Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet. An inside look at the infamous $27 billion “Amazon Chernobyl” case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking as it examines a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.
April 19, 2008
#1
I watched this video with high hopes after reading the reviews. It did not live up to the reviews. After all that Wall Street and other ‘too big to fail’ corporations have done to our country, I really wanted to see a story where a big corporation got what was coming to them for raping the environment and leaving a trail of destruction in the country where they made their fortune. While the film skillfully plays on your emotions with the editing of scenes back and forth between sick babies and sludge filled ponds and rivers where the people live, eat and drink, it is short on facts. It is clearly told from the plaintiffs point of view and that’s fine (every ‘objective’ documentary has a story to tell) but you need to make your case. This was billed as a kind of ‘legal thriller’ documentary. I tried to look at it from a perspective juror’s standpoint. As much as I felt emotionally for the people I don’t know if I would be able to convict Chevron based on this film. It is woefully short on medical documentation connecting the dots between what Chevron did to their environment and the cancer outbreaks. There were no statistics of before and after cancer cases or how the environment contributed to the cancer. Also, it would be foolish, based on history, to think the government of Ecuador was an innocent player. Clearly, bribery and payoffs are the way business is done in third world countries, and the film did nothing to reveal the relationship between PetroEcuador and Chevron. Who in the government benefited from all this? What is their responsibility? While I have absolutely no sympathy for Chevron, they are all too easy of a target and it does not seem likely they could have pulled this off without a lot of inside help from government officials. It was also not made clear how much the plaintiff attorneys will benefit from this lawsuit. They are asking for $27 Billion. Are they doing it pro bono? If not, what is their take? As they say, ‘follow the money’. Lastly, at the end of the film, they brought in a celebrity activist who contributed nothing to the overall story, just took credit for donating some water purification devices. As they used to say on Dragnet, ‘just the facts, ma’am’. I wanted to really like this film but give me the facts, not just an emotional appeal for what seems to be a worthy cause. Watch it to be better informed about how multinational corporations and corrupt third world governments rape their countries and leave the citizens to live with the destruction but if you’re on the jury and you vote with your head, I don’t think you’ll be convinced.
April 19, 2008
#2
I am not amazed at all about Chevron-Toxico bold face lies. I worked at Chevron for 10 years from 1970 to 1980 as an environmental researcher in their labs. Their company representatives must spend days in front of a mirror practicing how to lie without blinking. The outside so-called independent labs which analyzed the water they dumped into the bay were actually owned by the oil companies and not independent as they claim. I traced one of the so-called independent labs through half a dozen counties and eventually found it was owned by Shell. BP oil also hides behind multiple subsidiaries. The EPA finally found the secret underground pipe which they illegally dumped their worse polluted water into the Bay around 1984 I believe. They monitor the Internet and will figure out who wrote this review. I only survived all these years by keeping my mouth shut. I think their philosophy is ‘dead men tell no tale’. Another favorite philosophy is that cancer is caused by people’s lifestyle which of course lets them off the hook when it comes to lawsuits. Chevron is one of the largest donors to the American Cancer society — Another so-called unbiased agency. Not able to justify the high number of cases of cancer in non-smokers Chevron stooges pretending to be doctors blame it on second hand smoke. Of course crude is perfectly harmless.
April 19, 2008
#3
It’s hard for me to know what to say about what I saw in this film. I’m deeply ashamed that our lifestyle could cause such suffering and destruction in other countries but the concept is not new to me because I know about what Shell has done in Nigeria. There is a great deal of heartbreak and much that causes shame in this movie. At the same time, It’s uplifting to see Pablo Fajardo, a humble man from a fiscally poor but morally wealthy family, take on one of the most complicated cases in history in true David versus Goliath style.
The Ecuadorian people tell their own story in their own words from their homes and their forest. At first glimpse, you might think that these people are poor but before Texaco contaminated their world, they had everything they needed to live a simple life abundant with gifts from nature.
Texaco was fined $27 Billion for destroying this Ecuadorian Rain Forest but they have said they will never pay it.
The scientific expert working on this case says that this could never happen in the United States but he is dead wrong. As Elizabeth Burns said, it has happened and it continues to happen every day.
I live on top of the Barnett Shale in Wise County in North Texas. I have a blog, Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS, where I document industry abuses such as burying the waste pits or simply abandoning them. Like Elizabeth Burns, I have dozens of videos and hundreds of pictures. Come see for yourself.
April 19, 2008
#4
This movie is so well done! The film lets the people involved speak for themselves. I just love watching the Chevron attorneys with their, “That’s our story, we are sticking to it. You have no proof.” defense. I live on a 38,000 acre ranch in South Texas where Texaco has operated since 1935 and Chevron Texaco continues to operate here. They are the only operators on their lease. We have the same pits that Ecuador has. There are sick people across Railroad Commission District #4. The municipal water supplies are full of volatile organics and other chemicals common in oilfield produced water. Texaco and ExxonMobil and a few other majors did the exact same practices in South Texas as they did in Ecuador. We deal with the stone faced arrogant oil company lawyers on a daily basis. They just lie endlessly. I hope that other people around the world see this movie and see how the companies behave. They didn’t clean anything up in South Texas. People are sick here, too. I’m so glad that this movie was made and made well. People will realize that Chevron has a bigger mess than Ecuador. They need to clean up their mess and be truthful to their stockholders. Great work!
April 19, 2008
#5
“Crude”
The American Chernobyl Case
Amos Lassen
There is not a more controversial legal case existing today than the $27 million “Amazon Chernobyl” case. In “Crude” we see the real life drama set against the backdrop of the environmentalist movement tied with global politics and celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, corporate power and indigenous culture. The film shows us all of this from a situational viewpoint. Joe Berlinger’s “Crude” shows a situation that got out of control and a battle was fought between lawyers. One side is the Ecuadorians who in 1993 filed a lawsuit against Texaco (which is now Chevron) for the practices which wreaked havoc when oil spilled over during drilling and the drinking and bathing water was contaminated. What they asked for was a sense of responsibility for something gone wrong. Opposite them was Texaco who claim two contradictory things–the environment scientist who says there is no contamination and that the people were getting sick from something besides the water and the local Texaco lawyers who admit that there us a confrontation but not by Texaco but by Petro-Ecuador.
Berlinger presents the entire business with clarity and is fair to both sides and we, the audience, see what the case is about. It is a fight between a David and a Goliath and much came to be. The entire issue is like a legal thriller as well as an environmental mess and crisis in culture. We get no conclusion–Berlinger provokes us to think about the issues. He does have a moral imperative that Chevron accept the responsibility for what happened but that is a message that is there and we are not faced with a beating over the head about it. It is simply a movie of truth and tragedy.