20130810: Documentary Review--Flight from Death

Flight from Death: the Quest for Immortality

1. American live action documentary movie prepared for television; 90 minutes; 2003.
2. IMDB: 6.9/10.0 from 230 user ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'no score yet', and 69% of ticket buying people liked it (717 ratings).
4. Stars: Gabriel Byrne (narrator), sheldon solomon (academic expert; skidmore college), Sam Keen (expert), Robert Jay Lifton (expert), merlyn mowrey (academic expert), irvin yalom (expert).
5. From Rotten Tomatoes: 'the research of late cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker is explored to reveal his theory of death as the primary motivator of human behavior -- especially in regards to aggression and violence' -- That is what the film is about, which is neither 'Flight from Death' nor the 'quest for immortality.'
6. The film makes its position quite clear early on: there is no immortality.  We all die.  There are no exceptions.  There is no flight from death.  The quest for immortality is an illusion.
7. So, theories of immortality are illusions.
8. Three things are repeated again and again. (a) People are willing to hurt others who have different theories of immortality (say the theory of Islam versus the theory of Christianity). (b) many are willing to die in order for their theory of immortality come out dominant (the usual justification for modern terrorism). (c) When forcibly confronted with their own mortality, people are more harsh toward anyone else.
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10. Anyone over the age of 20 has already figured all these things out.  That's been true for centuries.  Read Mark Twain carefully, for instance.  If one lives in a repressive culture, one usually never says these things out loud.  These days a few sorts of repression are a little lighter.  As a result, a 'learned' work like this comes out.
11. It's nothing new folks, and I've wasted 90 minutes.  Please don't make the same mistake.
12. One sentence summary:  I would not recommend this to any one for any reason.
13. One star of five.  20130927: two blackholes for acting and screenplay.

Cinematography: 4/10 It's in TV format, with weak resolution, and generally soft focus.

Sound: 8/10 OK, but not great.

Acting: 2/10 I am quite glad that such things are being said aloud and written in journals by academics.  But it is a tremendous performance (as in performance art) for them to act as if they have discovered something new.  I'm glad they all got publications for it.  Someone should, I suppose.

Screenplay: 2/10 The authors of this work had about six axes to grind.  I think they did well at that, although in a very heavy handed way.  It's just nothing new.