Zeitgeist, the Movie

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This article is about the 2007 documentary. For other uses, see Zeitgeist (disambiguation).
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Zeitgeist, the Movie
Directed by Peter Joseph
Produced by Peter Joseph[1]
Written by Peter Joseph
Music by Peter Joseph
Editing by Peter Joseph
Distributed by GMP LLC[2]
Release date(s) 2007
Running time 122 min
Language English (Available in 23 subtitles)
Followed by Zeitgeist: Addendum

Zeitgeist, the Movie is a 2007 documentary film about alleged historical and modern conspiracies, including the origins of Christianity, the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, and the banking system.

A sequel, Zeitgeist: Addendum, advocates a new technology-based social system influenced by the ideas of Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project.[3]

Contents

[edit] Release

Zeitgeist, the Movie was officially released online on June 18, 2007[4] on zeitgeistmovie.com. However, a beta version had already been available on Google video since June 6.[5] For a time, it reached the top of the chart of "most viewed" videos available through Google video[6], and has been recognised as an "internet sensation"[7]. The video has since been translated into 24 languages.[8]

[edit] Synopsis

The film opens with a collection of visual art, film footage and audio quotes. It starts with a speech by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoché about spirituality, followed by a series of musically synchronized clips of war and explosions culminating with the September 11 attacks. This is followed by another sequence of clips, this time showing war casualties. The film's title screen is displayed, and Jordan Maxwell's Inner World of the Occult is quoted, which criticizes religious institutions, governments, and banking cartels who are alleged to "have misled [the people] away from the true and divine presence in the universe." The film's intro ends with a portion of a George Carlin monologue on religion and an accompanying animated cartoon.

[edit] Part I

Horus left and Jesus right, both presented in the film as "solar messiahs"

Part One, entitled "The Greatest Story Ever Told" questions religions as original god-given stories, arguing the Christian religion specifically is mainly derived from other religions, astronomical facts, astrological myths and traditions; in turn derived from or sharing elements with other ones. In furtherance of the Jesus myth hypothesis, this part argues that the historical Jesus is a literary and astrological hybrid, nurtured politically in the interest of control.

This section was based on the work of many scholars, ranging from Egyptologist Gerald Massey, to Joseph Campbell to D.M Murdock (Acharya S)[9] who has published a companion guide.[10]

Horus, the Egyptian Sun God, is introduced as having a number of attributes similar to many other religious deities which came after him, including but not limited to Attis, Krishna, Dionysus, Mithra and Jesus Christ; these attributes alleged to include the virgin birth on December 25, 12 disciples, burial for 3 days, resurrection, and performing of miracles.[11]

The film offers explanations for some of these common attributes. To explain the origin of the alleged December 25 birth, the film points out that the Winter solstice has the shortest day, and therefore, the shortest amount of sunlight, of the year, and that about three days after it, sunlight time could be seen growing, thus marking the birth of a "God of light" or Sun God. Another Christian-astrological similarity, according to the film, is that the three stars in Orion's belt (called the "Three Kings") align with Sirius on December 25, the brightest star in the sky, and point to the Sun's rise on the horizon. This is equated to the Nativity of Jesus, where, according to the film, three "kings" follow the star in the east to locate the birth of Jesus. Furthermore, around December 25, Sun rises in the vicinity of Virgo, the constellation known as Virgin, which refers to the origin of Jesus' virgin birth. Comparison of sunset in the vicinity of Crux and Jesus' death on the cross is based on similar principle. In addition, parallels as walking on water (reflection at dawn/dusk) and turning water into wine (ripening of grapes) are shown as metaphoric miracles, explained as the influence of the Sun.

Christianity is then said to be a Gnostic myth, historized by the Roman Empire for social control of Europe through doctrines established at the First Council of Nicea. The Dark Ages, the Inquisitions and the Crusades are given as events which maintained Europe's submission to The Vatican through Christianity. The following is said in conclusion: "Christianity, along with all other theistic belief systems [...] empowers those who know the truth, but use the myth to manipulate and control societies. [...] It reduces human responsibility to the effect that "God" controls everything, and in turn awful crimes can be justified in the name of Divine Pursuit. [...] The religious myth is the most powerful device ever created, and serves as the psychological soil upon which other myths can flourish."

