This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Documentaries, Drama, W. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Director: Chris Paine
Starring: Martin Sheen, Ed Begley Jr., Phyllis Diller, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks
Martin Sheen narrates this documentry, and several big celebrities put in appearances along with the usual group of experts, concerned politicians and corporate spokespeople. The subject is, as the title suggests, an investigation looking at ‘suspects’ in the death of the electric car. The many culprits include the big automakers, the oil industry and the government, among others. This is an important and well-done documentary. It is also very dry, the most common failing in these projects. We watch them because we should, rather than because we want to. It doesn’t have to be this way, as we can see by looking at documentaries that manage to both entertain, and inform.
In the mid nineties, changes to California emission laws, led to the development of electric cars by many of the big automakers. According to the documentary, these were very popular with their leasing customers, but were inexplicably pulled off the road and destroyed by their manufacturers. Also, their electric car programs were suddenly scrapped. This documentary asks why. It is a good question
It is thru self-education that we become part of the solution rather than part of the problem and I consider documentaries like these to be an important part of my self-education. This is crucial to being an informed, responsible citizen as well as a more interesting, intelligent person. It is a shame when the film puts far less effort into entertaining as it informs. The best teachers have learned how to do both, as have the best documentary makers. This is not one of them, but it is still a worthy film.
