 "Photo: IFC Films")
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw "Man and Superman," 1903
You've probably driven in a car lately, one most likely equipped with a seat belt. But did you click it? For that matter, have you ever wondered why your car has a seat belt in the first place?
In 1959, idealist Ralph Nader took it upon himself to publish a scathing investigative article about the deplorable state of automobile safety - this in homage to a close friend who had become paralyzed in a car accident. The cause of the accident seemed irrelevant to Nader, a sharp young lawyer recently graduated from Harvard Law. At issue was the definitive lack of concern on the part of the car manufacturer to provide for even the simplest of measures to insure the safety of its customers. Sure, seat belts might save lives, but their installation would cut profit. Why would auto makers bother to install them unless otherwise mandated? For that matter, why, during the gay, post-war bull years when America first began to cement itself as the world's economic superpower, would automobile manufacturers bother to reverse any of the dangerous design flaws built into their cars if public demand for such improvements was virtually zero?
Perhaps public demand for safety regulation was virtually zero. But virtually zero is not zero; and Nader's idealistic commitment to stemming profit at the cost of consumer safety led him to campaign aggressively against the resignation, apathy and complicity at the federal level that had allowed American companies to flourish while disregarding the well-being of their customers. Nader's initial article on automobile safety eventually ballooned into his groundbreaking work, Unsafe at any Speed, a detailed report on the abject lack of American car manufacturers to correct critical design flaws. Thus began citizen Nader's lifelong crusade for consumer advocacy.
But where has that crusade gone? And has it gone awry? If so, is Nader a sellout? A target of political conspiracy well assassinated? Or merely the victim of a support system of friends and like-minded colleagues who eventually abandoned him?
In truth the Nader machine is not that easily deconstructed. But directors Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan do a damn good job trying. Their new documentary, An Unreasonable Man, attempts to chart the weird waters of Nader's nadir, his rise (and fall) and continuing resurgence (and fall) as both a public and a political figure.
The film - as all good creative projects usually are - is transparently subjective. Nader, while not exactly strutting around in cape and tights, still comes off as a wounded superhero. His portrayal is unequivocally the downed David who falls only once the Goliaths of the business world figure out that he's more than just a nuisance. Those who know Nader will likely have already drawn battle lines with or against this iconoclast of consumer culture. But new audiences, freshly disillusioned from the circus that has been our modern American political process, might finally in Nader find something to believe in. Or perhaps not.
Political commentator and social critic Bill Maher once believed in Ralph Nader. So did provocative director Michael Moore. So, for that matter, did a host of other celebrity progressives before sour-grape Gore sycophants laid blame for the 2000 electoral defeat on Nader, who ran as a compelling and - so they claim - vote-siphoning Green candidate.
Though decidedly in the Nader camp, Mantel and Skrovan do a fine job of balancing opposition. There are even moments when the film's hero seems to argue directly against his once-allies, now detractors, as clever editing cuts between critics' charges and Nader's cogent responses. Both sides launch sensible arguments, both come off as ultimately interested in promoting and maintaining the common weal. But Nader, not surprisingly, comes off the rosier.
Regardless of where you stand, An Unreasonable Man, clearly means to portray Nader as more than simply a contentious political force. The rhetoric driving the film is less polemic and more instructorial. Absent are the kind of cheer-leading mawkishness (or flat, unrestrained ad hominem aggression) that might inform a Leni Riefenstahl or a Terry Zwigoff film. Instead, viewers are treated to an intimate chronology of Nader's life and times, a look at the events that shaped and continue to shape this intriguing American figure.
And maybe you don't agree with his politics; maybe you view his kind of progression as a kind of regression. Still, you can't deny Nader his 16th minute (and counting) of fame. And if you've ever thought that power structures might misuse law as an instrument of oppression, if you've ever wanted a blueprint for how to bring the world's mightiest corporate entities to their knees, if you've ever wondered whence came watchdog citizen's legislation like the Clean Water Act, the Freedom of Information Act, OSHA, and the like - hell, if you've ever wondered why your car comes equipped by a federal mandate with a seat belt, then perhaps An Unreasonable Man should be on your checklist of things to see this week.
An Unreasonable Man opens this Friday at the Starz! FilmCenter. Check http://www.denverfilm.org/ for show times.
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