[edit] Part II

The 9/11 attacks are the subject of part II of the film.

Part II, entitled "All the World's a Stage," uses integral footage of several 9/11 conspiracy theory films like to portray the September 11 attacks as either orchestrated or allowed to happen by elements within the United States government in order to generate mass fear, initiate and justify the War on Terror, provide a pretext for the curtailment of civil liberties, and produce economic gain. These claims include that the U.S. government had advance knowledge about the attacks, the response of the military deliberately let the planes reach their targets, and the World Trade Center buildings 1, 2, and 7 underwent a controlled demolition. The film claims that six of the named hijackers are still alive, that Hani Hanjour could not have flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon, that no substantial plane wreckage was found at two of the three crash sites, that the Bush administration covered up the truth in the 9/11 Commission Report, and that the mainstream media have failed to ask important questions about the official account.

However, in a March 17, 2009 article, the New York Times, after noting that the first Zeitgeist film "may be most famous for alleging that the attacks of Sept. 11 were an 'inside job' perpetrated by a power-hungry government on its witless population," goes on to say that this is a point of view that Mr. Joseph said he has recently "moved away from." [12] Peter Joseph later clarified this statement as a "misquote" on his Movement's website Forum and continues his support for a new 911 investigation.[13]

[edit] Part III

The United States Government's income tax is claimed to be unconstitutional.

Part III, entitled Don't Mind the Men Behind the Curtain, argues that three wars of the United States during the twentieth century were waged purely for economic gain by what the film refers to as "international bankers". The film alleges that certain events were engineered or were allowed to happen as excuses to enter into war include the sinking of the RMS Lusitania (a factor in the U.S. decision to enter World War I two years later), the Attack on Pearl Harbor (which was the opening attack of the Japanese on the U.S. in World War II), and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (which led to the escalation of the Vietnam War).

According to the film, the U.S. was forced by the Federal Reserve Bank to become embroiled in these wars, not to win but to sustain conflict, as it forces the U.S. government to borrow money from the bank, allegedly increasing the profits of the international bankers. The film gives a history of the Federal Reserve, claiming it engineered the Great Depression to steal wealth from the American population and was responsible for the assassination of Louis McFadden, a congressman who attempted to impeach the Federal Reserve Board. The film then goes on to claim that the Federal Income Tax is illegal.

This section also claims the existence of a secret agreement to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into a "North American Union" and to replace the Canadian dollar, United States dollar, and the Mexican peso by a new currency, called the "amero". The creation of this North American Union is then alleged to be a step towards the creation of a "One World Government", which would be formed by the merging of the North American Union, the European Union, the African Union and a hypothetical Asian Union. The film speculates that under such a government, every human could be implanted with an RFID chip that would be used to monitor individuals and suppress dissent. The film ends with several quotes from Carl Sagan, Bill Hicks and several others.

[edit] Sequel I: Zeitgeist: Addendum

Zeitgeist Addendum
Directed by Peter Joseph
Produced by Peter Joseph[1]
Written by Peter Joseph
Music by Peter Joseph
Editing by Peter Joseph
Distributed by GMP LLC[2]
Release date(s) 2008
Running time 123 min
Language English (Available in 23 subtitles)
Preceded by Zeitgeist, The Movie

Zeitgeist: Addendum premiered at the 5th Annual Artivist Film Festival in Los Angeles, California on October 2, 2008, winning their highest award. It was released free online on October 4, 2008.[14] Director Peter Joseph stated: "The failure of our world to resolve the issues of war, poverty, and corruption, rests within a gross ignorance about what guides human behavior to begin with. It addresses the true source of the instability in our society, while offering the only fundamental, long-term solution."[15]

Part I follows on from Part III from the original film, citing the specific process of fractional-reserve banking as detailed in Modern Money Mechanics, released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In detailing the process of money creation, the film suggests society is manipulated into economic slavery through debt-based monetary policies by requiring individuals to submit for employment in order to pay off their debt.

Part II is a documentary-style interview with The New York Times best-selling author and activist John Perkins based on his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in which he describes his role as a self-described economic hit man. In that capacity, he claims to have helped the CIA, as well as various corporate and political entities, to undermine or corrupt foreign regimes that put the interests of their populations before those of transnational corporations. Perkins denies the existence of a conspiracy, because he sees the U.S. as a corporatocracy, in which there is no need for a plot, as politicians like Dick Cheney (who first served as the head of a construction company Halliburton and afterwards became Vice President) are alleged of working under the same primary assumption as corporations: that maximisation of profits is first priority, regardless of any social or environmental cost.

Part III is a documentary-style interview with futurist Jacque Fresco. The film looks at Fresco's proposal of a "resource-based economy", which he claims would create abundance, is environmentally friendly and sustainable. He goes on to discuss technology which he sees as the primary driver of human advancement and he blames politics as being unable to solve any problems, because of what he claims is lack of "technical capabilities". Fresco claims that his approach is not perfect, but that "it's just much better than what we have. We can never achieve perfection".

Part IV of the film suggests that the primary reason for what it sees as society's social values ("warfare, corruption, oppressive laws, social stratification, irrelevant superstitions, environmental destruction, and a despotic, socially indifferent, profit oriented, ruling class") is a collective ignorance of "the emergent and symbiotic aspects of natural law." The film suggests several actions for "social change", which include: boycotting banks who are claimed to make up the Federal Reserve System, such as JPMorgan Chase and Citibank, turning off TV news, not joining a military, refusing energy from energy companies in favour of making homes self-sustainable with clean energy and rejecting the political structure. The film closes by asking everyone to "eliminate the divisionary, materialistic noise, we have been conditioned to think is true ... while discovering, amplifying and aligning with the signal coming from our true, empirical oneness."

[edit] Awards

A remastered version of the film was screened on November 10, 2007 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood as part of a film festival held there (the 4th Annual Artivist Film Festival) where it won the "Best Feature" award in the Artivist Spirit category for feature-length documentaries.[16] [17]

In 2008, "Zeitgeist Addendum", the sequel, received the same "Artivist Spirit" award at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.[15]

In Sept. of 2008, "Zeitgeist, The Movie" also received a "Special Acknowledgment Award" at Rutger Hauer's ICFILMS Film Festival in Milan, Italy.[7]

[edit] Criticisms

 An RFC about the rewrite of this section is currently taking place on the talk page. Before engaging in any deep change, please discuss this issue and wait for a consensus to emerge.

References to Zeitgeist in the mainstream media are relatively few and mostly negative. Commonly the film’s factual accuracy was challenged. A review in the Irish Times entitled “Zeitgeist: the Nonsense” wrote that “these are surreal perversions of genuine issues and debates, and they tarnish all criticism of faith, the Bush administration and globalization - there are more than enough factual injustices in this world to be going around without having to invent fictional ones"[18]. eSkeptic,[19] criticizes the first part of the film on the origins of Christianity: “some of what it asserts is true. Unfortunately, this material is liberally — and sloppily — mixed with material that is only partially true and much that is plainly and simply bogus. [...] Zeitgeist is The Da Vinci Code on steroids." Other reviews assert that it is "Conspiracy crap"[20], “Based solely on anecdotal evidence” and “fiction couched in a few facts”[21], or disparaging reference is made to its part in the 9/11 truth movement[12]. However, along with the criticism there has been some praise for the discussion of the origins of Christianity[21].

Academic coverage of Zeitgeist has also been sparse, mainly lumping the movie in with other conspiracy movies. Again, it has been largely negative, and treated as part of a contemporary phenomenon of “truth” movies. According to Scientific American

“The postmodernist belief in the relativism of truth, coupled to the clicker culture of mass media where attention spans are measured in New York minutes, leaves us with a bewildering array of truth claims packaged in infotainment units. It must be true – I saw it on television, at the movies, on the Internet. The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, That's Incredible, The Sixth Sense, Poltergeist, Loose Change, Zeitgeist the Movie.” [22].

A more severe treatment is given by Jane Chapman, a film producer and reader in media studies at the University of Lincoln, who analyses Zeitgeist (“A fast- paced assemblage of agitprop”) as an example of unethical film-making[23]. She accuses Joseph of deceit through the use of unsourced and unreferenced assertions, and standard film-making propaganda techniques. While parts of the film are, she says, “comically” self-defeating, the nature of “twisted evidence” and the false attribution of Madrid bomb footage as being in London (which she calls a “lie”) amount to ethical abuse in sourcing. She finishes her analyses with the comment:

Thus legitimate questions about what happened on 9/11, and about corruption in religious and financial organizations, are all undermined by the film’s determined effort to maximize an emotional response at the expense of reasoned argument.

[edit] Soundtrack

The musical score for both Zeitgeist, The Movie and Zeitgeist Addendum was composed and performed by Peter Joseph, the film's director.[9]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "IMDb Profile". Imdb.com. February 18, 2008. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1166827/. Retrieved on March 15, 2009. 
  2. ^ a b "IMDB company credits". Imdb.com. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1166827/companycredits. Retrieved on March 15, 2009. 
  3. ^ http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/statement.htm
  4. ^ http://www.opednews.com/articles/Zeitgeist-Addendum-Steps-by-Rady-Ananda-081012-334.html
  5. ^ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=928518742089256264
  6. ^ Google video rankings for February 2008[dead link]
  7. ^ a b "The 2008 Winners". I've Seen Films International Film Festival. http://www.cortoweb.com/icfilms/eng/winners.php. 
  8. ^ http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/subs2.htm
  9. ^ a b http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/sources.htm
  10. ^ The Companion Guide to ZEITGEIST, Part 1
  11. ^ http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/transcript.htm
  12. ^ a b Alan Feuer (March 17, 2009). "They’ve Seen the Future and Dislike the Present". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/nyregion/17zeitgeist.html. Retrieved on March 17, 2009. 
  13. ^ http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=1905&func=view&catid=229&id=85094
  14. ^ The Wall Street Journal Digital Network's Market Watch[dead link], Press release.
  15. ^ a b Artivist Film Festival website
  16. ^ "4th Annual Artivist Film Festival and Artivist Awards Announce the Winning Films of This Year's Festival". Artivist Film Festival and Artivist Award press release. November 5, 2007. http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=788818. Retrieved on February 10, 2009. 
  17. ^ "4th Annual Artivist Film Festival & Artivist Awards: "Merging Art & Activism"". Artivist Film Festival and Artivist Awards press release. October 31, 2007. http://newsblaze.com/story/20071031143153tsop.np/topstory.html. Retrieved on February 10, 2009. 
  18. ^ "Zeitgeist: the nonsense". The Irish Times. 25 August 2008. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2007/0825/1187332519087.html. 
  19. ^ "The Greatest Story Ever Garbled". The Skeptics Society. 25 February 2009. http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-02-25.html. 
  20. ^ Orange, Michelle (10 September 2008). "Able Danger". The Village Voice. http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-09-10/film/able-danger/. 
  21. ^ a b "Towers of Babble". Utne Reader. January 1 2008). http://www.utne.com/2008-01-01/Politics/Towers-of-Babble.aspx. 
  22. ^ Sherman, Michael (July 2009). "I Want to Believe". Scientific American. 
  23. ^ Chapman, Jane (2009). Documentary in Practice: Filmmakers and Production Choices. Polity Press. p. 171-173. ISBN 978-0745636122. 

[edit] External links

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