Zeitgeist: The Movie

For other uses, see Zeitgeist (disambiguation).

Zeitgeist, the Movie
Written by	Peter Joseph
Produced by	Peter Joseph
Distributed by	GMP LLC
Release date	2007
Running time	122 min
Language	English

Zeitgeist, the Movie is a 2007 documentary film, produced by Peter Joseph about the Jesus myth hypothesis, the attacks of 9/11, and the Federal Reserve Bank as well as a number of conspiracy theories related to those three main topics. It was released free online via Google Video in June of 2007. A remastered version was presented as a global premiere on November 10, 2007 at the 4th Annual Artivist Film Festival & Artivist Awards. The film has attracted significant public interest.

History of the film

Zeitgeist was first released on June 26, 2007 and topped the Google video charts most viewed videos. The film was translated into several languages and is distributed officially via Google Video and BitTorrent. Zeitgeist won the top award of Best Feature Documentary/Artivist Spirit at the 4th Annual Artivists Awards in 2008 in Hollywood, CA. An upcoming sequel has been announced.

Structure

File:Zeitgest-intro.jpg

A still from the introduction

The film starts with a speech by Chögyam Trungpa about spirituality, followed by a series of musically synchronized clips of war and explosions culminating with one of the towers of World Trade Center collapsing during 9/11. Then there follows a sequence of clips showing the horrors of war. There is a short clip that shows a hand writing "1 + 1 = 2", but is brushed away by another hand before the first finishes, and is replaced by a bible and an American flag. After a few more war clips, the film then quotes Jordan Maxwell's Inner World of the Occult, criticizing religious institutions, governments, and the banking cartels who "have misled [the people] away from the true and divine presence in the universe." This portion ends with more images accompanied by audio of a portion of a George Carlin monologue on religion.

Part I: The Greatest Story Ever Told

Horus left and Jesus right

Part I evaluates the historicity of the Bible. In furtherance of the Jesus myth hypothesis, this part argues that the historical Jesus is a literary and astrological hybrid, and that the Bible is based on astrological principles documented by many ancient civilizations, especially pertaining to the movement of the sun through the sky and stars. The film explains how and why early civilizations personified the Sun as the "representative of the unseen Creator or God" and how stars were linked into constellations, the 12 constellations being a place of travel for "God's Sun" and representing "elements of nature that happened during that period of time." This section is also used by the film to show the Pagan origins of the symbol of the Cross.

Horus, the Ancient Egyptian Sun God, is introduced as having a number of attributes in common with Jesus. For instance, the movie claims that Horus was born of a virgin mother, his arrival was proclaimed by a star in the east and upon his birth he was adored by three kings. According to the film, Horus was a child teacher at 12, was baptized at 30, traveled with 12 disciples and performed acts such as healing the sick and walking on water. The relationship between Horus and Set is also discussed.

According to the movie, religion and myths in general are used to manipulate and mobilize populations and maintain established social structures.

Christianity, along with all other theistic belief systems [...] empowers those who know the truth, but use the myth to manipulate and control societies. The religious myth is the most powerful device ever created, and serves as the psychological soil upon which other myths can flourish.

Part II: All the World's a Stage

9/11 attacks

Part II of the documentary claims 9/11 was engineered to generate mass fear, justify going to war with Afghanistan and Iraq, to remove civil liberties from the general public, and to make more money for the people in power. These theories include that the United States government was warned about the impending September 11, 2001 attacks, that NORAD allowed the planes to reach their targets, and that the World Trade Center buildings underwent a controlled demolition. The film also explores the theory that six of the named hijackers are still alive, that Hani Hanjour could not have flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon, that the Bush Administration covered up the truth in the 9/11 Commission Report, and that the mainstream media has failed to ask important questions about the official account.

Part III: Don't Mind the Men Behind the Curtain

The Federal Reserve

According to Part III, powerful bankers have been conspiring for world domination and increased power while the rich of society have been using their wealth to increase financial panic and foster a consolidation of independent competing banks. The film details the Theory of Electronic Conspiracy and claims that the Federal Reserve System, the central bank of the United States, was created in order to steal the wealth of the nation. It explores war profiteering by banking cartels and defense and military contractors. It describes the goal of these bankers as world power over a controllable public.

This section also explores the possibility that there is a clandestine movement, promoted by the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, to usurp the American constitution and US dollar, by merging the United States, Canada and Mexico into a North American Union that uses a single currency, the Amero, without the ratification of Congress. This currency union would create a super-state similar to the European Union, which together with the African Union and the proposed Asian Union would gradually be merged into a One World government. The movie concludes that under such a government, every human could be implanted with a RFID microchip which would be used to monitor individuals and suppress dissent. It also claims that the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Federal Income Tax are unconstitutional and there are no laws which state that citizens must pay the tax. The movie ends, however, on an optimistic note, expressing confidence in the possibility of overthrowing oppressive forces and the ultimate triumph of revolution through enlightenment.

The title of Part III (Don't Mind the Men Behind the Curtain) is in reference to the 1939 classic film The Wizard of Oz.

Criticism

A feature article in The Stranger has stated the film is based solely on anecdotal evidence, while others have criticized it for using unidentified, undated, and unsourced video news clips, voice-overs, quotes, and book citations without page numbers. In a piece entitled "Internet idiocy: the latest pandemic", an opinion piece in the Arizona Daily Wildcat refers to the film as "internet bullshit", saying that "witty sayings, fear tactics and a cool, assertive air all enable them to convince the unwitting public of their points" while another in the Irish Times called it "unhinged" and accused it of offering nothing but "surreal perversions of genuine issues and debates."

In the Gauntlet, Jordyn Marcellus wrote it was ironic that the film's viewers "have blindly followed the documentary without doing their own research." He states that, though the film is "well-edited and is truly compelling", it "glosses over inconvenient facts," uses "deceptive filmmaking" and that "for a film that rails against deception, there's a lot of deception implicit in its creation."

On March 10, 2008, director Peter Joseph removed the "Clarifications" section from the film's official site, a section which The Gauntlet believed "alluded to dishonest filmmaking tactics that would otherwise help to discredit the film." It was replaced by a Q&A Section that "attempts to smack down" the film's critics.

See also

• 9/11 conspiracy theories
• 911: In Plane Site - the movie
• Loose Change (film)
• Conspiracy theory
• False flag
• Fractional reserve banking
• Jesus Christ in comparative mythology
• List of documentaries
• New World Order (conspiracy theory)
• The God Who Wasn't There (film)

External links

• Zeitgeistmovie.com Official website
• Zeitgeist: The Movie at IMDb
• Zeitgeist, The Movie - Remastered/Final Edition on Google Video (Flash Video)