is because the sequel wasn’t as successful, it didn’t create the kind of way that the original did, and maybe that’s not a surprise because many sequels don’t. And many films don’t, a surprising success trying to repeat that success, it doesn’t work. So I think, maybe there’s nothing surprising in that.
But I think that we can point at very specific reasons why, I would argue that the film is less successful as a film, as a documentary. And maybe less compelling for audiences, what it does do, it tries to- it does recreate many of the key moments, the key ways of telling the story that we get in the original. He goes to his family farm and cottage, we get bits of the slideshow, this time updated, with new slides-
Matthew: Better graphics-
James: Better graphics, that’s right, so we get all that stuff and that’s all great. But what we don’t get is the think that I’ve mentioned, was this kind of series of vignettes of his past, and I think there are very good reasons for that, he was rather resistant, reluctant to having these on the first film, for various reasons.
But they are not in the second film and you could say, well they just kind of run out of staff, they’re exhausted, there’s moments in his past that were risky, that would work in relation to the film. So, I think what is interesting, there’s one moment in the film, in the sequel, where you really get that sense of personal jeopardy of that idea, of the embodiment of that risk, is the moment where he gets caught up in the Paris attacks, he’s in Paris for the 2016 Climate Change and the attacks take place and they’re worried about him being in Paris and did they kind of have to move him to a safe space, and it’s that moment I think that really brings home the idea of- there is this sensing which- this is a risk that occurs on a global scale and this moment you’re talking about ISIS and, you know, attacks could happen anywhere, they are unpredictable.
Matthew: Right.
James: And you can get caught up in it at any moment, and so, it becomes some sort of analogue.
Matthew: And in some ways it, just references the first film because he even goes in that first film because it’s 2006, think about that time period, you know we’ve had Afghanistan Iraq war, still going on actually, and he is saying, yes, I know we have to fight terrorism but here is the- there is the real existential treat and then now, ten years later, people probably thinking there is more existential treat, but where is the treat actually coming to him, it is actually terrorism.
James: Yes, yes, absolutely. And you know the first film really, it really is a post 9/11 film, in many ways a post 9/11 film. And he talks about the in paralleled predicament of New York actually and uses the idea that it could get flooded. But where is going to get flooded to, it’s going to get flooded to where the World Trade Center Memorial is, right, so that’s where the water can rise to- so the sequel is able to kind of mobilize those elements in slightly different way, but we can figure out this idea and this moment, I think it is in many ways the most compelling moment, the most kind of, certainly the moment of greatest sense of kind of physical jeopardy, he may get caught up in this.
Matthew: And do you think- so let’s get this sort of the- this mode of documentary filmmaking if you will, it’s- you made reference of two things there, you make references just a few minutes before that Al Gore is a bit resistant to these little vignettes. And I’m watching this and I’m thinking- sometimes I’m thinking this isn’t actually about the environment, the first one especially, it’s about Al Gore.
Part of me is thinking they could’ve use that on the campaign trail, that film and these little vignettes, would’ve made him a more real person for a lot of people. So I guess that’s around about saying in that sense, are these films effective? You know, do people lose sight of what they’re about?
James: I mean, potentially, potentially, I think they can spill over, I think, into being sort of about the cult of the personality and about just that individual. And being driven by that personality and I guess a good example of that would be someone like Morgan Spurlock.
Matthew: Right, right, he came- big guy, the McDonald’s guy-
James: Right.
Matthew: The anti-McDonald’s guy-
James: The anti-McDonald’s guy. But you know, the criticism of him poised supersize to me which is incredibly successful documentary was that his film just became too wrapped up in this Spurlock persona. And they lost sight of what it was they were trying to do. So I guess it’s a balancing act there. I guess that’s partly where Gore’s resistance came from as well. It’s- you know, for him it’s not about him [smiling] it’s about all of us, and it’s about-
Matthew: And that comes out as a second one, cause he’s going to show up- he shows up on MSNBC and he’s got the young journalist who’s saying well this is what we’re going to talk about and he keeps saying, we’re gonna talk about climate and he’s saying oh, yeah, yeah, we’re gonna talk about climate but also we’re gonna talk about 2016, he was a, I don’t have anything to say about that, and I forget how politics has changed, well yeah, but I’m not talking about that either, I wanna talk about climate, you know.
