WilsonFilmAnnotation8

The 11th Hour, Nadia Conners & Leila Conners Petersen, 2007.
 * 1. Title, director and release year?**

The 11th Hour attempts to convince the audience that we areall at a pivotal moment of time where an important decision must be made – to help the Earth or to destroy it. It’s our last chance to be able to create a sustainable world in the future and we must therefore act quickly.
 * 2. What is the central argument or narrative of the film?**

The film supports its narrative by going through several environmental problems that the Earth is currently experiencing, like energy usage, waste production, and overall environmental impact awareness. The film does make some scientific information available and while they could be argued to be true factually, it doesn’t do a good job or explaining if the people being interviewed are qualified to make those statements (in a professional setting). It looked as if they just used big name people to make the argument instead of people who might have more relevant expertise. The film does have emotional appeal though – especially with Leonardo di Caprio narrating it and cinematography that has a Hollywood-esque flair.
 * 3. How is the argument or narrative made and sustained? How much scientific information is provided, for example? Does the film have emotional appeal?**

The sustainability problems the film draws out are political, legal, technological, educational, and behavioral. Politically, businesses and corporations have too much sway in government. Legally, laws are not restrictive enough and do not have the environmental health’s bests interests in mind. Technologically, limitless growth and expansion is putting a major toll on finite resources and the lack of technology focusing on sustainable energy is another issue in itself. Educationally, our school systems are not conducive to what people really need to be learning about and our poor education standards cause even more social and environmental problems down the line. Awareness also fits into this in that so many people are not even aware of all the environmental problems that are around them – so nothing is getting done about it (unnecessary consumption being a strong example of this, which is also a behavioral problem).
 * 4. What sustainability problems does the film draw out?**
 * Political? Legal? Economic? Technological? Media and Informational? Organizational? Educational? Behavioral? Cultural? Ecological?**

The most persuasive and compelling parts of the film involve how connected and related humans are to the environment. I was astounded when the film talked about how even though the body is made of a hundred and twenty trillion cells, 90% of them are not human but are actually microbial or microorganisms. The film talked about how this is a historical connection to life billions of years ago. However, we’ve been accelerating our disconnection with these life forms with our impact on the environment. In addition, although misanthropic, the film also argued that mankind has had an overall negative impact on Earth. However, while the Earth will somehow find a way to survive everything we’ve done, we might not. Therefore saving the Earth is equivalent to saving ourselves.
 * 5. What parts of the film did you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?**

The film was too entirely engrossed in emotional appeal (which is quite common in movies made from Hollywood). Similarities could be drawn between the movie and a guilt-tripping spouse. While it is important to be aware of these issues and understand how everyone’s individual actions contribute to this problem, the movie puts the entire responsibility on the one individual in the audience instead of everyone as a group. I am not sure how effective this tactic is overall but it personally was not as effective for me, especially in regard to issues that I have either drastically changed my behaviour for already to accommodate the sustainability factor or ones that I have no impact on.
 * 6. What parts of the film were you not compelled or convinced by? Why?**

The audience the film best addresses is the general public, who may be students, parents, or office workers who have a 9-5 schedule. Anyone who is likely to go see a movie on a weekend is fair game because the movie does not differentiate between different markets and its argument is made to everyone who is currently not doing anything to help the environment. In this way concepts have been simplified and not as much data may be given to not confuse the average movie-goer and to appeal to a broader spectrum of people (including those who may not know English very well).
 * 7. What audiences does the film best address? Why?**

Examples of how people can change their lifestyle would probably be the most effective in enhancing the film’s environmental educational value. True stories of how this has impacted people’s lives for the better might also be convincing and helpful.
 * 8. What could have been added to this film to enhance its environmental educational value?**

The kind of actions the film suggests is to spread awareness, change your lifestyle to better accommodate the environment, and to boycott goods and services that contribute to the degradation of the planet.
 * 9. What kinds of action and points of intervention are suggested by the film? If the film itself does not suggest corrective action, describe actions that you can imagine being effective.**

I wanted to see how factually accurate the film was, especially since it seemingly had so much Hollywood influence. I came across a review (that doubled as an environmental advocacy paper on forestry) that essentially referred to it as a mindless rant because it was too broad and it was “losing sight to some indisputable facts” and that we should keep in mind to “put the science before the Hollywood hype”. I also came across a referred link to EarthLab.com, a site that talks about many of the issues the 11th Hour touched base on and how to minimize one’s environmental impact.
 * 10. What additional information has this film compelled you to seek out? (Provide at least two supporting references.)**

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