"AMERICAN DISSIDENT : THE POLITICAL ART OF MICHAEL MOORE"

I just received a nice comment on my blog from Francois Primeau, the author of a book entitled "AMERICAN DISSIDENT: THE POLITICAL ART OF MICHAEL MOORE" (Lulu Press, 2007). I had never heard of it, so I clicked on the link and read that magical summary :

FINALLY, A LEFT-WING LOOK AT THE WORK OF AMERICA'S MOST CONTROVERSIAL FILMMAKER! - With his new film "Sicko", Michael Moore proves once again that he is the leading creative voice for the new Left in America. Few have criticized the social and foreign policies of the American government the way Moore did in his films, books, and TV shows. Titles such as "Roger & Me," "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" are now associated with an artist who has dedicated his professional life to expose the foibles of an America that believes itself virtuous and free, but which can only breathe on feelings of anger, mistrust and paranoia. "American Dissident: The Political Art of Michael Moore" is an engaging and thought-provoking look at the work of America’s favorite civil libertarian. Through a personal reading and impassioned defense of Moore’s project, it offers for the first time a detailed analysis of his feature films and two television series to date, "TV Nation" and "The Awful Truth."

http://stores.lulu.com/americandissident

"POLITICAL ART"... "FINALLY, A LEFT-WING LOOK AT THE WORK OF AMERICA'S MOST CONTROVERSIAL FILMMAKER!"... "a personal reading and impassioned defense of Moore’s project"... Yeah, it sure looks good ! And I like that cover too :






Mr Primeau seems to be aware of two essential facts : first, that Michael Moore is CENSORED and in need of vocal defense, and second, that Michael Moore is an ARTIST, and deserves to be treated as such, definitely and decisively.

I've been waiting for a long time for someone to dare defend Mike with his head held up high and in an outspoken, unapologetic fashion, crediting him for the artist that he really is and shedding a personal light on his work, free from all that right-wing suspicious, petty, media-inspired BS. I feel inclined to make that bet that Mr Primeau is this long awaited person, and I promised him I would write an extensive review for his book as soon as I've read it. 308 pages ! Mmmm... yummy.

Mr Primeau informs me that "It's central thesis cannot be refuted, even by the biggest Moore-detractor out there. It is an answer to Christopher Hitchens and all those other losers out there." I'm skeptical about the former (all theses can be refuted), but immensely grateful for the latter (my nightmare was to have to deal with said losers and their miserable, venomous nitpicking on my site).

Mr Primeau also claims that "It is the only articulate and extensive defense of his work to date". Well, what can I say ? It's true, and it's nothing to be proud of.

Do as I do. Make amends : Buy his book, and Pass the message along.

HE MAKES MOVIES - Concluding the set of essays about Mike as a filmmaker

CONCLUSION : HE MAKES MOVIES (The Documentary Ends Where The Quest Begins)




(above : Filip in action in Kieslowski's "Amator")

In “Amator”, a movie written and shot under Jaruzelski’s dictatorship, Polish director Kieslowski portrays a man who naively and almost inadvertently buys an 8mm movie camera when his first child is born for family fun purposes. But, because it's the first camera in town, he's named official photographer by the local Party boss. His horizons widen when he is sent to regional film festivals with his first works, but they also lead to domestic strife and philosophical dilemmas when his focus on movie making becomes a passion and he perceives that the eye of his camera witnesses Things That Shouldn’t Be Seen and silently, inevitably accuses Those Who Shouldn’t Be Accused.

More than Chaplin, more than Capra, more than Lenny Bruce, more than Zola, more than Nick Broomfield, more than Saul Alinsky, more than Socrates, more than Andersen, more, even, than the modern embodiment of Nemesis, the Impartial Goddess of Righteous Vengeance – Michael Moore is this man.

After all is said and done, Michael Moore is just Filip, a little guy who just felt like filming his people and his town as the “dawn” of the American Empire was rising and shadows got longer and things grew bleaker – always bleaker. A little guy who was vaguely looking for some fun to have, vaguely searching for something to do – and got awoken by accident.

It could have been me. It could have been you.

But it was him.

Because He Made Movies.

SCROOGE AND HIS NEMESIS

This entry is the third part of the section entitled "The Storyteller" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.



Most of the time, and par for the course, the Frail Moving Bastard doesn’t want to lose. So he just leaves the ring, and so the Big Bad Angel leaves the ring as well… to follow him, and to make sure that there is NO REST FOR THE WICKED.

Hence the Chase – the half-Christian, half-Marxist version of the Pursuit of Happiness. Especially half-Christian, but also half-Marxist.

