Robert Newman's History of Oil

This brilliant short film is shot around Robert Newman's stand-up act and supported by archive sequences and stills with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests to Archduke Ferdinand. Quirky details such as a bicycle powered street lamp on the stage brings home the perplexing question of just how we are going to survive when the world's oil supplies are finally exhausted. Newman comes to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the school-boy history we were fed, the places oil centre stage as the cause of all commotion.

Newman, a Cambridge educated comedian and political activist is the author of three novels: Dependence Day, Manners. and The Fountain At The Center Of The World (2003). The Fountain at the Centre of the World is a novel that spans across Costa Rica, Mexico,  London, and the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. It deals primarily with the way in which people are connected through the omnipresent forces of globalism and capitalism. Posted by Casey Kazan.

History of Oil