Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death & Technology (2011)

27% of critics liked it
(11 reviews)
36% of users liked it
(193 ratings)

With wonderful heart and an impressive sense of scale, Tiffany Shlain's vibrant and insightful documentary, Connected, explores the visible and invisible connections linking major issues of our time-the environment, consumption, population growth, technology, human rights, the global economy-while… More With wonderful heart and an impressive sense of scale, Tiffany Shlain's vibrant and insightful documentary, Connected, explores the visible and invisible connections linking major issues of our time-the environment, consumption, population growth, technology, human rights, the global economy-while searching for her place in the world during a transformative time in her life. Employing a splendidly imaginative combination of animation and archival footage, plus several surprises, Shlain constructs a chronological tour of Western modernization through the work of her late father, Leonard Shlain, a surgeon and best-selling author of Art and Physics and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. With humor and irony, the Shlain family life merges with philosophy to create both a personal portrait and a proposal for ways we can move forward as a civilization. Connected illuminates the beauty and tragedy...

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Rating, Runtime: PG, 1 hr. 22 min.
Directed By: Tiffany Shlain, Tiffany Shane
Written By: Tiffany Shlain, Ken Goldberg, Carlton Evans, Sawyer Steele
Genres: Documentary, Special Interest

In Theaters: Sep 16, 2011 Limited
Studio: Paladin Films

Critic Reviews

Sara Stewart, New York Post
This pro-Internet "declaration of interdependence" has all the narrative focus of a Twitter feed.
Paul Brunick, New York Times
There are a lot of vibes in this film, most of them vaguely positive. If only "Connected" had a stronger center of gravity.
Nick Schager, Village Voice
Like Shlain's hand-written diagram in which lines twist and knot while linking various subjects, the film resembles not a coherent thesis but a tangle of semi-related ideas.
Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times
The film ultimately works best as a daughter's heartfelt tribute to an enormously devoted and emotionally generous parent. Unfortunately, that's just not enough to, well, connect us to the bigger picture.
Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
Your heart will go out to Shlain, who clearly adored her father. But other parts of "Connected" may remind you of an Al Gore lecture.
Brent Simon, Shockya.com
Tiffany Shlain's rangy, autobiographic treatise on technology and modern life has a soul, and bristles with a hunger and intellectual vigor lacking in many modern American films.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice
A combo documentary, memoir, and probe of technology that offers a creative look at the brave new world of interdependence and collaboration.
Matt Singer, Time Out New York
She never figures out what, exactly, the deal is regarding our short attention spans, but her ADD-afflicted film definitely provides evidence that they exist.
Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times
Shlain struggles to find the thread that connects her father, her upbringing and her own playful curiosity to the complexities of life in the age of texting, tweeting and apps for just about everything.
Eric Monder, Film Journal International
Ambitious but irritating documentary about the Global Village.
Diego Costa, Slant Magazine
Tiffany Shlain's Connected suffers from its very pedestrian and redundant voiceover.

Read all 11 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Byron B

I saw this at the 2011 Cleveland International Film Fest. Lots of interesting ideas in this doc. Daughter Tiffany makes a film about how it is a small world after all as she thinks about the concepts her father Dr. Leonard Shlain studied. We should think of the world with both… More
I saw this at the 2011 Cleveland International Film Fest. Lots of interesting ideas in this doc. Daughter Tiffany makes a film about how it is a small world after all as she thinks about the concepts her father Dr. Leonard Shlain studied. We should think of the world with both hemispheres of our brains. We may want to unplug every now and then to communicate face to face with our friends and neighbors, but the internet today makes us more connected than ever and even is changing the way our neurons fire. Plus because everything is intimately connected neither independence or dependence accurately describe our world. Tiffany demonstrates that the more accurate term is interdependence. Clips from various sources including some Harold Lloyd films as well as the graphics employed make this an entertaining and informative doc.

Cast

            Peter Coyote as  Peter Coyote

            Tiffany Shlain as Tiffany Shlain

            Dale Andrade as Dale Andrade

            Zbigniew Brzezinski as Zbigniew Brzezinski

            Corrado Cantatore as Corrado Cantatore

            Jonathan Jordan Clarke as Jonathan Jordan Clarke

            Carl Colby as Carl Colby

            Barbara Colby as Barbara Colby

            Daren Flitcroft as Daren Flitcroft

            Donald Gregg as Donald Gregg

            Seymour Hersh as Seymour Hersh

            Fisher Howe as Fisher Howe

            Thomas Hughes as Thomas Hughes

            Oleg Kalugin as Oleg Kalugin

            Bob Kerrey as Bob Kerrey

            John Langan as John Langan

            James Lilley as James Lilley

            Edward N. Luttwak as Edward N. Luttwak

            Thomas McCoy as Thomas McCoy

            Robert McFarlane as Robert McFarlane

            Elizabeth McIntosh as Elizabeth McIntosh

            H.R. McMaster as H.R. McMaster

            Prof. Hugh Montgomery as Prof. Hugh Montgomery

            John Nagl as John Nagl

            Rufus Phillips as Rufus Phillips

            Walter Pincus as Walter Pincus

            Donald Rumsfeld as Donald Rumsfeld

            James Schlesinger as James Schlesinger

            Daniel Schorr as Daniel Schorr

            Gen. Brent Scowcroft as Gen. Brent Scowcroft

            Laurence Silberman as Laurence Silberman

            John Singlaub as John Singlaub

            Joseph W. Smith as Joseph W. Smith

            Evan Thomas as Evan Thomas

            Hugh Tovar as Hugh Tovar

            Judge William Webster as Judge William Webster

            Tim Weiner as Tim Weiner

            Bob Woodward as Bob Woodward

            Steve Young as Steve Young

            Dr. Leonard Shlain as Dr. Leonard Shlain

            Harold Lloyd as Harold Lloyd
See full cast