Conspiracy Cinema: Propaganda, Politics and Paranoia

by David Ray Carter

Overview

The only guide to this emerging genre of cinema. Still marginalized by mainstream media, conspiracy theories are a growing influence on the contemporary political imagination, thanks to internet distribution of conspiracy cinema - documentaries presenting conspiratorial explanations everything from 9/11 to the Kennedy assassinations, Roswell to the causes of HIV. One hundred million people around the world have watched one of these films and this is the first book to explain and explore what they are seeing. Lighthearted, funny, and interactive, this is the definitive and only guide to this intriguing and immensely popular form of modern entertainment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781900486972
Publisher:	SCB Distributors
Publication date:	10/23/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

David Ray Carter, originally from Birmingham, Alabama, has reviewed several thousand films since 2000, and lectured on cinema in the US and the UK.

Read an Excerpt

LOOSE CHANGE (2005—2009)
Filmmaker/Director: Dylan Avery (director), Jason Bermas, Korey Rowe, Matthew Brown, Alex Jones
Production Company: Louder than Words, Microcinema International (An American Coup, 2009 only)
Independently produced Conspiracy Cinema has existed since the early days of home video, approximately the same time that filmmakers Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas were born. It is somewhat strange
then that it would be their film Loose Change that would become many people's first exposure to such films and the standard bearer for the genre as a whole. What Loose Change did for conspiracy cinema cannot be overestimated and it would be apt to call it the genre's Deep Throat. Like Deep Throat, Loose Change was less innovative than simply just well-timed, becoming the accepted – and acceptable – public face for a marginalized art form.
Loose Change's take on the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon differ little from those put forth in previous films and books. To wit, the film ascribes to the inside job, controlled demolition, and Pentagon missile theories, with the only unique viewpoint put forth by the film being that the passengers of Flight 93 were unloaded at a secret location prior to the plane's crash; a theory not originated by the filmmakers, but one seldom seen in film. The Bush Administration is depicted as both the orchestrator and perpetrator of the attacks, and the Project for a New American Century's now infamous position paper is given considerable attention. Loose Change presents the attacks as a pretext for war-for-profit in the Middle East, an idea made all the more chilling because the film makes the decision to kill American citizens a purely financial one since it doesn't frame it in the context of the Illuminati, the New World Order, or other quasi-religious groups.
Anyone who had seen a conspiracy documentary on 9-11 prior to Loose Change would likely not have been impressed by the claims it makes or the proof it offers for them. However, to truly understand its importance, we must look at the context and method in which its information is presented. Loose Change is the first important documentary of any type of the "YouTube Age."Those who saw the film initially did so for free from their computers. The film is fast paced, well-edited, and decidedly aimed at the under-thirty crowd. It presents information in short, easily digestible bites, in much the same manner as a modern news program.

Table of Contents

Foreword

A Grassy Knoll Too Far Mick Farren 1

Preface Thomas McGrath 3

Introduction 5

Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Cinema 5

About the Author 8

About this Book 10

On the Films in this Book 13

Final Warnings 15

Part I

Event Conspiracies and Assassinations 17

September 11, 2001 18

July 7, 2005, London Bombings 45

The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy 50

The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr 71

The Death of Princess Diana 76

The Oklahoma City Bombing 83

The Assassination of Robert Francis Kennedy 91

The Siege at Waco 99

Other Events 106

The Moon Landing and Cosmic Conspiracies 107

Miscellaneous Event Conspiracies 122

Part II

Grand Theories 131

The Illuminati 132

The New World Order 144

Part III

Lesser Conspiracies 167

Conspiracies in Politics and the Media 167

Politics Continued: The American Presidents 176

Conspiracies in Religion, Spirituality, and Secret Societies 195

The Police State: Intelligence Agencies, Law Enforcement, and the Surveilance State 212

Health and Environmental Conspiracies 227

HIV/AIDS 233

Weather Conspiracies: Chemtrails and Haarp 239

Financial Conspiracies 253

Conclusion 263

References 265

Index 266

Title Information 272