The American Ruling Class
- The American Ruling Class
Infobox Film
name = The American Ruling Class
director = John Kirby
producer = Libby Handros
writer = Lewis Lapham
starring = Lewis Lapham
Paul Cantagallo
Caton Burwell
music = Qasim Naqvi
Lucas Johnson-Yahraus
cinematography = Mark Benjamin
editing = John Kirby
Leah O’Donnell
distributor =
production_company =
released = April 26, 2005
runtime = 100 min
country = USA
UK
language = English
gross =
budget =
website = http://www.theamericanrulingclass.org
amg_id = 1:325683
imdb_id = 0455906
"The American Ruling Class" (2007) is a dramatic documentary film written by Lewis Lapham and directed by John Kirby that "explores our country’s most taboo topic: class, power and privilege in our nominally democratic republic." [ [http://www.theamericanrulingclass.org/press/AmericanRulingClassEPF.pdf 2005 Tribeca Film Festival Electronic Press Kit] ] It seeks to answer the question, "Does America have a ruling class?" Its producers consider it the first "dramatic-documentary-musical." [ [http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_kirby1_06-01-07_935PDFG.1c2eb61.html How the Ruling Class thwarts democracy] ]
A rough-cut of the film was shown at the 2005 TriBeCa Film Festival, the final version of the film was shown on the Sundance Channel in July 2007, and it had its theatrical premiere at The Brooklyn Academy of Music in April 2008. Currently the film is available for sale by Bullfrog Films.
Cast
The film stars Lewis Lapham, who plays himself as editor of "Harper's Magazine", Paul Cantagallo, as "Mark Vanzetti" (a new Yale graduate from a "not-so-rich" economic background), and Caton Burwell as "Jack Bellami" (a new Yale graduate from a wealthy background). The names of these fictional characters could be construed as references to Bartolomeo Vanzetti and the Guy de Maupassant novel "Bel Ami".
The following people are interviewed:
* Robert B. Altman
* James A. Baker III
* Bill Bradley
* Harold Brown
* Hodding Carter III
* William T. Coleman Jr.
* Walter Cronkite
* Barbara Ehrenreich
* Martin Garbus
* Vartan Gregorian
* Doug Henwood
* Mike Medavoy
* Joseph S. Nye Jr.
* Samuel Peabody
* John Perkins
* Peter G. Peterson
* Peter Seeger
* Lawrence H. Summers
* Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.
* William Howard Taft IV
* Kurt Vonnegut
*Howard Zinn
ee also
* "The Corporation"
References
External links
* [http://www.theamericanrulingclass.org Official Website]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDgFiW2xtf0&eurl=http://www.theamericanrulingclass.org/youtube_clip.htm Movie Clip] on YouTube (authorized on the [http://www.theamericanrulingclass.org/youtube_clip.htm Official Site] )
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