Documentaries aren’t like other movies. Facts, like disobedient children, don’t always come when they’re called. Too often, stories that appear to be no-brainers crumble like a house of cards, leaving filmmakers with nothing to show for their work, except a stack full of outstanding AmEx bills.

Joe Berlinger understands how certain virtues – patience and perseverance, among them – can pay off when the best-laid plans of lab mice and men fail. At a point in his career when he could have been churning out films with significantly more commercial potential, the Emmy- and Indie Spirit Award-winning director invested a half-dozen years of his and frequent collaborator Bruce Sinofsky’s life on Metallica: Some Kind of Monsterand the continuing drama of Paradise Lost. Happily, those investments paid handsome dividends.

Another three would go into Berlinger’s newly released, Crude. If the 47-year-old Florida native had been introduced to the story when it began to take shape, however, he might have sunk 12 more years of his life into the epic legal, environmental and ethical struggle. As it is, the serpentine nature of the case required Berlinger to dig into his wallet, once again, to afford frequent trips between the rain forests of Ecuador and the Armani jungles of Houston, New York, San Francisco, Washington and London.

In 2005, Berlinger was made aware of a man-made ecological disaster devastating tens of thousands of indigenous people in an oil-rich patch of Ecuador’s Amazon basin, roughly the size of Rhode Island. Like almost everyone else on the planet, he had other things on his mind. He had parlayed the overwhelmingly critical and commercial response toBrother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, Revelations: Paradise Lost 2 and Some Kind of Monster into a thriving business directing and producing non-fiction and fictional projects for broadcast and cable television. (Look for Paradise Lost 3 after the fate of the West Memphis 3 is finally decided, and the case ends in exonerations or executions).

On the negative side of the ledger, Berliner must also bear some of the responsibility for the egg that was laid by Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. Hey, nobody’s perfect.
Even after the lead American counsel, Steven Donziger, presented Berlinger with the plaintiff’s side of Aguinda v. ChevronTexaco, the filmmaker felt as if the story might play better on PBS or as a 60 Minutes segment. Yes, a courtroom victory could set the multinational corporation back several billion dollars, but there was no guarantee the Harvard Law grad and his Ecuadoran associate, Pedro Fujardo, would prevail. Indeed, such an eye-popping penalty seemed unlikely.

Other “red flags,” according to Berlinger, included what promised to be a staggering budget – by documentary standards, anyway – and the necessity for subtitles, which most American audiences avoid like the plague. Moreover, much of the case had already played out in American and Ecuadorean courts; the region was known as a haven for Colombian militias and narco-terrorists; security forces in the employ of corporate or government interests already had made good on threats; gringo filmmakers weren’t immune to tropical diseases, tiny bugs with razor-sharp teeth or the intense equatorial heat and humidity; and, no disrespect intended, the indigenous Cofan people couldn’t possibly be the marquee draw as, say, Metallica. Even so, Donziger convinced the reluctant documentarian to make the trek to the rain forest and see for himself what was at stake.

Once there, Berlinger said, he was so “shocked” by the extent of the ecological damage and the disregard for the health and safety of the nearly 30,000 plaintiffs – “los afectados,” the affected ones – still living there, he “couldn’t turn his back on these people. It became a moral imperative for me to do this film.”

One image he couldn’t shake was that of Cofan people gathered by the river’s edge, eating tuna out of cans packed hundreds, maybe thousands of miles from the Amazon. The native fish that had kept them nourished for so many generations, had been poisoned by the chemical run-off and were inedible. Likewise, birds and animals that ventured too closely into the oil fields – or drank from the polluted ponds – were being driven to near extinction in the region.

It had been nearly 40 years since the first successful oil well was drilled in the Cofan’s backyard. The strike and town that grew up around it were named Lago Agrio, after the birthplace of Texaco: Sour Lake, Texas. For more than two decades, Texaco, Gulf and PetroEcuador would profit jointly from the Earth’s bounty, while the Cofan people were left to fend for themselves in a 1,700-square-mile “cancer death zone.” No one involved in the case bothered to deny that the by-products of oil exploration and drilling had polluted the waters, air and land surrounding Lago Agrio. The $27-billion question was, “Who was responsible for cleaning up the ecological and medical mess left behind?”

In 1992, state-run PetroEcuador had acquired full ownership not only of the oil fields, but, arguably, any claims made by the Cofan, as well. Two years later, however, after Aquindo v Texaco was filed in a New York court, Texaco agreed to spend $40 million on an environmental remediation. That sum was barely enough to apply a thin layer of rouge on the tortured landscape. In 1999, busy-friendly Ecuadoran officials declared that Texaco had kept its promise and was exempt from all future government claims.

In October, 2001, Chevron acquired Texaco in a $43-billion merger. Not long thereafter the federal court in New York ruled that the class-action would be tried, if at all, in Ecuador. Two years later, Aquindo v Chevron/Texaco was filed in the Nueva Loja Superior Court, in Lago Agrio. If Chevron stockholders were sweating, they didn’t show it.

“Part of the problem with the case was that the country’s Spanish-descended oligarchy treated indigenous people horribly,” Berlinger said. “It had no problem with eradicating the people from whom it could learn the most about treading lightly on the Earth. Our arrival there coincided with the evidentiary phase of the trial, which included field inspections and the appointment of an independent expert to assess the situation.”

