|
 (060206)
If things are even half as bad as Al Gore says they are, "An Inconvenient Truth"
is the most important movie anyone will make this year. The film's significance
as a wake-up call about global warming overshadows all its other virtues. Yes,
it handles complicated material in a clear and entertaining way. Yes, it renders
cinematic what might have seemed like a static lecture, and yes, Al Gore is
funny and engaging in a way you've never seen him be. But beyond that, the movie
brings a feeling of history: Virtually everyone who sees this movie will be
galvanized to do something about global warming -- and everyone should see this
movie.
This makes the film oddly exhilarating, even though the news
is mostly bad. "An Inconvenient Truth," the film version of
a multimedia presentation Gore has been delivering since
1989, treats audiences like adults, presenting a detailed,
lucid and intelligent explanation of a serious issue. It
doesn't preach to the converted. On the contrary, it
directly and respectfully addresses the questions and
concerns of skeptics, methodically piling evidence on top of
evidence, until the truth becomes obvious and unmistakable.
For some, the tipping point will come with the charts
showing the rapid increase in global temperatures and the
accompanying increases in greenhouse gases. For others, it
will be the sight of polar bears struggling to find ice in
the Arctic, or of shots of glaciers reduced to almost
nothing in a span of only 30 or 40 years. It's a shock to
see photographic evidence that the snows of Kilimanjaro have
been reduced to a light dusting.
Through these pictures, Gore shows that global warming is no
longer a hypothetical. It's here already, and the evidence
is everywhere, not least in the floods, hurricanes and
droughts that we're seeing all over the world -- our "nature
hike through the book of Revelations," as he calls it. Most
ominous of all is evidence that the Antarctic ice shelf and
the glaciers of Greenland are breaking up at a rate well
beyond anything even scientists anticipated. If either were
to melt completely -- or if each were to melt halfway -- the
consequences would be dire for every coastal city, including
Shanghai, New York and San Francisco. Indeed, about a fourth
of Florida would disappear, though why Gore should care
about that is another question entirely.
Director Davis Guggenheim intersperses scenes of Gore giving
his lecture with personal scenes, in which Gore recalls his
political career, discusses his lifelong interest in
environmentalism and talks about the crises that have shaped
his worldview. We see Gore traveling, getting searched and
patted down as he goes through airport security to deliver
yet another lecture in another city. By his own estimate, he
has done this global warming lecture about a thousand times.
The camera has never loved Gore, but something is going on
in "An Inconvenient Truth," and that's the other big story
here. Like John Travolta in "Pulp Fiction," Gore has come
back on the scene heavier, older and a lot more likable,
physically transformed in a way as to allow people to see
him as if for the first time. After years of looking like
Clark Kent without the glasses, Gore looks like a heavyset
mensch. Moreover, the change seems to be more than surface.
In "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore has the look of a man
who's been through something big and awful and has come out
the other side. Have you ever seen newsreel footage of the
young Franklin D. Roosevelt before he contracted polio and
contrasted it with the later Roosevelt of history? The young
Roosevelt looks like a slick ambition machine, to whom
nothing bad has ever happened. The older Roosevelt looks
just as shrewd and calculating, but with a look in his eyes
that suggests that now he knows why he's being shrewd and
calculating. Well, Gore, who saw his life ambition turn to
ashes thanks to a faulty ballot in Palm Beach County, has
that look, and it's there for everyone to see in "An
Inconvenient Truth."
What is the look? It's the look of no fear. It's the look of
someone who understands that it's not all about him, and so
he can finally relax and be himself. This makes him the
ideal conduit for the global warming message.
Winston Churchill once said that "Americans will always do
the right thing, after they've exhausted every alternative."
According to "An Inconvenient Truth," we're about down to
exactly one alternative with regard to global warming,
unless you count sticking our heads in the sand and waiting
for the sand to turn to water. This movie throws down a
challenge. In the next years, we'll see whether Churchill
was right.
One of the best films of the year and mandatory viewing.
|
