Review: King Corn
Corn is the cornerstone of the American diet, but just how much of a good thing can the population withstand? Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis were searching for that very answer, so they traveled to Greene, Iowa to plant an acre of corn and track the results. The documentary "King Corn" (IMDb listing) is the fruit of their experiences.Like most Americans, Cheney and Ellis were happily clueless about their eating habits, ingesting food of questionable nutritious value without much interest in the source of the meal. When a test of their hair (a roadmap of eating patterns) exposed large amounts of corn, the duo decided to find out why this particular vegetable has conquered the nation, infesting almost every product on store shelves.
"Corn" beings with the Greene situation: Ian and Curtis, two socially withdrawn fellows head out to the great expanse of Iowa, where the neighbors are friendly and the corn is piled high, resembling Egypt's most impressive pyramids. The goal is only to grow an acre, but even that little dream requires 11 months of attention, leading the guys to take a crash course in farming, as taught by the most patient of the community.
While eventually a sermonizing, demonizing, slap-across-the-face piece of infotainment, "Corn" is awfully gracious in the early going, following Ian and Curtis as they learn the tricks of the trade, including proper planting timing, crucial usage of chemicals, and the difficult business behind it all. It doesn't take long for the two to realize there isn't much of a future in agricultural, with family farms slowly being pushed out of the industry by corporate farms, which produce the most corn for little cost. What was once a disturbing trend has now become a reality: the days of iconic, multigenerational Midwestern farm life is drawing its last breath.
The info offered by "King Corn" is absorbing, especially in the first act, where director Aaron Woolf employs bright visual cues such as stop-motion animation to isolate the gradually changing farming atmosphere, eventually focusing on corn and where this little, yellow bastard goes once it's been removed from the land.
The short answer is: corn goes everywhere. To pass the time during the birth of their harvest, Ian and Curtis take to the open road to investigate where corn ends up. Their travels take them to cattle confinement lots, where cows and assorted farm highlights are being force-fed cheap corn meal instead of traditional grass methods to fatten them up faster (and us in the long run); the duo attempt to visit a corn syrup factory, only to find rejection and a challenge to make high-fructose corn syrup in their very own kitchen; the adventure also heads to the soda industry to better identify how corn syrup has decimated the public, sending cases of diabetes soaring.
It's a lot of science and perspective to cover, yet Woolf manages to keep "King Corn" focused and sedate, perhaps too much so when the farming merriment gives way to sobering results, with the discussion turning to the "nutritional crisis" that's becoming an unstoppable problem. Corn has come to symbolize the need for cheap food; a product once revered, now reduced to dangerous mass production, with the farmers themselves rejecting it, but unable to resist the money it brings to an ailing occupation.
Filmfodder Grade: B+
Bron: http://www.filmfodder.com/reviews/archives/2007/10/review_king_corn.shtml
"Corn" beings with the Greene situation: Ian and Curtis, two socially withdrawn fellows head out to the great expanse of Iowa, where the neighbors are friendly and the corn is piled high, resembling Egypt's most impressive pyramids. The goal is only to grow an acre, but even that little dream requires 11 months of attention, leading the guys to take a crash course in farming, as taught by the most patient of the community.
While eventually a sermonizing, demonizing, slap-across-the-face piece of infotainment, "Corn" is awfully gracious in the early going, following Ian and Curtis as they learn the tricks of the trade, including proper planting timing, crucial usage of chemicals, and the difficult business behind it all. It doesn't take long for the two to realize there isn't much of a future in agricultural, with family farms slowly being pushed out of the industry by corporate farms, which produce the most corn for little cost. What was once a disturbing trend has now become a reality: the days of iconic, multigenerational Midwestern farm life is drawing its last breath.
The info offered by "King Corn" is absorbing, especially in the first act, where director Aaron Woolf employs bright visual cues such as stop-motion animation to isolate the gradually changing farming atmosphere, eventually focusing on corn and where this little, yellow bastard goes once it's been removed from the land.
The short answer is: corn goes everywhere. To pass the time during the birth of their harvest, Ian and Curtis take to the open road to investigate where corn ends up. Their travels take them to cattle confinement lots, where cows and assorted farm highlights are being force-fed cheap corn meal instead of traditional grass methods to fatten them up faster (and us in the long run); the duo attempt to visit a corn syrup factory, only to find rejection and a challenge to make high-fructose corn syrup in their very own kitchen; the adventure also heads to the soda industry to better identify how corn syrup has decimated the public, sending cases of diabetes soaring.
