and Harley would watch some documentaries.

Obey

“Capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives, until finally it consumes itself; leaving nothing but a dead zone.”

The film starts off in an inverted image style, showing images of a dog agility competition which is somewhat humorous as the narrative recites a quote by Edward L. Bernays. The film is based on a book called "Death of the liberal class" by journalist Chris Hedges. The film is based on corporate America but speaks in general about the conformity and uses British historical references and current pop culture references. 

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organised. Vast numbers of human being must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind." - Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda 

Throughout the film the narration is linking to the visual footage in one way or another using footage solely found on the internet. Throughout the film the inverted effect switches from normal colour to inverted, I couldn't quite figure out the relevance to it however visually I did find it too distracting as you are trying to understand what the narrator is trying to vocalise. I think that the piece wasn't clear on whether it was going to be artsy or not as I found the use of split screen towards the end of the film to not really be necessary. 

The film tells a narrative as it starts from World War 2 and continues onto The cold war and how the effects of these wars began the capitalism movement through scare tactics and propaganda, making it difficult for public opinions to be heard. The idea of trying to unite a country through the war was appealing to the citizens which is why they were blindly led into the idea of capitalism as they were only shown the benefit. 

Big machine companies started manufacturing air crafts and missiles which generated lots of jobs for the working class which started to scare the government into obeying these big companies in fear of mass job loss which would cause a huge backlash in votes. The film is telling you the history of how capitalism began and then goes onto how it has changed how we are living in a conformed society. 

The film states that terrorism is an excuse for mass surveillance, education cuts for the arts is the way they generate corporate employee and anyone who doesn't conform is seen as underclass. The film clearly displays views on how big companies decide our fate in everything that we do and how we are completely oblivious to this happening entirely. 

As the consumer we are told the vague promise for a better tomorrow is all the government have to offer; the issue I have with this documentary is that it only highlights the issues, it doesn't show an alternative which was sort of infuriating. However, I suppose there are many alternatives and as the viewer we have to come to our own conclusion of what could be the alternative way of life. 

Visually speaking, the footage which they sourced was very interesting as they used a variety of different shots of different things and throughout the film you are always visually stimulated. Some shots I really liked were the sped up footage of the birds eye view of the city as you could really feel this sense of conformity and how we obey blindly. Towards the end of the film, it became more artsy in style with the split screen and inverted colour footage but if this was apparent throughout the entire film then it might not have been so irritating to watch as watching the first couple of scenes which were inverted were more interesting. The way they chose to show the change in topic was effective as the clear titles would began and the narration would continue based around that topic. The ending of the documentry ended on "we will either obey, or rebel." whilst showing the switching of the titles "obey" and "rebel" as if to generate some kind of response and to make us question if we obey or not and what we are going to do about it. 

Notes taken whilst watching the film

Bibliography

https://vimeo.com/59002146

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/203430-the-conscious-and-intelligent-manipulation-of-the-organized-habits-and