Compelling minds behind Syriana
I believe that if one was to write a review for Syriana, it is equally, if not more important to first discuss the almost philanthropic production company that brought it to life. Participant Productions, the company behind both Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck was set up in 2004 by Jeff Skoll, billionaire co-founder of eBay. Participant's express purpose is to make movies that will help to change the world. In the words of Meredith Blake, the firm's executive vice-president, “Our product is social change, and the movies are a vehicle for that social change.”
Jeff Skoal took eBay public in 1998, and retired a billionaire at 35 in 2000. In 2004 he created Participant Productions with visions of grandeur. As he told Time magazine last month, “Traditionally, people come to Hollywood for financial reasons or they think it's glamorous. I'm doing this because I believe that movies and documentaries can be a wonderful pathway to change the world.”
But if a film is too preachy, as Participant knows, no one will listen, so the films must also be commercially viable. Inspired by such films as All the President's Men, Erin Brockovich, Hotel Rwanda and Gandhi - which he has paid to have dubbed into Arabic by Palestinian actors to spread peace in the Middle East - Skoll saw that the films he loved didn't have much “follow-up in the real world” and decided to provide an infrastructure that would allow movies to make a difference far beyond the cinema. Participant Productions creates partnerships with activist groups, organizes an action campaign around each movie, and has set up a community website (www.participate.net) where people can become involved in group blogs with high-profile experts - and even, in the case of Good Night, and Good Luck, with real people on whom the film's protagonists are based.
This brings us to Participant's first and very successful film, Syriana, the most political film to have come out of Hollywood since there was a war in Vietnam. Both subtle and contorted, it has launched a thousand cover stories and been hailed as the crowning product of a newly politicized Hollywood.
Written and directed by Steven Gaghan, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Traffic, Syriana plots the ways in which American interests in Middle Eastern oil lead to the very acts of violence that America most fears. Unfortunately, although it sheds some light on corporate America's involvement in global geopolitics, the narrative doesn't always make itself clear. There are too many plotlines and at times it is just too confusing to support in depth character analysis.
However, George Clooney has been nominated for a well-deserved Golden Globe as best supporting actor for his part as an American arms dealer. Rather then confuse you anymore then need be, I will just say go and see this movie, along with Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney and Participant Productions other collaboration about the McCarthy Era Communist witch hunts. Even if you don't find the movie entertaining, it will at least provide some education about this very important page in American history.
“Corruption is our protection,” says an oil executive played in Syriana by Tim Blake Nelson, “corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why we win.”
Jeff Skoal took eBay public in 1998, and retired a billionaire at 35 in 2000. In 2004 he created Participant Productions with visions of grandeur. As he told Time magazine last month, “Traditionally, people come to Hollywood for financial reasons or they think it's glamorous. I'm doing this because I believe that movies and documentaries can be a wonderful pathway to change the world.”
But if a film is too preachy, as Participant knows, no one will listen, so the films must also be commercially viable. Inspired by such films as All the President's Men, Erin Brockovich, Hotel Rwanda and Gandhi - which he has paid to have dubbed into Arabic by Palestinian actors to spread peace in the Middle East - Skoll saw that the films he loved didn't have much “follow-up in the real world” and decided to provide an infrastructure that would allow movies to make a difference far beyond the cinema. Participant Productions creates partnerships with activist groups, organizes an action campaign around each movie, and has set up a community website (www.participate.net) where people can become involved in group blogs with high-profile experts - and even, in the case of Good Night, and Good Luck, with real people on whom the film's protagonists are based.
This brings us to Participant's first and very successful film, Syriana, the most political film to have come out of Hollywood since there was a war in Vietnam. Both subtle and contorted, it has launched a thousand cover stories and been hailed as the crowning product of a newly politicized Hollywood.
Written and directed by Steven Gaghan, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Traffic, Syriana plots the ways in which American interests in Middle Eastern oil lead to the very acts of violence that America most fears. Unfortunately, although it sheds some light on corporate America's involvement in global geopolitics, the narrative doesn't always make itself clear. There are too many plotlines and at times it is just too confusing to support in depth character analysis.
However, George Clooney has been nominated for a well-deserved Golden Globe as best supporting actor for his part as an American arms dealer. Rather then confuse you anymore then need be, I will just say go and see this movie, along with Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney and Participant Productions other collaboration about the McCarthy Era Communist witch hunts. Even if you don't find the movie entertaining, it will at least provide some education about this very important page in American history.
“Corruption is our protection,” says an oil executive played in Syriana by Tim Blake Nelson, “corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why we win.”
