WMD: I have no problem with a documentary examining documentary maker Michael Moore. He's the most successful and famous doc maker in history. In Roger and Me, his second best film, he gave us the movie of record about the hollowing out of America's industrial heartland. His most recent, Sicko, which is also his best, puts to (a sick) bed the notion that the U.S. health care system is in any way a model to envy or emulate. But, as everyone knows now, he's a flawed filmmaker and personality. For a guy dealing in a supposedly non-fiction genre, he's a fudger, sometimes shockingly so, and a ham. For a self-described man of the people, he's got an ego -- and an affluent lifestyle -- that's as wide as his girth. And he's apparently not the easier boss to work for. A guy like this is crying out for examination, especially in a film that emulates his patented style of gotcha "journalism". But after seeing Manufacturing Dissent, I'm still waiting for such an examination.
I take the makers of MD at face value when they say the are fans of Moore and set out to make a doc of him behind the scenes because they are fans. But when they were repeatedly rebuffed by his coterie of PR handlers and security over a simple request for a 20-minute sitdown interview, they were surprised. And then they discovered, as has now been written about for years, that Moore makes stuff up--both in his films and in numerous public appearances--to suit his own ends. The film does a credible job of examining Moore's background, how he grew up in a wealthy burb of Flint, his early years as a journalist/publisher (in which he apparently used stories from another publication without permission or payment) running his own paper, his failure/meltdown/assassination at Mother Jones, and his rocket ride to fame after Roger and Me electrified film festival audiences. We hear from friends, past and present, business associates and a range of figures from the U.S. left from Nader to Hitchens, and we get to watch him on the road trying to whip up the youth vote during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. And what emerges is a reasonable portrait of a man with all the charms and flaws I've described above. But they're also charms and flaws that have been written about and known about for years. The makers of MD seem to be shocked that Moore is Moore, and their criticism of him is altogether too moderate. They end the film with a statement from a disenchanted colleague and friend of Moore (and he's got good reason for being disenchanted) musing about how Moore is feeding into the same old cult of American celebrity, and that while he poses as a political radical, he's feathering his own nest. But what's left unsaid is that the film, by being about Moore, continues that cult of celebrity. And the reason that the film was made in the first place was because the filmmakers, as Moore fans, were part of that cult. And we don't get the impression they've left it by doc's end.
Final note: The filmmakers are Canadian, and while there's some reference to that in MD, it doesn't go far enough. Moore frequently uses Canada as a shining example of the social welfare state in his films. And as a Canadian who's reasonably happy with our goals of social welfare (if not always our implementation), I find Moore's lavish praise embarrassing. Yes, embarrassment is a Canadian trait, but if Moore fudges his American examples in films like Bowling for Columbine, he's an outright distortionist when it comes to Canada. A classic example was his wandering through a Toronto neighbourhood and discovering all the doors unlocked. The unsubtle lesson: sweet Canadians are so unconcerned about violence, because we have none, that it's doors open policy all the time, neigbhours! Maybe in 1950 in small towns on the prairie where everyone went to church or was too drunk to care. In 2007, you can count up the alarm security signs and stickers in just about any neighbourhood in Vancouver and end up with a pretty high number. I really doubt Toronto is any different, especially now that our largest city has acquired world class youth gang gun violence.
Today's bLINKit: I'm way too old for MySpace, and never troll it, but through this show, I stumbled upon the song that plays when you open this page. Sentimental me, I like it.
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