Tom Shadyac’s new documentary “I Am” includes such liberal icons as Noam Chomsky and the late Howard Zinn, but the director insists his film isn’t political in nature.
“I wanted to go beneath the politics. The second we define someone as a Democrat or Republican it creates a whole set of limitations. Definition is the death of discovery,” says Shadyac, the man who directed Jim Carrey to speak from his anus in “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.”
Shadyac’s transformation from A-list comedy director (“Liar, Liar,” “Bruce Almighty”) to philosopher gives a personal touch to “I Am.” Shadyac’s recovery from a bicycle accident, which included a frightening bout of post-concussion syndrome, forced him to re-examine his opulent lifestyle. He didn’t like what he had become, so he decided to make wholesale changes – like trading his mega-mansion for a modest mobile home – and capture his journey on film.
“I had no idea what the finished product would look like. I was the most naïve documentary filmmaker who ever picked up a camera,“ he tells WWTW. “When I saw the end product I was pleased. It expressed much of the heart and soul of the matter I wanted to express.” The film asks luminaries like Zinn, Chomsky, Desmond Tutu and others their thoughts about the current state of mankind and ways to improve the planet. Shadyac also interviews researchers who use technology to illustrate the tangible impact we have on each other.
In a nutshell, we’re all connected, and our pursuit of material goods is a cancer on the globe.
“There were a lot of people who thought when I moved to a beautiful mobile home community, ’what are you doing? You’re crazy. You’re not growing. Your square footage isn’t getting bigger,’” he recalls.
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Shadyac says those sentiments may be magnified by a film industry flush with cash, but the problem extends beyond Tinsel Town.
“It’s societal. Even people who don’t have money in society would think, potentially, he’s off his rocker,“ he says. “That’s the poison, the illusion that the mansion creates a happy life. Show business is part of a larger culture, a world-wide culture that must make up to the fact that the accumulation of things doesn’t make a life necessary any happier or purposeful.”
And Shadyac doesn’t see the benefits of a consumer culture that some argue drives innovation.
“Technology is not good, it’s neutral,” he says, his tone getting more intense. “We split the atom and we killed tens of thousands of people with it. We can do good things, energy-wise with it. Cell phones can set off a car bomb or connect with a loved one.”
The motivation to make a new product for economic gain can’t be more powerful than the same drive to cure cancer or other benevolent aims.
“We’re in this crazy illusion that money is the only motivator, that it pulls us forward. My father wasn’t pulled forward by money when he created St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.”
Tomorrow: Shadyac discusses why he thinks positive worldwide changes are still possible given the tumult in the Middle East and why so many critics blasted his dramedy “Patch Adams.”
(Photo: Morgan Freeman and Steve Carell listen to Tom Shadyac, right, the director of the 2009 comedy “Evan Almighty.” Shadyac’s newest film, “I Am,” is a sober look at the problems facing humankind and possible solutions.)
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I know how Tutu, Chomsky, and Zinn—the terrorism apologist, the Jewish Holocaust-denier, and the Marxist propagandist—could improve the world: play Russian roulette with a semiautomatic gun.
If we’re not supposed to see this through a partisan lens, then why are they all raving left-wing anti-Semite thugs? If every single person he interviewed praised Comrade Stalin as the hero of the Great Patriotic War, would he actually pretend it’s not Communist?
I understand, Tom. Having met Shadyac it felt like his heart is in the right place. I pressed him on the consumerism issue and the discussion got a bit … tense. It can be hard to really have a dialogue with actors/directors because you’re dealing with a very limited time frame (often under 30 min.) “I Am” doesn’t directly address politics. Shadyac was being honest about that. And even folks like Zinn and Chomsky don’t directly get political. But the nagging question from the film is this – if our consumer-driven culture is bad, what’s the Plan B? We’ve seen how a collective-style approach works, and you can keep Cuba/Venezuela/etc.
So what has replaced his pursuit of success and material goods? He’s clearly rejected his Hollywood belief system but the trailer only mentions a sort-of new age environmentalism, one-world idealism. Does he interview people of faith who have given up a life of comfort for a higher calling?
As a person who studies “cults”, I can tell Shadyac, “Tough questions that have never been asked? Are you kidding? All cults and mainstream religions/philosophies ask these questions constantly. Welcome to the discussion but you are 10,000 years late getting here.”
I also enjoy the little Iranian (?) girl in the trailer holding both her hands up and flashing the “peace” sign. Note to Shadyac, when Nixon went to the middle east and flashed his famous peace sign the populace thought he was “flipping them off” since that is their hand gesture for casting an insult. Since then, many arabs and persians I went to college with confirmed this and chuckle that they like flashing the hand sign to westerners as a “peace” sign when they in their hearts mean the insult. Oh, those wacky middle easterners!
Was the little girl telling you what she thought, Tom?
I may have erred above…I believe the actual hand sign of insult from the middle east is the “Thumbs up”. Any “Peace Sign” reference probably was introduced by British rule.
The important thing is this…when in alien cultures, make sure you are aware that their hand gestures may be completely opposite of our own.
The British one is actually with the knuckles out, like the middle finger; it basically means “I cuckolded you”. I don’t know if there is anywhere that the peace-sign version is obscene, though it still means “Victory”, not peace, in Asia.
I thought “knuckles out” was the “Victory” sign, but “knuckles out” and wrist flip toward the one you despise was the “bad one”. Shows I know next to nothing, I guess. Perhaps I should run for Congress?
No, you’re getting it mixed up with the Italian gesture that resembles either the ‘devil horns’ at a heavy metal show, or the University of Texas ‘Hook ‘em Horns’. Legend has it that the British V-sign (you’re right about the knuckles facing out, knuckles in is ‘victory’) was first used at the Battle of Agincourt by English archers, in reference to a French threat to cut off the index and middle fingers of any archers they captured. However, like the middle finger, it’s really just a general-purpose obscene gesture, the exact origin and meaning of which is unclear.