Zeitgeist (film series)
Zeitgeist is a series of three
Zeitgeist: The Movie
Zeitgeist: The Movie | |
---|---|
Directed by | Peter Joseph |
Written by | Peter Joseph |
Produced by | Peter Joseph |
Edited by | Peter Joseph |
Music by | Peter Joseph |
Distributed by | GMP LLC |
Release date | June 18, 2007 |
Running time | 122 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Zeitgeist: The Movie is a 2007 film by
Synopsis
The film's introduction features animations, footage of war, explosions, and the
Part I claims the
Part II alleges that the September 11 attacks were either orchestrated or allowed to happen by elements within the
Part III states that the
Part III also alleges a secret agreement to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into a North American Union as a step toward the creation of a single world government. The film speculates that under such a government, every human could be implanted with an RFID chip to monitor individual activity and suppress dissent.
Reception
The first film received almost universal condemnation from the media, though it also "attracted massive interest" from the public.[3][5]
The newspaper The Arizona Republic described Zeitgeist: The Movie as "a bramble of conspiracy theories involving Sept. 11, the international monetary system, and Christianity" saying also that the movie trailer states that "there are people guiding your life and you don't even know it".[6]
A review in The Irish Times wrote that "these are surreal perversions of genuine issues and debates, and they tarnish all criticism of faith, the Bush administration, and globalization—there are more than enough factual injustices in this world to be going around without having to invent fictional ones".[5]
Ivor Tossell in
The film is an interesting object lesson on how conspiracy theories get to be so popular ... It's a driven, if uneven, piece of
archival footage and often taken out of context. It derides the media as a pawn of the International Bankers, but produces media reports for credibility when convenient. The film ignores expert opinion, except the handful of experts who agree with it. And yet, it's compelling. It shamelessly ploughs forward, connecting dots with an earnest certainty that makes you want to give it an A for effort.[2]
Filipe Feio, reflecting upon the film's Internet popularity in Diário de Notícias, stated that "[f]iction or not, Zeitgeist: The Movie threatens to become the champion of conspiracy theories of today".[7]
Chris Forbes, Senior lecturer in
In
Jay Kinney questioned the accuracy of its claims and the quality of its arguments, describing it as agitprop and propaganda.[16] At times, according to Kinney, "Zeitgeist engages in willful confusion by showing TV screen shots of network or cable news with voice-overs from unidentified people not associated with the news programs. If one weren't paying close attention, the effect would be to confer the status and authority of TV news upon the words being spoken. Even when quotes or sound bites are attributed to a source, there's no way to tell if they are quoted correctly or in context."[16]
Use in other media
In June 2013, Peter Joseph directed the music video for "God Is Dead?" by Black Sabbath, using extensive imagery from Zeitgeist: The Movie and its sequels.[17]
Zeitgeist: Addendum
Zeitgeist: Addendum | |
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Directed by | Peter Joseph |
Produced by | Peter Joseph |
Edited by | Peter Joseph |
Music by | Peter Joseph |
Distributed by | GMP LLC |
Release date | October 2008 |
Running time | 123 min |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Zeitgeist: Addendum is a 2008 film produced and directed by
Synopsis
The film begins and ends with excerpts from a speech by Jiddu Krishnamurti. The remainder of the film is narrated by Peter Joseph and divided into four parts, which are prefaced by on-screen quotations from Krishnamurti, John Adams, Bernard Lietaer, and Thomas Paine, respectively.
Part I covers the process of
Part II includes an interview with
Part III introduces futurist Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project and asserts a need to move away from current socioeconomic paradigms. Fresco states that capitalism perpetuates the conditions it claims to address, as problems are only solved if there is money to be made. The film looks at Fresco's proposal of a resource-based economy, which puts environmental friendliness, sustainability and abundance as fundamental societal goals. He goes on to discuss technology which he sees as the primary driver of human advancement, and he describes politics as being unable to solve any problems.
Part IV suggests that the primary reason for what the film sees as society's social values ("warfare, corruption, oppressive laws, social stratification, irrelevant superstitions, environmental destruction, and a despotic, socially indifferent, profit oriented ruling class") is a collective ignorance of "the emergent and symbiotic aspects of natural law". The film advocates the following actions for achieving social change: boycotting of the most powerful banks in the Federal Reserve System, the major news networks, the military, energy corporations, all political systems; and joining, and supporting The Zeitgeist Movement.
Reception
Zeitgeist: Addendum won the 2008 Artivist Film Festival's award for best feature ("Artivist Spirit" category).[18]
Originally, the film was uploaded-released on Google Video. The current video posting on YouTube surpassed 5 million views by late 2013.[19]
Alan Feuer of The New York Times noted that while the first film was famous for alleging that the attacks of September 11 were an inside job, the second, "was all but empty of such conspiratorial notions, directing its rhetoric and high production values toward posing a replacement for the evils of the banking system and a perilous economy of scarcity and debt".[20]
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward is the third installment in
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward | |
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Directed by | Peter Joseph |
Produced by | Peter Joseph |
Edited by | Peter Joseph |
Music by | Peter Joseph, Lili Haydn and Yes |
Distributed by | GMP LLC |
Release date | January 15, 2011 |
Running time | 161 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Synopsis
The film begins with an animated sequence narrated by
Part I: Human Nature
Part II: Social Pathology
Part III: Project Earth
As with Zeitgeist: Addendum, the film presents a "resource-based economy" as advocated by Jacque Fresco discussing how human civilization could start from a new beginning in relation to resource types, locations, quantities, to satisfy human demands; track the consumption and depletion of resources to regulate human demands and maintain the condition of the environment.
