Noam Chomsky - Rebel Without a Pause
by Will Pascoe
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Carol Chomsky, Noam ChomskyDirector: Will Pascoe
Cinematographer: Patrick W. McLaughlin
Editor: Will Pascoe
Writer: Will Pascoe
Producer: David Wesley
Writer: David Wesley
Producer: Jennifer MacLennan
Writer: Jennifer MacLennan
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 74 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-04-26
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: New Video Group
Movie Reviews of Noam Chomsky - Rebel Without a Pause
Movie Review: Yawn
Summary: 1 Stars
Despite having known people who are either great fans of Noam Chomsky, or think he's a tired relic from the 1960s, I really had no opinion of the man, save that I knew he gained fame as a linguist, although I could not elucidate any of his theories, and that he was a liberal socialist with Marxist leanings. So, stumbling across the DVD of the 2003 documentary Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause, in a used video store, a film which followed him on a 2002 book tour for his book 9-11, I decided to get it, just so I could have a little bit of knowledge about the man the next time a person, pro or con, spoke of him. While glad I got the film, my initial reaction to this dull and ill edited hagiography was, so what's all the fuss about?
For a man with so many degrees, lauded as `the most important intellectual alive', by the New York Times, according to the DVD's case, there sure was not alot there, intellectually speaking. I know I would chew him up and spit him out in a debate, and I wouldn't even want to watch what a William F. Buckley could do to him. Granted, the whole film was seemingly about Chomsky seeing conspiracies everywhere, and having glazed eyed coeds nod in bewildering approval of the most inane and outrageous things he'd say, rather than being on linguistics, so maybe that's the reason he came off so badly. But, again, if he is a linguist, and tops in his field, why in the world would anyone care what he has to say on anything outside his field of expertise?.... Even worse are his acolytes, who seem to further insulate the man from reality, by fostering delusions that Chomsky is a target for Zionist assassins. What little I knew of Chomsky before watching this film, this much I knew: he was generally considered a has been, and pretty much irrelevant intellectually, since the fall of the Soviet Empire. The film is so poorly structured, and without a narrative thread, that it's difficult to separate all of the jumble. His wife, Carol, as example, apparently gave one interview, which was chopped up and dropped wherever in the film. She seems a nice enough woman, but wholly out of her element answering anything but the most basic questions about their life. The lone interesting thing she says is that 9/11 was a great thing for the Chomskys, for he has reaped a great deal of money in speaking fees since then.
Not surprisingly, this sort of film gives almost no biographical background. It's assumed that all viewers must know all the plaudits this `great man' bears. Chomsky is rarely interviewed one on one. Stylistically, there are no camera movements, no interesting edits, nor any signature touches, and most of the film is disjunct rambles by Chomsky, videotaped huzzahs of Chomsky declaiming on this or that, and slack-jawed and awed students looking at him as if he were immaterial, that is when dimwitted coeds are not asking barely audible and ridiculously simplistic questions to him. This is really poor filmmaking by director and editor Will Pascoe, who in the DVD's Filmmaker Statement, shows he's yet another uncritical acolyte of Chomsky's. Other than that, one of the surest signs that this is not an objective documentary, but mere agitprop, and a vanity piece of agitprop, at that, is that not a single time is Chomsky shown struggling with an answer. He seems to be a font of knowledge that has no bounds.
Given that much of this dreck was filmed during Chomsky's lectures at McMaster University, in Ontario, Canada, prior to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, much of what Chomsky says seems as remote as things from the Vietnam War era. Yes, he makes some good points, here and there, on American media complicity before the war, but he follows them up with sheer lunacy, for he seems to not realize that most conspiracies are ad hoc, and not fully plotted out cabals. As example, he claims that the advertising industry is a cabal that mercilessly controls the populace, but says not a word about the zombied populace that lets itself be so controlled. Similarly, he claims Trilateralists run the world and that people's fear of crime is yet another cabal's result. Of course, that claim so fully explains away rape crisis centers, and all that wasted time and money district attorneys' offices consume. He also makes the absurd claim that Cuba has been the victim of terrorism for decades, when Castro and company were great sponsors of it, in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, until the Soviet Union fell. I can only guess that the UFO conspiracists are just waiting for Chomsky to proclaim that gray aliens have set up species-mixing impregnation centers up in Idaho.
In his simpleminded world without grays, Chomsky is frighteningly as dense as the members of Bushco, whom he reviles, are; even more so since they lay no claim to being intellectuals. In short, Chomsky is a man living in the past, in over his head on most issues, and out of his depth intellectually. Near this film's end he warns, `Be cautious when you hear about intellectuals being fighters for justice,' yet one can only laugh, as the man seemingly has never met a revolutionary person nor idea that he didn't like, no matter how barbarous their crimes, and anti-intellectual their posit. Please, pause before you waste your time and money on this silly, and already irrelevant, DVD.
Summary of Noam Chomsky - Rebel Without a Pause
Called "the most important intellectual alive" by The New York Times, Noam Chomsky, speaks openly about 9-11, the US War on Terrorism, Media Manipulation, the US and Iraq, and social activism, providing a critical voice that many audiences feel is missing in the world today. Featuring candid interviews with his wife, Carol Chomsky, as well as activists, fans, and critics REBEL WITHOUT A PAUSE is a timely, must-see film that offers an alternative voice and explores the truths and myths about the most important intellectual of our time.The world's greatest intellectual voice of dissent gets another fine showcase in Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause. Chomsky is no stranger to video and DVD, with several titles (including Manufacturing Consent) comprising a growing library of essential viewing for anyone with an open mind and a healthy skepticism toward powerful politicians. In this 75-minute documentary (plus 40 minutes of additional footage), filmed primarily during his lectures at Ontario's McMaster University during the build-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Chomsky holds forth on a wide variety of topics, mostly related to the state of world affairs in a post-9/11 context. Speaking in intimate conversational settings, classrooms, and sold-out lecture halls, Chomsky (who readily admits his lack of charisma as a speaker, explaining "it's the issues that people find interesting") is lucidly sensible and deeply informed about media manipulation, the self-interest of those in power, the roots of anti-American sentiment, and the need for social activism to maintain a balanced and genuine democracy. Behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Chomsky's wife and tour manager, Carol, offer an additional layer of depth and humanity to this hard-working thinker, while other colleagues and scholars express their supportive opinions of Chomsky and the very real fear that his outspokenness could result in his physical harm or even assassination. While any Chomsky-related material is timely by nature, the content of this film will remain relevant for years to come, whether it's being viewed as cautionary warning or prescient prophesy. --Jeff Shannon
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