The field inspections, which took place over a three-year period, were unlike any legal procedure Berlinger had ever seen. Lawyers for both sides were allowed to argue – loudly, and with barbed epithets — their cases before the judge, all within a stone’s throw of local residences, armed guards and homes built on land under which oil pools were only barely hidden. On his second trip, Berlinger found in the 35-year-old Fujardo a charismatic hero … a David who had toiled in these same oil patches and could hold his own, rhetorically, against the defense’s Goliaths. (He’d recently lost a brother under my sterious circumstances, as well.) Of course, Chevron’s lawyers would try to convince anyone listening – and, by now, the local media was fully engaged – that Fujardo’s arguments were fully orchestrated by an American law firm looking to get fat at the expense of a guiltless party and unsuspecting natives.

Back home, Danzinger, no shrinking violet himself, would court the mostly disinterested American media by flying Fujardo and other natives to Chevron shareholder meetings and other publicity events. He positioned the diminutive Ecuadoran next to the physically striking actor/activist/wife-of Sting, Trudie Styler, at the Live Earth concert and other photo ops. Styler’s presence assured Danzinger that the case would be given the attention in the electronic media he thought it deserved, and it paid benefits in the form of a feature story in Vanity Fair and interviews on younger-skewing TV channels whose viewers might have heard of Styler and Sting’s Rainforest Foundation. Later, Fujardo would be honored with a CNN Heroes Award and the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.

This increased coverage also provided Berlinger with an opportunity to observe and report on what he saw as, “the uncomfortable intersection between celebrity and advocacy.” If, as was usually the case, an endorsement of a cause by celebrities helped kicked coverage up a notch or two, was it a fair trade for audiences tuning out when they relinquished the podium … as was usually the case, also?

“I wanted a warts-and-all presentation of the advocacy movement, so our audience could serve as a jury as to the ethics of getting celebrities involved so directly in a cause. Ecological disasters occur in hundreds of other places around the world, but we’re unaware of them because no celebrities are attached.”

Indeed, Danzinger is shown coaching Styler, Fujardo and other members of his team, with the intensity of a Pat Riley or Joe Paterno . (“Be sure to mention Chevron right up front,” he advised.) At a Houston photo op, Berlinger’s camera pans back to reveal Fujardo addressing a practically non-existent crowd, but, that’s OK, as long as the video crew ignores what’s going on behind it. It’s the same theory that inspires our representatives in Washington to pontificate before a chamber empty but for a C-Span crew or robot camera.

(Conversely, when Daryl Hannah visited the village and was photographed with her hands covered in oil, an “opinion writer for the Wall Street Journal used the occasion both to present the “facts” of the case as he knew them and condemn the famously blond actor for allowing herself to be duped. Bret Stephens then went on to call the country’s new president, Rafael Correa, a “radical”; blame PetroEcuador for the industry’s deteriorating infrastructure; and, again, accuse Danzinger of being a profiteer.)

Indeed, the plaintiffs’ case didn’t gain any real traction until the election of Correa. It was telling that he became the first government official to tour Lago Agrio and make an assessment of his own. A year-and-a-half later, the independent appraiser delivered a 4,000- page “global assessment” report, which recommended Chevron be held liable to the tune of $16 billion for clean-up, compensation and damages. (That figure would later be raised to $27.3.)

As if to punctuate that report, the government would indict two Chevron lawyers and seven former officials on charges of fraud relating to the incomplete remediation a decade earlier.

Berlinger was quick to point out that it took 20 years for Exxon to meet its financial obligation in the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and, then, only after a court greatly reduced the penalty. Any number of things could happen before the plaintiffs saw a nickel or the Amazon once again was a safe place for Cofan children to play.

“It’s entirely possible that existing legal structures are inadequate to deal with these kinds of cases,” Berlinger allowed. “They can go on forever.”

Crude debuted last January at Sundance and made the festival circuit before opening last week in New York. The single-theater take and critical response was impressive and bodes well for future engagements.

One wonders how many of the people in the Manhattan audience had lost their nest eggs in last year’s stock-market crash, and now regretted placing their trust in Wall Street and the capitalist system. If so, next week’s release of Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story, which questions whether our economy can survive the greed of amoral multinationals, could bring them back to theaters to re-affirm their feeling.

Already, though, Chevron has launched a campaign to discredit the film. Last week, it distributed a video tape in which the trial judge allegedly told people businessman associated with Chevron that he would rule against the company. He denied it, but recused himself, anyway. Another tape allegedly showed a member of Ecuador’s ruling party soliciting $3 million from a businessman for the approval of contracts that would follow such a ruling. President Correa, whose attorney general personally asked the judge to recuse himself, said the other official in the tapes was neither a member of the ruling party nor represented the government. Questions also were raised as to the editing of the tapes and financing of what appeared to be a “sting” operation.

Ironically, one of the Chevron spokespersons interviewed for Crude can be said to be a carbon copy – right down to the red hair — of Tilda Swinton’s spin-meister character inMichael Clayton. Sare McMillan, the company’s chief environmental scientists, argues that most of the so-called abuses documented in the movie are the normal consequences of drilling, and the damage had been exaggerated.

“I don’t believe she’s consciously covering up the damage or is being insincere,” Berlinger said, “She’s drunk the corporate Kool-Aid that justifies the institutional prejudice against indigenous people. It’s Manifest Destiny, and I hope the movie opens a window on the shameful treatment of the people who populated North and South America before the arrival of the first multinational companies.

“What’s happening in Ecuador is a continuation of that 600-year trend.”

He adds, “This is a critical point in the history of the world. Whatever trust we had in these institutions has been lost. It would be hypocritical, though, for those Americans who were appalled by the dolphin slaughter shown in The Cove not to be just as shocked by the way the beef they eat is produced, as described in the fictional adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s expose, Fast Food Nation.

“I’m pessimistic that a single documentary can change the world, but, as we’ve seen withAn Inconvenient Truth, a movie can have an impact … even if it just convinces people to use more energy-efficient lightbulbs.”

– Gary Dretzka
September 17, 2009

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