I wrote the following on 9.19.09: “Shot over a two-day period last March, Collapse is basically a Spalding Gray-like soliloquy piece in which Michael Ruppert, a former LA police officer turned independent reporter, author and truth teller, explains in a blunt spoken, highly detailed and extremely persuasive way that our economic and energy-using infrastructure is on the verge of worldwide collapse.
“There’s too much debt, too much greed, not enough oil and it’s all going to start falling apart — in fits and starts, bit by bit and then more and more, and then eventually…well, look out. A vast and terrible turnover that will devastate and destruct is just around the corner. Ten years, twenty years…forget it. I listened and listened to what Ruppert said, and “a hard rain’s gonna fall” ain’t the half of it. A survivable scenario, but a very different and much tougher world awaits.
“Before I saw Collapse I would have readily agreed with the view that things are very, very bad in terms of the world’s economic and energy scenarios. After seeing Collapse I’m 95% convinced that we’re on the brink of Armageddon — that we’re truly and royally fucked. Get hold of as many organic vegetable seeds as you can and start growing your own food. Hey, Viggo…nice shopping cart!
“The 5% of me that isn’t fully convinced has concerns about Ruppert’s personality and temperament, which seem a little bit wiggy at times. He’s been called a 9/11 Truther and, according to a CBC News summary, ‘claims to have met one of JFK’s shooters.’ He seems stable and knowledgable enough and is obviously quite bright, but he chain smokes, is having trouble paying his rent, and is clearly emotionally distraught over the data he’s gathered and the information he’s sharing. Collapse gets into his head and soul the way Erroll Morris‘s The Fog of War burrowed into Robert McNamara.
“Isn’t it in the nature of most whole-equation alarmists to be alone and uninvested in establishment currencies and memberships with a tendency to shout from streetcorners, publish nickel-and-dime newsletters or expound in low-budget documentaries such as Collapse?
“There were three basic kinds of group mentalities aboard the Titanic, Ruppert remarks, once the crew understood the extent of the iceberg damage. The first was the reaction of sheep — ‘We don’t know what to do, we’re scared, we’re cold, and all we want to do is huddle together.’ The second was ‘yes, this is serious, we get it — and what can we do to build lifeboats?’ And the third was ‘you’re crazy, this ship can’t sink, the people who are saying this are pathetic alarmists, and we’re just going to sit at the bar and enjoy the pleasures of decades-old bourbon.'”
Collapse will simultaneously debut on video and theatrical debut November 6th. Vitagraph will handle the film’s theatrical release, while FilmBuff will launch the film simultaneously on video-on-demand. The 11.6 Manhattan debut will be at the Angelika Theater;Collapse will premiere that day on FilmBuff. It will open at Landmark theaters in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Diego on 12.4.