Part IV: Rise
The current worldwide situation is described as disastrous. A case is presented that
The final scene of the film shows a partial view of Earth from space, followed by a sequence of superimposed statements; "This is your world", "This is our world", and "The revolution is now".
List of Interviewees
- Adrian Bowyer
- Colin J. Campbell
- Jacque Fresco
- Jeremy J. Gilbert
- James Gilligan
- Max Keiser
- Behrokh Khoshnevis
- Gabor Maté
- John McMurtry
- Roxanne Meadows
- Michael Ruppert
- Robert Sapolsky
- Richard Wilkinson
Reception
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward received "Best Political Documentary" in 2011 from the
A The Socialist Standard review said the film's use of animation and humour gave it a "well rounded feel", though it criticized the "shaky economic analysis" in the second part of the film, saying "Karl Marx had already undertaken a more scientific analysis", adding, "the analysis is at least on the right track". Regarding transition to the new system proposed in the film, the reviewer noted "there is no mention of how to get from here to there".[24]
In an article, in Tablet magazine, Michelle Goldberg described the film as "silly enough that at times [she] suspected it was [a] sly satire about new-age techno-
Zeitgeist movement
Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007) started the chain of events leading to the formation of the Zeitgeist movement.
See also
- 9/11 conspiracy theories
- Post-scarcity economy
- Technological utopianism
References
- OCLC 852159022.
- ^ a b c Tossell, Ivor (2007-08-17). "Conspiracy theorists yelling in the echo chamber". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2014-01-19.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Goldberg, Michelle (February 2, 2011). "Brave New World". Tablet.
- ^ Joseph, Peter; Murdock, Dorothy Milne (August 2010). The Zeitgeist Sourcebook (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 28, 2019. Retrieved 2022-03-14.
- ^ a b O'Dwyer, Davin (August 8, 2007). "Zeitgeist: the nonsense". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on November 21, 2010. Retrieved September 16, 2010.
- ^ Faherty, John (16 January 2011). "Gabrielle Giffords shooter suspect: Moments from a life in spiral". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved 1 October 2014.
- ^ Feio, Felipe (February 18, 2008). "Teoria da conspiração no 'top' do Google Video (Conspiracy theory is the 'top' Google Video)". Diário de Notícias (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on May 23, 2009. Retrieved September 16, 2010.
- ^ Shermer, Michael (July 2009). "What Skepticism Reveals about Science". Scientific American.
- ISBN 978-0745640099.
- ^ Goldberg, Michelle (January 13, 2011). "The Cult Web Film that Inspired Loughner". The Daily Beast Company, LLC. Retrieved August 17, 2014.
- ^ Callahan, Tim (2009). "The Greatest Story Ever Garbled". Skeptic. Vol. 28, no. 1.
- ^ "Zeitgeist: Time to discard the Christian story?". Interview at the Centre for Public Christianity, Sydney, Australia.
- ^ "Challenging the Zeitgeist Movie: Alleged Parallels between Jesus and Ancient Pagan Religions". Evangelical Philosophical Society. 2011. Archived from the original on 2020-08-03. Retrieved 2014-11-01.
- YouTube, TheMarkerTV (Israel), Jan. 19, 2012. Interview conducted in English, following a brief introduction to Joseph and the Movement in Hebrew.
- ^ "Loughner, "Zeitgeist – The Movie," and Right-Wing Antisemitic Conspiracism". Retrieved 2012-06-03.
- ^ a b Frauenfelder, Mark & Kinney, Jay (6 August 2007). "Jay Kinney reviews Zeitgeist, the Movie". Boing Boing. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
- ^ "Black Sabbath Taps Controversial Filmmaker Peter Joseph For 'God Is Dead? Video". BlabberMouth. June 8, 2013.
- ^ "The Artivist Awards". Artivist Film Festival. 2008. Archived from the original on June 28, 2014. Retrieved 2014-01-18.
Best Feature – Artivist Spirit: "Zeitgeist: Addendum" directed by Peter Joseph
- ^ TZMOfficialChannel. "Zeitgeist: Addendum". YouTube. Retrieved 2014-01-19.
- ^ a b Alan Feuer (March 17, 2009). "They've Seen the Future and Dislike the Present". The New York Times. Retrieved March 17, 2009.
- ^ "Global Premiere of "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward". Q&A with Filmmaker Peter Joseph!". absolutearts.com.
- ^ Zeitgeist: Moving Forward – official release – 2011. YouTube. January 25, 2011.
- ^ "2011 Action on Film Official Film and Video Award Nominees" (PDF). Action on Film. p. 7.
- ^ "Film Review | The Socialist Party of Great Britain". Worldsocialism.org. Retrieved 2012-06-11.
- ^ New world re-order: The Zeitgeist Movement spreads to Ventura County Archived 2014-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, Shane Cohn, VC Reporter (California), May 12, 2011
- ^ McElroy, Danien. June 17, 2012. Forest boy 'inspired by Zeitgeist movement'. The Telegraph. Retrieved: 29 April 2014.
- ^ Gilonis, Samuel (21 February 2011). "The Cult of Zeitgeist". Wessex Scene. Archived from the original on 2011-03-03. Retrieved 26 February 2015.
External links
- Official website
- Zeitgeist at IMDb
- Addendum at IMDb
- Moving Forward at IMDb