| The 11th Hour | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Nadia Conners Leila Conners Petersen |
| Produced by | Leonardo DiCaprio Leila Conners Petersen Chuck Castleberry Brian Gerber |
| Written by | Nadia Conners Leonardo DiCaprio Leila Conners Petersen |
| Narrated by | Leonardo DiCaprio |
| Starring | Leonardo DiCaprio Stephen Hawking Thom Hartmann Mikhail Gorbachev Sylvia Earle James Woolsey Andrew Weil William McDonough Paul Hawken Wangari Maathai David Suzuki Andy Lipkis David W. Orr Kenny Ausubel Paul Stamets |
| Music by | Jean-Pascal Beintus Eric Avery |
| Editing by | Luis Alvarez y Alvarez Pietro Scalia |
| Distributed by | Warner Independent Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 17, 2007 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The 11th Hour is a 2007 documentary film, created, produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, on the state of the natural environment. It was directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners and financed by Adam Lewis and Pierre André Senizergues, and distributed by Warner Independent Pictures.
Its world premiere was at the 2007 60th Annual Cannes Film Festival (May 16–27, 2007) and it was released on August 17, 2007, in the year in which the Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations global warming panel IPCC was published and about a year after Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, another film documentary about global warming.
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With contributions from over 50 politicians, scientists, and environmental activists, including former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, physicist Stephen Hawking, Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, and journalist Paul Hawken, the film documents the grave problems facing the planet's life systems. Global warming, deforestation, mass species extinction, and depletion of the oceans' habitats are all addressed. The film's premise is that the future of humanity is in jeopardy.
The film proposes potential solutions to these problems by calling for restorative action by the reshaping and rethinking of global human activity through technology, social responsibility and conservation.
Global warming is not only the number one environmental challenge we face today, but one of the most important issues facing all of humanity ... We all have to do our part to raise awareness about global warming and the problems we as a people face in promoting a sustainable environmental future for our planet.—Leonardo DiCaprio, [1]
Experts interviewed underlined that everyone must become involved to reverse the destruction and climate change. The role of humans in the destruction of the environment is explained from the viewpoint of several different professional fields including environmental scientists, oceanographers, economic historians, and medical specialists. The many experts called upon in this documentary effectively demonstrated a consensus concerning human-caused climate change, and the many other impacts of industrialization such as the dramatic loss of species (biodiversity).
The film received generally favorable reviews from critics, with a 68% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 87 reviews,[2] and an average score of 63% on Metacritic based on 30 reviews.[3]
Patrick Moore, an early member of Greenpeace, criticized the depiction of the forestry industry in The 11th Hour in an August 2007 article in The Vancouver Sun entitled "An Inconvenient Fact":
The most important factors influencing the carbon cycle are deforestation on the negative side, and the use of wood, from sustainably managed forests, as a substitute for non-renewable materials and fuels, on the positive side.To address climate change, we must use more wood, not less. Using wood sends a signal to the marketplace to grow more trees and to produce more wood. That means we can then use less concrete, steel and plastic -- heavy carbon emitters through their production. Trees are the only abundant, biodegradable and renewable global resource.
DiCaprio's movie, The 11th Hour, is another example of anti-forestry scare tactics, this time said to be "brilliant and terrifying" by James Christopher of The Times... Maybe so, but instead of surrendering to the terror, keep in mind that there are solutions to the challenges of climate, and our forests are among them... This film should be a good, clear reminder for us to put the science before the Hollywood hype.—Patrick Moore, in the August 29, 2007 issue of The Vancouver Sun, [4]
Kevin Crust, a critic from the Los Angeles Times, rated the film highly:
The [film] asks why these things are happening and apportions blame in varying degrees to governmental indifference tied to its allegiance to a corporate economy that is addicted to growth at any cost and perhaps, most insinuating of all, to the culture of consumerism. Disposable has trumped sustainable in our society, and we're now paying the price. Thankfully for audiences, "11th Hour" is not without hope. The filmmakers save the most exhilarating portion for last when they ask what's being done about the problems. Experts extol existing technologies and projects as attainable solutions. Progressive designs such as a carbon-neutral city and self-sustaining buildings already offer ideas for a new direction. By mimicking nature's own blueprints, it is possible to create a system of living that heals rather than depletes the Earth.—Kevin Crust, [5]