James: Yes.
Matthew: And of course, they’ve asked him about 2016 and, you know, the field-
James: [smiling] Of course, of course. And yeah, that’s the challenge, isn’t it, the challenge is how to keep it on topic. And you know, the broader trend what might say in commercially successful documentary have been those being able to mobilize compelling performances and kind of charismatic persona. And there’s an understanding of that, that’s one way to kind of drawing the audiences. You have to have that strong performance, that compelling persona. But at the same time, you know, the risk is, [smiling] that you’re gonna go too far actually the other way and lose sight of what it is that you’re trying to deliver to the audience.
Matthew: But at the same time as you’re saying you’ve turned this effectively the use of this scene in Paris in the second film. You know, maybe the flip side of this is that- is putting the audience in danger if you will or at least right there with Gore in danger and there’s other moments through the films and there’s these and others, is that effective, cause maybe that is an effective tool.
I know people said if you think about your earliest childhood memories, the ones that you think of- you may not even think of it now as an adult but, at the time you thought you- often the most- the ones you thought you are in danger. You’re gonna fall out of that tree. Or you gonna- you know that kind of thing.
James: Yes, yes, I think that’s true isn’t it? And I think there’s a lot of the work on risk, which is precisely about those kind of things, those things that are vivid and you can record them and they are kind of key events that stick in your mind.
And they are kind of resonate for you. And I think those are the moments that are using from Gore’s past. There are things that are sort of a cue risk, I might say, acute personal risk that remain vivid and compelling in his memory.
Matthew: That’s a good point. Because he even mentions the totaling the car when he was fourteen, I don’t think you could drive a car, even in Gore’s time you could drive a car with fourteen, you got to be fifteen to get a permit and at sixteen to get a license, so- who knows what he was apt to-
James: Yes. Yes, but the other point that you question, kind of spoke to, is the idea of vicarious risk as well. The idea that that’s something that good documentary can deliver, that experience of vicarious risk, and we tend to think of this as being a feature of more, let’s say, extreme sports documentaries, and that’s part of the thrill of extreme sports documentary, you know, being there as hanging off the cliff edge.
Matthew: But we’re gonna go, actually, we’ll drop ahead I mean, wouldn’t think of one we say as- we’re gonna probably talk, we’re not talking about it, but reference Free Solo, best documentary film in 2018. Very much- I, I hold my hands up, I haven’t actually seen it yet, but everyone else tells me, they had their- most of the time actually they had their head in their hands cause it’s just so afraid, someone told me she had to run out, someone’s got sick from watching this.
James: [smiling] is a staggering undertaking, you know, to be climbing all the way up to El Capitan with no ropes, and just- and every moment you think, he’s gonna slip, you know, his fingers are not gonna in that kind of crevice. And it’s nail biting stuff, absolutely.
Matthew: So would you say, Inconvenient Truth is one of the first, really, or first successful I guess that use this sort of, using performance to talk about, to deal with risk?
James: I certainly wouldn’t say it’s the first, I mean, I think, what I see is a beginning of a documentary which really, I think triangulated this idea of documentary, performance and risk. For me at least within an American documentary context is Roger & Me, Michael Moore’s break out right, and that’s different kind of risk, which is about the risk to financial welfare based on deindustrialization within America and the idea that you no longer have, you know, uninised secure employment.
Matthew: Interesting.
James: And Moore there, obviously, he is the son of the author right, but he puts himself in the middle of that issue, and tries to sort of understand it. And it’s his kind of personality, and you know, it’s called, Roger & Me, Roger & Me, [smiling] and it’s about he in the middle of that issue. And the contrast I guess between him and his father, so his father is the auto part worker he is the kind of the post-industrial worker who’s using knowledge and-
Matthew: But his father would’ve had the good factory job, probably would’ve buy a good decent house, back when Flint was a place people want to live and probably there’s a good pension, that we’ll use that as the pension reference we were using it as a Paul Brennan salesmen reference for those keeping score with Paul Brennan sheets as a reference for today.
