As you point out, global conspiracy theories circulate throughout the fringes of the political spectrum. I’ve personally known folks who espouse states’ rights and ending the Fed who do not think of themselves as right wing or Tea Partiers or some such, but think of themselves as left-ish but most especially countercultural rebels who stand for individual “freedom.”

The strange appearance of the same ideas among politically disparate groups is fascinating and happens all over the Internet. I’m thinking of the user comments that accompany politically-oriented videos posted to YouTube. I’m thinking of videos about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and 9/11 Truth, but there are many others.

Like the title to your article, one phrase that often shows up in the comments accompanying the videos is “wake up!” It is often used to dismiss another commenter’s ideas as ignorant, as, in fact, displaying false consciousness about the “true” state of the world. This seems to be what happened with Jones and Chomsky. In this scenario, disagreement is not a matter of point of view, but a matter of being hoodwinked by the big lie. It seems like popular political discourse turns on an assumption that one’s opponent in the debate hasn’t woken up to the truth and is arguing from a place of false consciousness, of not being able to see what’s “really” going on.

On a similar note: if, for example, the same idea can be embraced by differing ideologies, sometimes the idea’s ideology can be up for grabs. A few years ago, Amy Goodman, host of _Democracy Now_, came under fire from the 9/11 Truth groups, who accosted her at book signings and other events. There are videos of this on YouTube as well. I distinctly remember one YT user posting a comment to one of these videos that read something like, “It’s disappointing she won’t get behind 9/11 Truth being that she’s supposedly such a liberal.”

I wonder if Jerome Bruner’s conceptualization of narrative as a cultural toolkit is helpful here. As Hofstadter suggests, down here at the bottom of the sociopolitical hierarchy we see only power’s effects, not its mechanisms. Maybe 9/11 Truth and the New World Order and international bankers are, as per Bruner, part of a narrative that helps us make sense of and control that which seems so far out of our control. Is this why Jones and the 9/11 Truthers react so strongly to Chomsky and Goodman?

“For the last 10 years, I’ve felt increasing pressure to stop shooting film and start shooting video, but I’ve never understood why. It’s cheaper to work on film, it’s far better looking, it’s the technology that’s been known and understood for a hundred years, and it’s extremely reliable. I think, truthfully, it boils down to the economic interest of manufacturers and [a production] industry that makes more money through change rather than through maintaining the status quo. We save a lot of money shooting on film and projecting film and not doing digital intermediates. In fact, I’ve never done a digital intermediate. Photochemically, you can time film with a good timer in three or four passes, which takes about 12 to 14 hours as opposed to seven or eight weeks in a DI suite. That’s the way everyone was doing it 10 years ago, and I’ve just carried on making films in the way that works best and waiting until there’s a good reason to change. But I haven’t seen that reason yet.

I’ve kept my mouth shut about this for a long time and it’s fine that everyone has a choice, but for me the choice is in real danger of disappearing. So right before Christmas [2011] I brought some filmmakers together [which included Edgar Wright, Joe Dante, Michael Bay, and Bryan Singer to name a few] and showed them the prologue for The Dark Knight Rises that we shot on IMAX film, then cut from the original negative and printed. I wanted to give them a chance to see the potential, because I think IMAX is the best film format that was ever invented. It’s the gold standard and what any other technology has to match up to, but none have, in my opinion. The message I wanted to put out there was that no one is taking anyone’s digital cameras away. But if we want film to continue as an option, and someone is working on a big studio movie with the resources and the power to insist [on] film, they should say so. I felt as if I didn’t say anything, and then we started to lose that option, it would be a shame. When I look at a digitally acquired and projected image, it looks inferior against an original negative anamorphic print or an IMAX one.”

You can read the entire interview at the website below; all I can say is that here’s someone who has completely embraced CGI and the effects it can produce, but who is still convinced that film has a unique quality that nothing can really duplicate. If the possibility of using film is lost, it will be a significant blow to the art of the movies.

Here’s the link to the complete DGA interview:

http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/.....Nolan.aspx