Has anyone seen King Corn?

It's playing at Facets through Thursday. The documentary was a tad amateurish and the two young protaganists a tad unable to wipe the frat-boy smart-ass looks off their faces, but overall, it made its points well and was very thought-provoking.

It generally overlaps The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. In fact, Pollan appears in the film. The protaganists, two young twenty-somethings, fresh out of college, decide to rent one acre of Iowa farmland to farm and grow corn. The ancestors of the college buddies are, in a twist of coincidence, from the same county in Iowa where they rent their land. (They don't say if this fact was what motivated them to rent in the county they did.) The film traces their journey through this growing season.

Thematically, it's a tad clumsy; at first, I thought the theme was about the trials of two city boys growing corn, but the theme then seemed to shift to tracing the journey of the corn that was produced. It's as if they discovered The Omnivore's Dilemma halfway through making the film.

But the latter portion of the movie was the strongest. Perhaps it was the harrowing imagery of the "farms" where the cows ate themselves to a quick death on corn, but it left me thinking about several things:

1) I will make a concerted effort to reduce my meat consumption, especially beef. The demand for cheap meat not only adversely affects our diets as Americans, but also leads to methods which are not healthy for us, and not healthy for the animals. Look, I understand that there's something inherently hypocritical about caring for the animal's welfare that I ultimately will eat. But on the other hand, I do think we should take a slower, more circular approach to producing the things that we ultimately eat, and the healthier (and therefore happier) the animals are prior to slaughter, the healthier they will be for us as humans to consume.

2) For that reason, I will make a greater effort to look at the way the animals are raised. I will try to eat cows raised on grass-fed beef. I will try to source from smaller, more local purveyors.

3) I agree with the Colorado meatpacker who said that "if people wanted grass-fed beef, then that's what we'd raise." I do think that the demand will affect supply, even if that means higher prices.

4) I do think the farmers who grow corn sprayed with chemical fertilizers and pesticides have to take more responsibility for their actions. I understand the economics of farming limit their options, but it seems like there's a passive system wherein the corn famers take paltry government subsidies for overproduced crops that they know are meant only to drive down the price of corn, which in turn benefits only big agri-business. However, they also know that corn, with the help of farm machinery and chemical fertilizers and pesticides is easy to grow. They also must know the damage that they're doing to the environment; just the imagery of the fertilizer misted onto the soil looked scary. The movie was at its most daring when it showed the farmers and Iowa townspeople who allowed that it is a lot easier for farmers who farm corn now because they have a lot of machines and chemicals to do the work for them -- and consequently, there's a lot of more "downtime." (Perhaps this being the motivation for their complacency?) I also got the distinct sense that the average corn farmer knows that if he diversifies his crops, he'll have to work a lot harder. This is a sticking point for me, as I have a house in a farming town in Michigan - the negative impact of farming inorganically (in the Rodale sense of the word) is palpable - my well water is a smidgen under the environmentally acceptable limits due to the nitrate content from fertilizers. I won't give that water to my dogs.

5) Everything is ripe for corruption. Look at the word "organic," which has been rendered meaningless by the large farms and agri-business corporations that stand to profit. Even though I've been a subscriber to a CSA which follows Rudolph Steiner's rigidly holistic philosophy, I'm waiting for the day when a CSA or conglomeration of "CSA"s are run by General Mills. Maybe I'm getting too cynical . . .

6) There's almost no such thing as the family farm anymore. When you hear a senator from Iowa or elsewhere yammer on about protecting the "family farm," they're talking about corporations.

But I think it's definitely worth-seeing for anyone who's read The Omnivore's Dilemma, or has thought at all about where our food comes from.

Thanks for the review. I wanted to see King Corn as soon as I found out that Aaron Woolf was involved--I thought his documentary on human trafficking was really smart--but, alas, so many movies, so little time! I will not get to Facets before the end of the run. I'll be sure to put King Korn in my Netflix queue.

BTW, besides making an appearance in the film, I believe Pollan was an early adviser to the project.

I finally saw King Corn yesterday thanks to the Illinois Humanities Council.

aschie30 wrote:The documentary was a tad amateurish and the two young protaganists a tad unable to wipe the frat-boy smart-ass looks off their faces...

I really couldn't past this privileged smart-ass-ness. King Corn drew too heavily on a brand of humor that seems to be very popular in American documentaries these days, a type of humor that can be effective, but which I think has gotten really old. As someone who watches a decent number of documentaries, I'm pretty tired of it.

aschie30 wrote:Thematically, it's a tad clumsy...