James: [smiling]
Matthew: But are these- I mean, you mentioned Roger, is this something that’s- I’m sure it’s spread throughout the world but is this uniquely an American sort of art form or it has its roots there, would you say?
James: I don’t think it’s uniquely American, I mean, listeners who are more familiar with other areas of documentary making might be able to point out other examples that really fit into this model as well, so I don’t think it is uniquely American. I think what it is, is, American documentary has been very successful at mobilizing this actually and it’s part of a wider trend I think within, what we broadly call American independent film and how American independent film as an area of culture production really became more commercial from the 1980s onwards by doing a number of things, one was to focus kind of clearly on specific genres, to focus much more clearly on compelling psychologically rounded characters, and to focus on kind of gripping characters. And so I think American independent documentary did that as well, I think in a lot of American documentaries that have done well, deploy those elements successfully.
Matthew: I think that leads us to today, and we’ve already mentioned Free Solo, so, this seems to be here to stay, doesn’t it, I mean, or is there any backlash against this, this sort of -?
James: I mean, I think one of the questions which exercises documentary scholars and documentary critics, particularly with work which seeks to create change I think, whether- is how do you do that with documentary, is one thing to compel an audience, to excite an audience, to energize an audience, but then how do you get them to leave the theater or get up from the sofa after watching it on Netflix, and make a difference?
And I think that’s where things become much more difficult actually, things become much more difficult. How do you move from a documentary which makes a compelling argument to an audience which takes that argument and goes somewhere with it, that’s what actually becomes the advocate of that particular issue in that topic.
Matthew: That’s interesting, even in the first of the films, Al Gore actually makes sort of references of this, he says something about, despair can lead to an action, and things like that, but don’t despair-
James: Don’t despair-
Matthew: And he takes a different- that second- it’s ten years on- you know you could argue- I’m more of glass half-empty sort of person I think [smiling] second thing would be, look, what is the achieved in last ten years, temperatures keep going up, nothing is happening. But he’s all positive. He’s positive about what’s happening with solar energy, and other renewables, he’s got a bit of a skip in a step for someone approaching seventy at the time, and he’s now I think in his early seventies, it’s a- it’s interesting.
James: It is interesting. And I think where some of the most interesting work is appearing is in documentary that is interactive in format actually, that’s where you’re moving from documentary, where you’re just presenting an argument to an audience, to content that’s requiring that audience and asking that audience to engage more with the creation of that work, and to become much more participatory and to become more involved in the introduction of those ideas.
Matthew: Well that can to your documentary doesn’t it, I mean, as I was looking on the way down earlier and you know asking your age just scroll down quite a bit to get there, but yes, we’ve finally got there-
James: [smiling]
Matthew: I mean, so the content tailor, put I was born 1985 it would’ve a little different than-
James: It would’ve been a little different, absolutely, absolutely.
Matthew: They didn’t ask me about, you know, was I afraid of falling from my chair or something in that frame but-
James: [smiling]
Matthew: But it’s- but you want to say something about that how it is -?
James: Sure, sure, so I mean-
Matthew: And let me interrupt, that’s Risktakersguide.com
James: It’s an interactive documentary, takes about twenty minutes to go through it, and it will sort of ask you questions, pose problems and issues in relation to your own idea of risk. So what is kind of set out to do that really is to kind of quantify how much of a risk taker you are actually. And one of the reasons why me and the co-creators wanted to make this documentary is that we were-we felt that was difficult to do a theatrical documentary, where is talked about, most frequently which is kind of everyday risk, so, we might not be thinking about climate change, we might not be thinking about global financial crisis, we might be thinking about much more small scale things that have impact on us in our everyday lives. And those kind of small scale risks, they are not really calibrated properly, dramatically enough to make a big screen documentary very easily or not necessarily very successful commercially, but we thought an interactive format could really work with this. Cause you can do it on your tablet, you can do it on your phone, twenty minutes.
Matthew: Yep, yeah-
James: Doesn’t take too long to do, not too much of your time, and it will ask you questions about how you think about risk in your everyday life, with it trying to get you to think about your own sense of risk and your risk perception.
Matthew: I recommend you have a look, it’s risktakersguide.com it’s very well done.
James: Thank you.
