Ghosts in the Machine: Tom’s Notes August, 2019

Never seen anything like this…it breaks new ground.

The point for me is that the videos and TV shows I have produced over 40 years or so have an entirely new impact when seen through the filter of four filmmakers and in the era of Fake News.  

When we produce documentaries, we put the material in the most sensible way for us at that point in time.  But, decades later, used as building blocks for other movies, it can and does take on entirely different meanings.   Some of that is funny and ironic, some might be a little off the wall.

Four different 15-minute documentary films, (by Americans Lori Felker and Dimitri Devyatkin and Russians Dmitrii Kalashnikov and Mikhail Zheleznikov) provide distinct viewpoints. It makes you question what’s real and what isn’t (if anything can be). 

“Fake News” isn’t a new idea.  But having the technology to edit and piece together some of the same archival video material in totally different ways demonstrates it in a new way.

I don’t find it “scary.”  But I do think it’s critical to understand context of what we see on TV or in a video.

The “Machine” is the television screen. The “Ghost” could refer to some semi-obscure 20th century philosophy theory that posits there is no difference between physical and mental…they must both be considered at same time as parts of the identity of a person or society. 

Whatever the theory behind it, the movie, Ghosts in the Machine is important to see.  That hour is guaranteed to change your perceptions…as it did mine.