It's a lot of science and perspective to cover, yet Woolf manages to keep "King Corn" focused and sedate, perhaps too much so when the farming merriment gives way to sobering results, with the discussion turning to the "nutritional crisis" that's becoming an unstoppable problem. Corn has come to symbolize the need for cheap food; a product once revered, now reduced to dangerous mass production, with the farmers themselves rejecting it, but unable to resist the money it brings to an ailing occupation.
Filmfodder Grade: B+
Bron: http://www.filmfodder.com/reviews/archives/2007/10/review_king_corn.shtml
King Corn (2007) - Movie Review
King Corn
Two Eco-activists Follow the Corn Trail in American Food Production
In King Corn, Woolf follows young eco-activists Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis--who met and became investigative cohorts while undergrads at Yale--as they return to the scene of their coincidentally similar family roots in rural Greene, Iowa, to plant and harvest an acre’s worth of corn, and then to trace their crop as it is processed into the food products that nurture the increasingly obese and unhealthy--and always hungry--American population.
Without much difficulty or drama, Cheney and Ellis convince a local farmer--who actually sells his family farm during the course of the filming--to let them use an acre of his land to plant their crop. Acting as our eyes and ears about current corn conditions and concerns--government subsidies, fertilizer, pesticides, soil type and the like--the eco-duo call on local experts to advise them about the best corn to plant, best way to plant it and, indeed, to do some crop maintenance for them.
Personal Involvement
Cheney and Ellis Stand by Their Corn
(c) Balcony ReleasingWhile the corn grows, the newbie farmers visit with their nearby relatives and talk family and farming--and conglomerate economy. We see that this rural Iowa town--indeed, the entire county--has been transformed by corn growing and corn subsidies, that family farming is on the decline and those who've followed in the footsteps of farming forebears are walking away from their ancestral homesteads and the entire enterprise.
As the boys watch their grass--yes, we learn, corn is a type of grass--the boys become rather attached to their flourishing crop and, when the time comes for them to sample its issue, they're quite surprised and dismayed to discover that the corn they carefully nurtured tastes “like chalk.”
In reality, they come to understand, there‘s no need for it to taste good. It‘s actually not intended to be eaten, rather it’s to be made into the high fructose corn syrup and corn fillers that are used to ‘enhance’ and ‘sweeten’ consumer food products ranging from ‘fresh’ orange juice to pre-pattied hamburger meat, among millions of other items--including ethanol or drinking alcohol.
The corn that Cheney and Ellis--and the farmers whose land surrounds their single-acre--are growing is a type of yellow corn that has been genetically engineered to thrive in closer proximity to other stalks--so planting can be much denser and more fruitful. Knowing that, and it should come as no surprise that the produce doesn't taste good--or, even, like corn.
All About Corn
In a little history lesson that’s presented with animation and archival footage, Cheney and Ellis report that the transformation of corn--a plant that originated in Mexico and actually has numerous varieties--into America’s singularly most important and biggest agricultural crop began in 1973, when Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz redesigned America's government-subsidized farm program from supporting crop prices by limiting production to paying farmers to expand acreage in use and increase yield per acre. The resulting corn glut was gobbled into ‘sweetening the deal’ on the production of other foods--such as feedlot cattle who much be slaughtered before the corn they‘re fed actually kills them!
Eventually, when Cheney and Ellis found out they must relinquish control of their little crop to the greater corn processing conglomerate, rather than abandon their follow-the-corn-from-crop-to-supermarket-shelf agenda by buying some partially processed corn with which to make their own high fructose corn syrup. Then, after they’ve worked the alchemy, they’re somewhat dismayed to find that the ubiquitous sweetener doesn’t taste good either.
How Corny Are You?
King Corn Poster Art
(c) Balcony ReleasingSo, why then, one wonders, are Americans devouring the stuff as though it were the last apple on the tree? Because it’s cheap, and available, and they don’t know enough to realize that’s what they’re ingesting when they eat something that doesn’t look the least bit like an ear of corn and bears their favorite brand name of soft drinks, ketchup, breakfast cereal, jams, jellies, peanut butter and luncheon meats. Read the labels of the contents of your refrigerator and pantry, and you’ll find that almost everything you’ve got on hand contains corn.
Will this film change anything? Probably not. King Corn doesn’t roll out as a revolutionary, earthshaking, pattern-shattering revelation about the world‘s food chain. But, it’s down-home, friendly and entertaining presentation might just prompt you to--as Cheney and Ellis do at the beginning of the film--get a strand of your hair analyzed (a certain type of hair analysis, we learn in the film, actually indicates just what you‘ve eaten during your lifetime).
Will you join the throng to take the hair test to find out for yourself just how much of a corn by-product you are
?
?
http://documentaries.about.com/od/revie2/fr/KingKorn.html
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