We’re all aware to some degree, of the immensity of the role played by petrochemicals in modern civilization – but this film blows your mind with the overarching reach of the hydrocarbon industry into so many unknown aspects of our daily lives and as the driving force of history in this Age of Petroleum, during which we’ve lived our entire lives.
We are also treated to the rarely-recounted history of the Rockefeller family, prior to John D., the world’s first billionaire and the founder of the Standard Oil monopoly. His father, “Dr.” Bill Livingston, aka “Big Bill” or “Devil Bill” was a celebrated “cancer specialist” who was neither a doctor nor a cancer specialist. He traveled around the US and Canada, selling the potentially carcinogenic mixture of laxatives and petroleum that he called “Snake Oil” (!) His name wasn’t even “Livingston”, either! He was actually a psychopathic bigamist and rapist, who lived constantly on the run from the law and from every community from whom he’d previously swindled. He boasted, “I cheat my boys every chance I get…I want to make ’em sharp.” His real name was William Avery Rockefeller.
James Corbett likens the entire oil industry to “Devil Bill” and his parlor tricks, but with the unprecedented power to monopolize life, itself, in this must-see documentary, ‘Oiligarchy: How Big Oil Conquered the World.’