I agree. There were a few things that were confusing to me, starting with the protagonists' motivation for making the film. So the two men discover that they both have ancestors from Greene, IA, and then they decide to have their hair analyzed only to find out that they as human beings are basically made out of corn (the latter, I didn't find humorous at all). One of the main points of the film seemed to be that there's a huge corn surplus in the US, which is being used to not such great ends (to feed cattle that can't digest it, to make high fructose corn syrup, etc) and is therefore not a good thing. So then why did the protagonists decide to grow an acre of corn and contribute to the surplus? Their hands-on experience growing the corn seemed to add very little to the film. I feel like they could have saved their energy and invested it in thinking of more interesting questions to pose to folks in Greene and other people involved in corn production and use.

Stylistically, I didn't care for King Corn either. I grew tired of the stop motion animation with the Little People toys and the time lapse footage pretty quickly.

aschie30 wrote:But the latter portion of the movie was the strongest.

I think the film was most interesting when it moved away from the protagonists' personalities, and this did happen more toward the end. The footage of the cattle-feeding farms was very compelling, as were the scenes with Earl Butz (my favorite part of the film). However, the protagonists' smart-ass personalities lingered to the point where I really didn't feel any sympathy for the family forced to sell their farm and leave Greene. There just wasn't enough of a story to that, and the overall tone of the film--the let's-make-corn-syrup-for-fun-tone--didn't support it.

I probably would have liked the film more if I felt like it presented me with new information. While I hadn't thought about specifically corn at length before, I had thought about many of the issues touched on in the film related to farming, agriculture and food production with my reading of Pollan and others. King Corn didn't add anything, particularly since I was disappointed by it visually, to the reading I've done.

P.S. Is it just me, or did King Corn not really address ethanol? It seemed like a movie so focused on the corn surplus would have presented some stance on corn as fuel. Maybe the panel following the Humanities Council screening addressed this? I wasn't able to stay for that discussion.

Upon watching the trailer(which as a pre-screener once upon a time 30 sec's is more than enough to glean content when you're viewing hundreds of entries)...I tossed it on the virtual refuse pile; part of that self-satisfied, NPR'y, BBC'd, bullshit LCD'ing of supposed Amerika...just more pats on the back for simpletons, really...

It never ceases to amaze me how willing people are to adhere to the performance of content... Leni Riefenstahl RIP.

Christopher Gordon wrote:Upon watching the trailer(which as a pre-screener once upon a time 30 sec's is more than enough to glean content when you're viewing hundreds of entries)...I tossed it on the virtual refuse pile; part of that self-satisfied, NPR'y, BBC'd, bullshit LCD'ing of supposed Amerika...just more pats on the back for simpletons, really...

CG, my man, that's quite a bit of broad brush tarring, based on a movie you haven't actually seen.

I'm not saying this film should win any prizes, but I think this small effort is worthwhile in the sense that it gets the word out about the very real dangers of massive corn production to both the small farm and our health. Now, the argument could be made that the audience at the Cultural Center, self-selecting as most audiences are, is just a choir being preached to, but for all those who have not read Omnivore's Dilemma or any of the other books/articles that discuss similar issues, I think this relatively short subject (only 89 or so minutes) could be an eye-opener.

Hammond

David Hammond wrote:

Christopher Gordon wrote:Upon watching the trailer(which as a pre-screener once upon a time 30 sec's is more than enough to glean content when you're viewing hundreds of entries)...I tossed it on the virtual refuse pile; part of that self-satisfied, NPR'y, BBC'd, bullshit LCD'ing of supposed Amerika...just more pats on the back for simpletons, really...

CG, my man, that's quite a bit of broad brush tarring, based on a movie you haven't actually seen.

I'm not saying this film should win any prizes, but I think this small effort is worthwhile in the sense that it gets the word out about the very real dangers of massive corn production to both the small farm and our health. Now, the argument could be made that the audience at the Cultural Center, self-selecting as most audiences are, is just a choir being preached to, but for all those who have not read Omnivore's Dilemma or any of the other books/articles that discuss similar issues, I think this relatively short subject (only 89 or so minutes) could be an eye-opener.

Hammond

I only deploy "Frau" Riefenstahl for her unassailable symbology handiwork(whew...that's clunky)

What I'm averse to is this propagandizing of a supposedly educated "choir."

