Sowing the seeds of doubt

Abstract

Merchants of Doubt is a documentary film, based on a book of the same name by science historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway. The movie explores the ways in which corporations and industrial lobbies have used a handful of willing scientists and proven strategies to sow doubt and foster regulatory inertia, allowing them to continue to reap windfall profits while the government becomes bogged down in partisan feuds about scientific issues. The film's primary example is the tobacco industry, which used a cast of compliant doctors and scientists, bought politicians, and willing dupes to disseminate confusion about the health effects of cigarette smoking long after the science was settled. The film-makers explore how disparate organisations, from chemical manufacturers to the fossil fuel industry, have used the same tactics to reduce the burden of government regulation and keep the profits flowing. On a production level, the film is somewhat scattershot and pedestrian, a series of talking-head interviews interspersed with stock footage and distracting and soon-to-be outdated graphics often standing in for an authorial voice. An overly cute framing device depicting a magician expounding on slight-of-hand sets the tone. The film wanders between several loosely structured vignettes, examining different people who have been directly affected by the spin techniques that the film explores, from scientists who have seen their work called into question, to journalists who have exposed corporate malfeasance, to the people who go out on television to shill organisations' views, whether for money or because of deep-seated ideological beliefs. At first, it seems like the people being interviewed will be the central thrust of the film, before it wanders on to another section without warning, and then another, with disappointingly little narrative coherence. Thus instead of a structured film, we are effectively left with several short profiles of people involved in one way or another with the loosely conceptualised idea of corporate spin. Director Robert Kenner (whose previous work includes 2008's Food, Inc.) brings a haphazard earnestness to the film's thesis, but he presents it in a way that makes no particular effort to reach out to anyone in the audience who doesn't already buy into it from the start. Special opprobrium is saved for Fred Seitz and Fred Singer, two Ivy League physicists, who late on in their careers became climate change deniers. The film glosses over their motivations as “ideological commitments” and moves on without assessing further the reasons behind their stance. Kenner's film explores an important subject, and is intermittently amusing and illuminating, but is unfortunately too scattered and ill-focused to convince anyone who isn't already convinced. The kernels of several excellent films exist within Merchants of Doubt, but the execution of this one lets down that potential. Merchants of Doubt Robert Kenner 2014, USA, 96 minFor more about Merchants of Doubt see http://sonyclassics.com/merchantsofdoubt/ Merchants of Doubt Robert Kenner 2014, USA, 96 min For more about Merchants of Doubt see http://sonyclassics.com/merchantsofdoubt/