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Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new President will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil, and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and to hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst?
Michael Ruppert is a different kind of American. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, he predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter From the Wilderness at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial. Smith has always had a feeling for outsiders in films like American Movie and American Job. In Collapse, Smith stylistically departs from his past films by interviewing Ruppert in a format that recalls the work of Errol Morris and Spalding Gray.
Sitting in a room that looks like a bunker, Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead. He draws upon the same news reports and data available to any Internet user, but he applies a unique interpretation. He is especially passionate over the issue of peak oil, the concern raised by scientists since the 1970s that the world will eventually run out of fossil fuel. While other experts debate this issue in measured tones, Ruppert doesnt hold back at sounding an alarm.
He portrays a future that resembles apocalyptic science fiction. Listening to his rapid flow of opinions, the viewer is likely to question some of the rhetoric as paranoid or deluded; and to sway back and forth on what to make of the extremism. Smith lets viewers form their own judgments.
Chris Smith is an accomplished filmmaker whose previous films include American Job (1996 Sundance Film Festival), American Movie (1999, Grand Jury Prize-Sundance Film Festival, Sony Pictures Classics), Home Movie (2001, Sundance Film Festival), The Yes Men (2004, United Artists) and most recently The Pool (2008). The Pool won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was selected as one of the Top 25 Films of 2008 by the Museum of Modern Art.
For more on Michael Ruppert, go to blogspot.mikeruppert.com
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