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Playing Chomsky: Responsibility and War Guilt

Tue, 10/16/2007 - 1:24pm — steev

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In June Gabe emailed me to see if I wanted to go to Boston with him to videotape him interviewing Noam Chomsky. Gabe works on the U of A alternative journal called Days Beyond Recall, and he had convinced the great Chomsky to meet with him. I was not able to go but I emailed a contact I had with the Boston Independent Media Center and they found 2 local videographers, George and Jeff, to help out. (This is one of the things I love about the Indymedia network!)

About a month ago they sent Gabe the tapes and I have now edited together what I thought was the most interesting part, albeit chopped down to about 7 minutes so it would fit in the time I had for it in November's installment of Indymedia Newsreal. Gabe concentrated on asking about academic researchers' involvement in military projects, and this eventually led to fascinating discussion of war crimes and the Nuremburg Tribunals.

The total interview was about 40 minutes. The entire, slightly spruced-up transcript appears in Counterpunch.

Comments

Mon, 10/22/2007 - 4:30pm — Ryn Shane-Armstrong (not verified)

Superficialities...

Good stuff Steev. The content is solid, if a little predictable. Chomsky's been saying the same things, literally, for decades. That's probably a testament to the fact that no one's listening.

The old man's looking a bit haggardly in his old age, eh? (Time gets us all.) I therefore have to question the use of a slow and consistent pan/tilt on camera one. Personally, I find it distracting. It seems to draw away from the weight of his words, and, to be quite honest, it makes Chomsky seem a little older, smaller, less significant somehow. Was that intentional?

The cut-aways were interesting (your editing). I didn't find that problematic. It certainly sets a sense of the environment of his office, etc. But what was the reasoning behind the constant movement on the primary camera? Was it an aesthetic experiment? An accident? What?

Anyway, thanks for the upload. Keep it up.

Ryn