From an email I received by a friend after discussion about some ideas a few days ago…

“I thought, given our conversation last week, that I should share this with you. I just finished the documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, and I’m a little overwhelmed. It plays on my bred-in sense of Catholic guilt. I feel like I’m part of this blind, waking-dead, consumerist flock that bends over for The Man so it can get the shaft of debt and corporate servitude.

I think of how much I value the shit I buy and I think about how the more comfortable I am, the less I care about the world around me. It’s not so much that the film tells you these things, but rather it reveals the cracks in a system that you’re pushed into unwittingly by this culture of self. It reminds me, in a lot of ways, of The Century of Self and how I fit into that model.

I think about my parents, for instance, when my dad was my age, he was married, had me and owned a house. He wasn’t paying a mortgage, he owned the house. Then 2 years later, he sold that house and bought another one, which I grew up in and he and my mom lived in for 20 years. I rent every month and could not imagine being in the same boat. I have student loans and credit card debt, which is something my parents never had when they were my age.

I know that you have very little respect for filmmakers, artists and entertainers. I certainly agree that our culture celebrates trivialities that promote “idiocracy” and helps lull everyone to sleep to create distractions from everything going on around us. It’s important, however, to remember why filmmaking is so powerful: it is a visceral experience that is easily absorbed by a viewer that can leave an indelible impression. This is especially true of Capitalism: A Love Story. Although much more pointed and direct than a dramatization of the same ideas, this documentary is shocking because it is so true in so many ways. And it makes one’s pursuit of all things transitory seem as insignificant as it actually is to the grand scheme of things.

Initially, I was not excited to see this movie because this subject had been of particular interest to me over the past 18 months or so since the burst of the housing bubble and I felt like I knew it pretty well. Some of the topics and illustrations in the film were old news to me, but it was the film’s presentation that made the difference. It drove the message home and was able to connect emotionally which was a different experience than following the subject on CNN or the AP or public radio podcasts or where ever because those sources were only engaging on an intellectual level. It’s silly. I understand that this method is the way in which propaganda works and that everything delivered in this form needs to be met with some degree of skepticism, but the way the film was able to capture the emotional gravity of these events, really helped stoke the flames of my passion for this topic.”

Click HERE for Episode 5

Click HERE for Episode 4

Click HERE for Episode 3

Click HERE for Episode 2

Click HERE for Episode 1

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