The Corporation

The Corporation is an audacious, scathing and frequently illuminating Canadian documentary that has gone on to win much critical praise. Thankfully, the DVD from Zeitgeist and Mongrel Media offers us even more info on the film's various subjects from a vast array of interviewees (no less than 40). On top of that, we get a wide assortment of other enticing extras, covering all aspects of creating and marketing the film, including Q&As with all three filmmakers. If you dig the flick, then you'll surely want to own this invaluable DVD gem.

Content aside, The Corporation is also a formally bold piece of stylish filmmaking which (arguably) can be seen as its biggest vice. Let's be honest, this is a big, lumbering monster of a documentary. Assembled as a kind of faux business presentation, with voice-over accompaniment by a generic sounding female voice, the film presses forward to bigger things but only occasionally re-establishes its earlier claims. Sure, the style works on a metaphoric level but it can still become grating, as the film lasts over two-hours, an exceptionally long running time for a documentary. Still, at least it's not as draining as, say, a Michael Moore film, although he does make several lengthy appearances. Luckily, the film's last moments bring things together and we get a fitting conclusion.

Now let's get to the fun stuff. Zeitgeist and Mongrel have really done a stellar job on this DVD. On disc one, we get two commentaries. The first commentary comes from Mark Achbar (exec producer and co-director) and Jennifer Abbot (co-director and editor). They were recorded separately and edited together so what get is an intriguing track with tons of good content. However, the lack of interaction between is an obvious blemish. The second commentary is both informative and more enjoyable. Here, Joel Bakan (co-writer) provides good input, giving us some much needed thematic info on the film.

Also on the first disc are eight Q&A sessions that run 27 minutes in length. You can either watch them all at once (play all) or separately. This is an insightful featurette if you want to know more about the origins, inspiration, and funding of the film. Eight deleted scenes totaling 16 minutes are also included. These were not crucial enough to stay in the film but it's nice to have them separately.

"Katherine Dodds on Grassroots Marketing" features the marketing expert (Dodds) discussing several techniques used to market this film, which didn't have much money for advertising. We also learn about the inception of the devil/angel man logo. The extra lasts about 7 minutes.

Rounding out the first disc is the film's theatrical trailer, a trailer for Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent (also co-directed by Achbar), a descriptive audio track for the film (for the hearing impaired), and a discussion between Janeane Garofolo and Joel Bakar about the book and subsequent film.

The second disc comes with 40 interviewees discussing an assortment of material that was omitted from the film's final cut. Not only are there 40 personalities, there are also several subjects that each discuss to some great length. Basically, going through all of these interviews will take no less than 6 hours (!!!). You can either select these segments by person -- unfortunately, you can't see their name until you select them -- or by subject (my preference).

If ever a film was made worthy of owning by its DVD features, it's The Corporation. Go be a consumer whore and buy it. -- Neil Karassik