Matthew: I’ve never done interactive doc, or short, so I’ve definitely really appreciate it. I mean we’ve talked a lot about this Inconvenient Truth, Inconvenient sequel, yes, we know what it is about, it’s about climate change, and the risk taker environment and actually a bit of hope there that things are actually changing.
James: Yes.
Matthew: But what are the other categories- I mean what are some of the other big issues that you use this sort of technique -?
James: Sure, sure, what- I mean, in the book, I sort of talk about different, major categories of risk, as they are kind of defined as global problem, so, you know in the book I talk about the global financial crisis, and the kind of the risks of financialization, escalating levels of personal debt, so and so forth. And in that chapter I use Michael Moore’s documentary, Capitalism, a Love Story.
And I talk about that, and again, I think the way that that film sort of works is through having lots of individuals embody that risk and so it’s about selling blood plasma, or lots of different ways in which, the kind of the individual body becomes the kind of the focus around which this idea of- in some ways it’s sort of very intangible risk, you know, did global financial markets, and, you know, algorithms and all these kind of elements, it’s hard to put your finger on, so it’s the way in which that kind of risk impacts individual bodies, individual people, and I think that film really works very successfully around. I also talk about the global obesity risk, the idea of “globesity” as it’s often described. Again, you know, another risk which is widespread in scale but effects the body and it’s very much understood through different form of embodiment.
Matthew: And I think, it just reminded me of film we’ve actually had discussed on this podcast already, the Alex Kidneys the inventor and that’s- we discussed the specter of financial risk and American capitalism and Silicon Valley but, I mean, ultimately it’s about putting dodgy apparatuses into farmacies mostly in Arizona, and people getting blood test results and that’s the- there’s a lot of risk there, so I guess, personal risk indeed, that this could be happening somewhere in America, a company becomes worth nine billion dollars and yet, it’s all built on- not even built on faulty sights-
James: Absolutely, I mean this speaks of one of the major, kind of, trends, I guess, that I’m interested in, which is that, as these corporations get more powerful, as the opportunities to kind of take these kind of risks occur, is the individual is often rise at the center of it.
And we are asked increasingly to make more and more decisions about the risks in our lives, as the kind of social safety nets slip away, we are asked to make those decisions, you know. We need to look after our health, you know, have we got a Fitbit, did we make sure that you know we are fit and healthy, how we invested properly for our future.
You know we are very much asked to take a lot more responsibility for the risks around us. That sort of responsibility has really been kind of placed on us. At the same time, I think, and this is what makes our society so interesting is that, we’re encouraged to take different sorts of risks, as well.
We are encouraged to be risk takers, and self-actualization, and, you know, feel the fear and do it anyway. You know, if you don’t take risks, then you’ll ever going to achieve your, kind of, your potential. So it’s really how, we can think about both of those things in this society in which we’re kind of required to be risk averse and risk alert but also can take the right kind of risks.
Matthew: I think on that note, I think that brings us to a very good stopping point, and to say, to thank our listeners out there, thank you for taking the risk of downloading us, or watching us on YouTube, so thank you very much. I want to thank our guest, Doctor James Lyons for coming on board that was a great conversation, really enjoyed it. Love to have you on again some time, we can discuss something that’s not so risky, [smiling] I don’t know, we’ll find something else-
James: Thank you, it was a pleasure.
Matthew: Maybe you can tell us where, you know, people want to follow you, they’re interested in your books, what’s the best way to keep tabs on James Lyons?
James: Well, the new book, Documentary performance and risk is available in all good book sales-
Matthew: You won’t say anything else, online as well?
James: Apparently online, yes-
Matthew: Apparently, okay-
James: Yes, so, that’s how there as well, I’m relatively old school, I don’t have a Twitter feed, I’m afraid, or Instagram. But the books are out there and I’d love to see you read-
Matthew: Well, and I, indeed, I hope our readers do reach out to us and please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family, wherever you happen to listen to podcast. This is Factual America, signing off.
You’ve been listening to Factual America, this podcast is produced by Alamo Pictures, specializing in documentaries, television and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Head on down to the show notes for more information about today’s episode, our guest and the team behind the podcast. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Instagram and Twitter @AlamoPictures to be the first to hear about new productions, festivals we’re attending and to connect with our team. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk