Orwell Rolls In His Grave (DVD)
Written and Directed by: Robert Kane Pappas

Anyone who has read George Orwell’s novel 1984 and stopped to think about it recently has probably found themselves somewhat unnerved by how true to life it all seems. What was once a chilling sci-fi warning of things to come has now become reality. Michael Moore referenced some of these parallels in his own film Fahrenheit 9/11, and now filmmaker Robert Kane Pappas brings us an entire documentary devoted to the subject.

“Orwell Rolls In His Grave” explores the Orwellian vision of the future, specifically a world where the flow of information to the general public is controlled by people and organizations who hold the most political power. It examines the influence that large media conglomerates have on society and why the news really isn’t the news anymore. Some of the other topics covered include media deregulation, the George W. Bush election scandal, Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, the internet and the Patriot Act.

This movie is very dry and almost solely constructed of titles, captions and talking head interviews with media experts such as former 60 Minutes producer Charles Lewis and Prof. Robert W. McChesney, founder of MediaReform.net. (Michael Moore of course also has an obligatory appearance.) While there are definitely some eye-opening ideas presented within, it’s not necessarily stuff we haven’t heard before. What I did find particularly interesting were some of the specific examples of how the public has had the wool pulled over its eyes, and who stands to benefit from it all.

The only problem is that while I feel this is a movie that everyone in North America should probably see, it’s somewhat difficult to recommend. This movie lacks energy, and after a while, it all starts to sound the same. For all the criticism Michael Moore receives, he is at least able to take ideas and make them entertaining and understandable to the average person. While Orwell Rolls In His Grave is definitely a valuable and important step towards resisting media control, it probably will not reach enough people to truly make an impact. Still, it is a valiant effort nonetheless. The extra features on the DVD pack in even more interview outtakes but by the time I got to them I was more than a little burnt out. — Sean