The Corbett Report - Film, Literature and the New World Order

In The Conversation—the 1974 conspiracy thriller/psychodrama from writer/director Francis Ford Coppola—we follow the story of Harry Caul, the greatest surveillance technician in the world. Caul has been hired to clandestinely record a conversation for a mysterious corporate client—but that conversation ends up having lethal implications. So, what did Coppola know about the surveillance state, and what does this half-century old film have to teach us about the electronic panopticon that exists around us in 2026? Joining us to dissect this New Hollywood-era classic is Antony Rotunno, the host of the Film Gold podcast.

What do the exploits of Leo Bolero and Barney Mayerson have to do with anamnesis, the Platonic forms and Valentinian gnosis? Find out in this fascinating conversation!

Become a Corbett Report member and join in on The James Corbett Book (and Movie!) Club...or the Film, Literature and the New World Order livestream, or whatever it's called!

When you read Umberto Eco's Foucault’s Pendulum and saw the allusions to Francis Bacon's New Atlantis, did you begin to suspect a Plan. Did you think that James was obviously sending you on a literary journey from one stepping stone to the next on the way to a predetermined destination? That would be a perfectly reasonable supposition...but it's completely incorrect. These works were chosen completely independently from each other by people who didn't even know of the other's existence, let alone the other's choice of book. Does this information bother you? Should it? Why? These are the sorts of questions one begins to ask oneself when you engage in a rabbit hole as large and as all consuming as Foucault's Pendulum—a rabbit hole that contains all other rabbit holes. And that's precisely how Eco would have wanted it...maybe. Find out more about this elaborate, meticulously researched, clockwork conspiracy yarn in this month's edition of Film, Literature and the New World Order with special guest Tom-Oliver Regenauer of Regenauer.press.

What is the New Atlantis? And who is Francis Bacon? And what does this obscure, posthumously published fragment of utopian (?) narrative have to say about technocracy? Good questions! Today, James explores those questions and more in this deep dive on Francis Bacon's The New Atlantis with Heys Reviews host, Nick Heys.

In Harry Turtledove's Powerless, the citizens of the West Coast People's Democratic Republic know their place and they know what's expected of them. One day, however, one citizen decides not to hang the obligatory Workers of the World, Unite! propaganda poster in his window...and soon, the entire political order is crashing down around him. So, what does this work of alternative history tell us about our own political predicament, and what does it reveal about the dangers of political transitions? This month on Film, Literature and the New World Order, James discusses the Prometheus Award-nominated Powerless with author John C. A. Manley.

In an effort to make the Film, Literature and The New World Order podcast more like a real book club, we're going to try something different: a livestream! That's right, for the first time in Corbett Report history I'm going to be livestreaming my upcoming conversation with John C. A. Manley about Harry Turtledove's Powerless.

Film, Literature and the New World Order is back! You do remember that long-abandoned podcast, don’t you? If not, you have some archive deep diving to do. And now, you have a new book to read in the next month. It’s called Powerless and it’s by Harry Turtledove. Happy reading!

In this special surprise edition of Film, Literature and the New World Order, James joins the Big Puff Podcast to discuss Conspiracy Theory, the 1997 action drama starring Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts and Patrick Stewart. As silly as the movie may be, it actually makes for a very interesting discussion. Enjoy.

On this edition of Film, Literature and the New World Order, James examines Aesop's Fables for some of the timeless wisdom that we can still benefit from here in the 21st century.