Collapse: It's happened to every great civilization

[marmar]

Coming Soon: Collapse, the movie.



http://www.collapsemovie.com/COLLAPSEMOVIE/index.html


Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new president will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst?

Meet Michael Ruppert, a different kind of American. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, he predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness, at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial. Director Chris Smith has shown an affinity for outsiders in films like American Movie and The Yes Men. In Collapse, he departs stylistically from his past documentaries by interviewing Ruppert in a format that recalls the work of Errol Morris and Spalding Gray.

Sitting in a room that looks like a bunker, Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead. He draws upon the same news reports and data available to any Internet user, but he applies a unique interpretation. He is especially passionate about the issue of peak oil, the concern raised by scientists since the seventies that the world will eventually run out of fossil fuel. While other experts debate this issue in measured tones, Ruppert doesn't hold back at sounding an alarm, portraying an apocalyptic future. Listening to his rapid flow of opinions, the viewer is likely to question some of the rhetoric as paranoid or deluded, and to sway back and forth on what to make of the extremism. Smith lets viewers form their own judgments.


Collapse also serves as a portrait of a loner. Over the years, Ruppert has stood up for what he believes in despite fierce opposition. He candidly describes the sacrifices and motivators in his life. While other observers analyze details of the economic crisis, Ruppert views it as symptomatic of nothing less than the collapse of industrial civilization itself.


- Thom Powers
Toronto International Film Festival

[ixion]

1. the first Rule of Empire is that all empires rise, decline and fall.

that is a constant in our history, one that we ignore time and time again, save for a few folks who try and sound the alarm, only to be dismissed at gloomy gus' or some such thing.

[NC_Nurse]

2. The trailer is interesting. I don't know if peak oil will be the final straw, but

the U.S. is definitely going to decline. It's seems pretty obvious to me for many reasons.

[Subdivisions]

5. A study of the peak oil issue will reveal quite surprising revelations. n/t

[enid602]

3. sarcasm

LAPD tends to produce a host of great economic and political thinkers.

[Subdivisions]

4. I've seen the film. It's good. Available on Cox and Charter now. Will be

available on Time-Warner and Verizon FIOS on Dec 6.

New York Times review: http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/movies/06collapse.html?scp=1&sq=collapse%20ruppert&st=cse

[Subdivisions]

7. Kicking: Ruppert SLAMS former CIA Director John Deutch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t3pl5Wxgyg

[HamdenRice]

6. Every civilization? I thought China was still chugging along

If you mean collapse in the way they do -- ecological collapse -- then the premise is simply wrong.

Some have collapsed, some haven't.

Dag, I hate iron rules of history that turn out not to be true.

[ixion]

8. China has had several collapses in it's history...

it' present incarnation is not the same as the China that existed in the Neolithic era, for example.

[HamdenRice]

11. For 3,000 or so years it has had a continuous civilization

There have been political collapses, but I'm not aware of any Malthusian ecological collapses of the kind raised by the OP.

If there have been please let us know!

:hi:

[NickB79]

9. Egypt has existed as a nation for thousands of years

And we all know it is still a global superpower like it was during the age of the pharaohs, right?

[Kablooie]

10. Most civilizations last a lot longer than 200 years though.

But if you count coming out of the Dark Ages the start of civilization, we have been around a lot longer.

[anonymous171]

12. As long as the American nation exists, there will be no collapse. nt