Noble, er, Nobel Turk
December 8, 2006

You may recognize filmmaker/actor Turk Pipkin from his recurring role on The Sopranos as Janice Soprano’s narcoleptic hippie boyfriend Aaron Arkaway. Or maybe you remember him as a ping-pong ball juggler in Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman.

But this year, the talented Mr. Pipkin would like you to first and foremost take note of his most noble documentary, Nobelity (no pun intended). It’s available now from Monterey Video.

Filmed across the U.S., and in France, England, India and Africa, Nobelity is a clear-headed examination of the world most serious problems—famine, nuclear weapons, depleting oil supplies and others--through the eyes and minds of a group of Nobel Prize winners. The film’s “Nobel” interviewees include Desmond Tutu, winner Nobel Peace Prize in 1984; Harold Varmus, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1989; Ahmed Zewail, winner for Chemistry in 1999; and Amartya Sen, winner for Economics in 1998. After viewing, Nobelity leaves one with the impression that if the world were being run by these nine laureates, it would probably be a much better place.

Pipkin’s primary purpose in making the film was so that he could initiate some sort of change in the world. And that’s already happening: A fundraising screening earlier this year helped to raise money to create a rain water collection system for small village in the Aberdare Mountain region of Kenya. “Clean water is a basic human right,” says Pipkin, who can be seen in the film planting trees in the village with a group of Kenyan children.

What’s great about Snakes on a Plane or a movie like that is that you have a bond of everyone laughing and jumping and screaming at the same time,” says Pipkin of why he thinks his film works for audiences, be it at home or in a theatrical setting. “I think Nobelity has a certain amount of that—the same things shock you and the same things make you laugh and the same things get your heart racing and the blood going to your brain and inspire you to say, ‘Waitaminute, we actually can do stuff about these things.’”

Posted by Laurence Lerman on December 8, 2006 | Comments (0)