[Certainly, see the film. I haven't.]

Even if you're being preached to, do you really want to be part of this chosen faction?

Christopher Gordon wrote:Even if you're being preached to, do you really want to be part of this chosen faction?

I've got no choice; I am a part of it (I listen to NPR and BBC, and frankly, I think one could do much worse). My point, though, is that even if this movie may not have rocked my world, it has messages that are worth hearing. Now, when it comes to messages in art, I usually stand with Hitchcock (who appositely quipped, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union"), and I'd not argue that King Corn is great art, but it conveys a worthy message, however clumsily, and so should not in my opinion be discounted out of hand. If you're wandering through Blockbuster and spot King Corn, I'd suggest that renting it would be a decent use of your entertainment dollar.

David Hammond wrote:

Christopher Gordon wrote:Even if you're being preached to, do you really want to be part of this chosen faction?

I've got no choice; I am a part of it (I listen to NPR and BBC, and frankly, I think one could do much worse). My point, though, is that even if this movie may not have rocked my world, it has messages that are worth hearing. Now, when it comes to messages in art, I usually stand with Hitchcock (who appositely quipped, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union"), and I'd not argue that King Corn is great art, but it conveys a worthy message, however clumsily, and so should not in my opinion be discounted out of hand. If you're wandering through Blockbuster and spot King Corn, I'd suggest that renting it would be a decent use of your entertainment dollar.

Yes. One should see as much film as possible.

Yes. Divers viewpoints should have representation.

Yes. I'm sure King Corn isn't great art...but I'm sure their investors would beg to differ.

I'm not sure anyone wandering through Blockbuster is better served renting King Corn instead of this week's tits and ass DTV "horror" video...

in that context they both seem the same; more propaganda...more profit.

Christopher Gordon wrote:I'm not sure anyone wandering through Blockbuster is better served renting King Corn instead of this week's tits and ass DTV "horror" video...

in that context they both seem the same; more propaganda...more profit.

Any movie with a potentially political or social viewpoint (meaning most documentaries) could be called "propaganda," but I find that this term is usually applied pejoratively to "message movies" we don't like but not to similarly motivated movies we do like (though the latter could be equally propagandistic). It's like saying a movie is "manipulative" -- all movies are manipulative (they put us through a sequence of emotions and experiences; the artists make us feel things and see things a certain way), but we only designate as "manipulative" those movies we don't like or that we look down upon.

Movies, like all commercial productions, including the restaurants we love, are designed to make money. I'm not shocked by that, and the profit motive does not disqualify a work of art (including self-consciously arty food, e.g., Alinea, Moto, Otom) for my attention. Incidentally, given the venues King Corn is playing (Facets and now the Cultural Center with free admission), I doubt the creators are making enough on it to buy an acre of land in Iowa.

I'm not sure what to make of your comparison of King Corn with "this week's tits and ass DTV "horror" video," but this documentary was a lot more entertaining than any of the Saw series that I came across on HBO, which I would not recommend and could not compare with King Corn in any meaningful way.

Yes, all documentaries are propaganda; at least the successful ones are. There's no such thing as objectivity in filmmaking. There is always bias and frankly, who would waste their time making a film that didn't support their own point of view? Why would anyone make such a film?

Please name one documentary that is comprised of inarguable truths.

=R=

When was this movie made? In December 2005, corn was trading at $1.85/bushel. Now it's at $5.40/bushel. The days of cheap food are over.

teatpuller wrote:When was this movie made? In December 2005, corn was trading at $1.85/bushel. Now it's at $5.40/bushel. The days of cheap food are over.

Corn and commodities are highly cyclical. In 1999, NOONE would touch an oil stock as the returns of the oil companies were relatively mediocre.

My biggest fear is that a lot of family farmers are readjusting their lifestyles to $4.50/bu corn and will go bankrupt when the price of corn returns to traditional levels.

I hope you're right, but 2010 corn futures are at $5.55. I'm not shorting commodities right now.

My earlier posts are a tad ranty and rave-y. To further articulate...I'm not criticizing the filmmakers or their intent necessarily, but rather the zeitgeist wherein people, "the choir" perhaps, ally themselves with
superficially incisive "alternative" knowledge(HFCS, Pollan, "organic," "locavore" tropes). I'm certainly not against the propagation of information and viewpoints; it's where an "independent lens" begins to look a lot like slavish party line that I begin to question. For some people(at least the ones I encounter on other food sites) a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It becomes more about lifestyle and status than enlightenment.

