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The Political Documentary Film


Over the past few years it seems as if the political documentary film has come from out of nowhere to become one of the most popular film categories with the general public. The reasons for this are no doubt many and varied, but in my opinion the two main factors which have contributed to this trend are the rise of globalization and the current war on terror.

These issues raised public consciousness about the fact that we now live in a global society, that people living in the west are no longer insulated from life on the other side of the planet. The awareness that a group of disgruntled citizens living two thousand miles away can destroy the way of life we have come to take for granted has driven many people to search for more information on how this situation has come about. The political documentary film fits the bill perfectly as a media that provides easy to digest information for a society that no longer has the time or inclination to read a book.

A decade ago documentaries such as Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore and Errol Morris's The Fog of War would have interested a very limited audience. Today, a well received documentary film can expect to gross large sums at the box office, with Fahrenheit 9/11 taking over $100 million to become the highest grossing documentary film in history.

The latest political documentary to appear has been yet another Michael Moore film titled Slacker Uprising, but this time there's a difference. Michael Moore has released his movie as a free download to anyone who resides in Canada or the USA in an attempt to ensure that the film has as large an audience as possible. Why would a documentary maker do such a thing? With this movie Moore is striving to encourage as many young people as possible to vote in the upcoming US election. In doing so it is his hope that Barak Obama will be elected president, we will all see if his experiment works in a couple of months time.

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