by MATTHEW HAYS

The word has become so common it’s almost meaningless. Like "nice," "stupid" has come to mean just about anything, from something unpleasant to someone whose politics you disagree with.

Thus Albert Nerenberg, the former Montrealer now based out of Toronto, decided to make a film all about the topic, titled simply Stupidity. The result is a 75-minute mélange of bits and bytes, interviews and clips, all edited together at a break-neck pace - in other words, it’s pure Nerenberg. It’s thesis is often a bit murky (what else to expect?), but the film has an undeniably impressive lineup of guest interviewees, including Noam Chomsky, Salma Hayek, David Frum, Andrew Coyne and Rick Mercer.

"Really, the idea for this was formed out of a series of accidents," explains Nerenberg. "The Documentary Channel had bought a number of my earlier documentaries. I had an idea right after 9/11, in which I wanted to analyze the way people the world over were suffering from a collective post traumatic stress disorder. I wanted to discuss how we could treat the entire population for this. People basically said the idea was stupid. People told me it was cheap psychobabble."

While still trying to shop the idea around, Nerenberg went in for a meeting with the Documentary Channel execs. "I was in a pissed-off state of mind," he recalls, "and I just said, ‘Why not a movie on stupidity?’ They loved it and immediately bit."

As the research began, Nerenberg says he realized the topic was even bigger than he’d thought. "I’ve seen a documentary on intelligence, and frankly, I found it kind of dull. Stupidity, on the other hand, is actually interesting. And there’s been so little done on it: only seven books. Do you know, no one has ever named a film Stupidity before? I find that shocking."

Dying to be dim

Certainly, Nerenberg’s timing is good. The Jackass generation has made all things stupid actually rather cool. And the current U.S. President comes under constant fire, charged as being an intellectual lightweight. The topic became so inspiring for Nerenberg, he decided that a mere 48 minutes (the standard length of a TV doc) was not good enough, and moved up to a 75-minute format. And everyone, it seemed, had an opinion they needed to divulge on the topic. "Noam Chomsky was very open to our coming down to speak with him. In fact, he seemed to have a burning desire to talk about it." Nerenberg didn’t find everyone wanted to sign up, however. "Pamela Anderson was in town doing something for the liver foundation," Nerenberg says. "We made the rather stupid mistake of phoning ahead and saying we wanted to interview her for a documentary about stupidity. When we showed up at the hotel where the press conference was being held, there were six huge guys waiting for us. They threw us out!"

Nerenberg premiered the film at Toronto’s wildly popular Hot Docs film fast in May, where it became the hit of the event. Never short on promotional ideas, Nerenberg launched his first annual Stupidity Awards, to the delight of the media. "BBC interviewed me four times about it," Nerenberg says gleefully. With voting done over the Internet, George W. Bush wasn’t a surprise, taking the title for Reckless Endangerment of the Planet. Jean Chrétien’s taking of Stupidest Canadian surprised Nerenberg, but feels right-wing types were probably ballot stuffing. Not everyone has been swayed, in particular the Globe and Mail’s Liam Lacey, who skewered the film for being silly and too glib. "That was the only bad review," sniffs Nerenberg. "A lot of people told me they thought that was a stupid review."

And what was the main thing Nerenberg learned while documenting the concept of stupidity? "That stupidity and intelligence aren’t necessarily opposites. There are some extremely intelligent people who can be very stupid. And also, I discovered how stupid I was. Every time I would arrive at a theory about precisely what stupidity is, it would apply to me."

STUPIDITY SCREENS AS PART OF COMEDIA, THE JUST FOR LAUGHS COMEDY FILM FESTIVAL, ON JULY 18, 19 AND 20 AT CINEMA DU PARC. NERENBERG WILL INTRODUCE THE SCREENINGS

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