Documentary Film: "Before the Flood"

Reflection paper by:

Mohammad Shuaib K. Gani

Before the Flood is a documentary travelogue film about climate change directed by Fisher Stevens. The
film was produced by Fisher Stevens, Leonardo DiCaprio, James Packer, Brett Ratner, Trevor Davidoski,
and Jennifer Davisson Killoran, with Martin Scorsese as the film's executive producer. It premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival in September 2016, and was released in theaters on October 21,
before it aired on the National Geographic Channel on October 30.

The documentary talks about all the changes that Leonardo DiCaprio has noticed in the environment on
his 3-year journey across different countries after being assigned as the United Nation's Messenger of
Peace. By visiting ancient melting glaciers and levelled tropical forests, DiCaprio unearths an urgent
situation and the world's dependence on fossil fuels. In his encounters, it was highlighted that some
people are still being blind about global warming, while some of them showed concern and already
made actions to reduce their carbon footprint. Along with DiCaprio, the documentary's subjects include
Barack Obama, Pope Francis, Sunita Narain, Anote Tong, John Kerry, Elon Musk, Alvin Lin, Farwiza
Farhan, Dr. Enric Sala, Gidon Eshel, Ban Ki- Moon, and many more notable people such as American
politicians, The documentary was part of National Geographic's engagement to covering climate change
and it was made widely available on various platforms.

The documentary really suggested the urgency of the people's action towards climate change and it was
effective in achieving its goal. The goal of the documentary is to inform the public of what's happening
to our planet, and what we can do to prevent it from becoming a total wasteland, DiCaprio was right
that we do not have to be scientists in order to raise awareness and act against climate change because
if we do not act together, we will surely perish. In the first few scenes of the film, DiCaprio narrated
about his early childhood, particularly about the fact that he grew up with a print of Hieronymus Bosch's
"The Garden of Earthly Delights" hanging above his bed. The print helped him instill an awareness of
social and environmental degradation from a young age. The film is named after the middle panel of the
print, referred to as the "Humankind before the Flood", which acts as an allegorical warning to the world
of what could come next if it fails to act on climate change. However, he doubted himself if he knows
much about the phenomenon, even after he is named by Ban Ki-moon as the United Nation's Messenger
of Peace on Climate Change. His doubt was caused by previous media criticisms, attacking him for his
lack of scientific credentials and celebrity lifestyle. However, DiCaprio is frank about how his fame has
afforded him such a privileged perspective, that he had a talk with Al Gore in the early 2000s and it was
the first time that he heard about global warming as the timely and most urgent issue, whilst having no
idea what it was about. After viewing oil sands, narwhal whales, and melted Arctic ice, DiCaprio explains
in his view what has changed in the time since he received Gore's climate lesson. Everyone was focused
on small individual actions back then, but it is pretty clear that we are way beyond that now and things
have taken a massive turn for the worse.

No movie is complete without the bad guys. And the film was clever to stress the role that corporate
interest have played in spreading wrong information about climate change. A cast of so-called villains is
introduced, ranging from right-wing newspapers and television networks in the United States through to
politicians and front groups. All of them seek to cast doubt on the science and, in doing so, attack
climate scientists. Even upright and devoted scientists who are trying to raise awareness about global
warming, such as Michael Mann from the Penn State Earth System Science Center, were called as frauds
and threatened by front groups and politicians funded by corporate interests. It was frustrating to know
that people with impressive credentials like some politicians and large companies are the ones who
mislead the public due to their greed and interest in the money from fossil fuels. It was made clear that
these people do not have to win a legitimate scientific debate as long as they can gain from the public's
usage of costly materials. We have known about the problem of climate change for decades, but some
are just blinded by wrong information and practices. The world right now would not suffer much if we
had taken the science of climate change seriously back then.

The most particularly moving conversation happened when Sunita Narain asked how a nation like the
United States could ask a nation like India to risk its own, more tenuous, economic development with
environmental measures that the United States itself has been hesitant to adopt. If the United States
doesn't stand as an example of how to conserve energy, how can it expect other countries to follow
their so-called initiative? It seemed like a slap of truth for all the viewers, regardless if they are American
or not. As Narain said, energy access in India is as much a challenge as climate change. Poverty makes it
difficult for their country to address the impacts of climate change. This is one fact that developed
countries should look into.

Some have said DiCaprio's high carbon footprint in general and in the making of this film is a problem for
his role as a messenger, but I am not sure. DiCaprio even addresses the large carbon footprint that he
himself has left on the planet, admitting that he sometimes questions the morality of what he's doing.
However, DiCaprio has the good sense to address criticisms upfront. The production took efforts to
offset its carbon footprint during filming, including taking on a voluntary carbon tax. I think it might even
be an asset that helps move the conversation along. Pointing out hypocrisy on climate change is often
just another way of delaying action and diverting attention from our own need to engage politically with
deeper resolve. After all, the majority of people in developed countries have acquired huge levels of
ecological debt. In many ways it's a great film, and I think he is a great ambassador for all of this.

On the whole, the documentary is worth watching for the people of today's generation. Furthermore,
DiCaprio is a highly effective audience surrogate, asking scientists and leaders the sorts of to-the-point
questions that many viewers might well have for themselves. He's not afraid to sometimes appear
uninformed, nor to acknowledge that his own carbon footprint is certainly larger than most. I admired
that he was situated as a learner rather than a teacher. Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth is a useful
comparison here. On the one hand that film was a huge success in drawing attention to an issue that
had been ignored, but it also proved to be politically polarizing because the messenger was a professor
and a politician partly associated with dramatic failure. In Before the Flood you get a better sense,
through DiCaprio, of the existential dimensions of the climate challenge the fragility and perplexity of a
single human life, and the challenge of living it well. DiCaprio is an actor, not a scientist or a politician,
and I am guessing, given the way his career has gone, that he hasn't undergone several years of higher
education like many of the people he was interviewing. Leo is clearly highly intelligent, but you can
sense, in a way that is noticeable and even touching, that he is often at the edge of his competence,
straining but still succeeding in getting to the nub of the complex information he is being presented
with, it is in this respect that he shows his deepest moral leadership because we need that kind of
intellectual courage.

The film's heart is in the right place. Everyone needs to find a way to take these issues seriously, and
that stands as the documentary's most important takeaway message. Before the Flood is a film made for
mass consumption in an effort to inform and spur the public into action. In that respect, it's incredibly
effective. There's a fantastic blend of cold hard facts from expert scientists as well as discussions with
world leaders and those directly affected by the effects of climate change. It pleasantly blends a mix of
fear-inducing facts, suffering and natural beauty. The mixture of intense emotions and powerful images
made the information humanly tangible, easy to digest and worthy of action. The documentary brings
attention to climate change and calls for action. This thing should be seen by as many people as possible.

Climate change is real, and it's scary. Our first line of defense is an informed public. And while a feature
film couldn't possibly encapsulate everything there is to know on the subject, Before the Flood serves as
a significant piece of education that will hopefully spur people to enact their own further research. This
film could incite the people's action in sustaining the earth.