Again, I haven't seen King Corn, but I, too, would rather watch it in a moment of abject boredom than any American torture porn(the Italians do it so much better).

Christopher Gordon wrote:Again, I haven't seen King Corn, but I, too, would rather watch it in a moment of abject boredom than any American torture porn.

No sane person would argue with that.

aschie30 wrote:It generally overlaps The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.

Before this conversation descends into maelstrom, I just wanted to mention that aschie30's use of "overlaps" is quite apposite. The film was released in 2007, and the book was copyright 2006. The Omnivore's Dilemma, which seems to resonate strongly within our little community, has also proven very popular among both casual general readers and academics: in the past year, I've encountered several students, from colleges in the Midwest and on the East Coast, who have mentioned this book as required reading in courses. There may be a tendency to see the movie as deriving from the book, but given the proximity of their publication dates, the writing of book and shooting of movie seem to have been taking place at almost the same time, which I think speaks very well to the "vision" of the filmmakers.

As the rising price of corn was of some topic of discussion here, the Chicago Tribune reported today that the price of corn rose to $6 per bushel on Thursday, and is expected to continue to rise, as worldwide demand goes up.

Have I seen it? No
Do I want to see it? No

jimswside wrote:Have I seen it? No
Do I want to see it? No

Everyone appreciates a smartass.

ronnie_suburban wrote:Please name one documentary that is comprised of inarguable truths.

this post is worthless since there are so many Walmart documentaries out there, but in a late night "why-the-hell-am-i-not-in-bed-yet" television watching session of mine - i watched a 1 hour documentary on Walmart. The first half hour was all about why Walmart is "good". The second half hour - why Walmart is "bad". They touched on everything from local, national, global enconomy, wages, benefits, product, business efficiency - everything. but they didn't offer an opinion. Just basic facts.

By the end i was torn whether or not i think walmart is a good thing for our society - but i was more impressed with the fact that i wasn't pushed one way or another. But i can't find the name of this film for the life of me.

so....i guess the real point is: there are documentaries out there that are not bias - but like you said, you've probably never heard of them. People like Michael Moore (just to name one of many) make a lot more money by pushing an agenda.

djenks wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:Please name one documentary that is comprised of inarguable truths.

this post is worthless since there are so many Walmart documentaries out there, but in a late night "why-the-hell-am-i-not-in-bed-yet" television watching session of mine - i watched a 1 hour documentary on Walmart. The first half hour was all about why Walmart is "good". The second half hour - why Walmart is "bad". They touched on everything from local, national, global enconomy, wages, benefits, product, business efficiency - everything. but they didn't offer an opinion. Just basic facts.

By the end i was torn whether or not i think walmart is a good thing for our society - but i was more impressed with the fact that i wasn't pushed one way or another. But i can't find the name of this film for the life of me.

so....i guess the real point is: there are documentaries out there that are not bias - but like you said, you've probably never heard of them. People like Michael Moore (just to name one of many) make a lot more money by pushing an agenda.

Sounds interesting and pretty distinctive. I'd like to check it out -- especially since Walmart is typically such a polarizing topic. If you can remember/find the name, please post it.

=R=

aschie30 wrote:

jimswside wrote:Have I seen it? No
Do I want to see it? No

Everyone appreciates a smartass.

just an opinion, not being a smart ass

aschie30 wrote:As the rising price of corn was of some topic of discussion here, the Chicago Tribune reported today that the price of corn rose to $6 per bushel on Thursday, and is expected to continue to rise, as worldwide demand goes up.

Associated Press wrote:Analyst Predicts Corn Rationing in 2008

NEW YORK - A BB&T Capital Markets analyst said Monday corn rationing may be necessary this year, following a U.S. Department of Agriculture report predicting farmers would plant far fewer acres of corn in 2008.

According to the March Prospective Plantings Report, farmers intend to plant about 86 million acres of corn this year, down 8 percent from 2007, when the amount of corn planted was the highest since World War II.

Analyst Heather L. Jones said in a note to investors if the USDA estimate proves accurate, the year may produce just 200 million bushels of corn. That, she said, wouldn't be enough to meet demand, given current export and feed demand trends and higher ethanol demand. Both ethanol and animal feed are made with corn....

this entertaining 90 minute doc. about corn is showing tuesday night, channel 11 at 9pm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiCRwMMh9k8