I don't see it so much as confrontation. I see it more as a continuation of my Jesuit training. The pope has never liked the Jesuits much because they ask too many questions.

http://www.detnews.com/2002/entertainment/0210/21/d01-616260.htm

Moore is clever enough to know when someone is making a fool of himself, and he gives them enough rope—time on camera—to hang themselves. If that doesn’t work he is not above getting his preferred results by creative editing that outrages his critics.

http://bostonreview.net/BR28.3/stone.html


As Roger Ebert notices in his F9/11 review, “It's vintage Moore, for example, when he brings along a Marine who refused to return to Iraq; together, they confront congressmen, urging them to have their children enlist in the service.”

It’s vintage Moore because it’s the Mike at his Socratic best. William Karel once pointed out that Moorean questions were questions that a 4 year old could ask. This is very true and the key to the filmmaker’s brand of radicalism : a 4 year old asks naïve but essential questions, like “Why is it dark at night ?”. And very, very few people can actually answer that. And even less can answer that in a way a 4 year old will find satisfactory. For 4 year olds still have the metaphysical and moral urges that fake adults/real spiteful children have “reasonably” given up on. Mike knows that enlisting in the service is really up to the youth, not to the Congressmen. There’s a law about that. But the interesting thing is that the Congressmen DON’T know that law – at least not enough to answer the urge in a clean, straightforward way. No They RUN instead.

Run, bastards, run. The childlike documentarian will chase you for your childish irresponsibility.

Look, bastards, look. Hey, hey, hey, look what you doing to me. Hey, hey, hey, look what you dun.

PLAYBOY: Sometimes your confrontations with companies seem tasteless. The Voice Box Choir stands out.

MOORE: Well, I'm proud of it. Voice Box Choir was a group of half a dozen or so antitobacco campaigners, all of whom had had their voice boxes removed to stop the spread of cancer. They had been heavy smokers who could speak only by holding a small amplifier to their throat. We had the choir sing Christmas carols at the New York headquarters of Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds. We also went to the chairmen's houses. It gets a huge laugh, but it's the kind of laugh you can't believe you're laughing.

http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/michaelmoore2/04.html




(above : a scene from "Voice Box Choir", The Awful Truth, I, 3)


Mike also writes to his victims. He never shuts the dialogue. HE NEVER SHUTS UP.

He writes “Shame on you” messages to the bastards. He writes “Look what you dun” messages to the bastards. On and on, on and on.

October 30, 2002
To: Charlton Heston, President, NRA
From: Michael Moore, Winner, NRA Marksman Award
Subject: Your Visit to Tucson Today in the Wake of Another School
Shooting

Dear Mr. Heston:

When you showed up in Denver to hold your pro-gun rally just days after the massacre at nearby Columbine High School, the nation was shocked at your incredible insensitivity to those who had just lost loved ones.

When you came to Flint to hold another rally in the months after a 6-year old boy shot a 6-year old girl at a nearby elementary school, the community was stunned by your desire to rub its face in its grief.

But your announcement that you are on your way to Tucson today, just 48 hours after a student at the University of Arizona shot and killed three professors and then himself, to hold ANOTHER big pro-gun celebration -- this time to get out the vote for the NRA-backed Republican running for Congress -- well, sir, I have to ask you: Have you no shame?

I am asking that you not go to Tucson today. (…)

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com mike@michaelmoore.com

His letters to Bush are famous and countless. Lesser known is the fact that they all convey the same underlying Fantasy of the Meeting.

A Supreme Meeting Where The Bastard Will See What He Dun :

Do you expect Fahrenheit 9/11 to be screened at the White House?

I would LOVE to have a White House screening of this film. I would attend it. I would behave myself. After all, it's a little known fact that, the first time we met, George W Bush's cousin was working as my cameraman on Roger And Me. His father, George The First, who was in the White House, did have a screening, down at Camp David. Young George and various others were there, but I was not invited to that one. I hope they'd consider doing it again.

http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/feature.jsp?id=133235

SOCRATES AS A WRESTLER

This entry is the second part of the section entitled "The Storyteller" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.


Mike is one these big bad wrestlers who, in best wrestling style and tradition, attacks and crushes the SEEMINGLY weak and flustered… and wins, much to the joy of the watchers.

Oh, the immoral bastard ! Oh, the bloodthirsty watchers ! How can such an approach be ethical ? Boo ! Boooooooo !!! goes the self-righteous mob – louder than a poor guy’s bombs.

PLAYBOY: You were criticized for embarrassing former NRA president Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine. Some viewers felt you took advantage of an aging, ailing man.

MOORE: I take exception to that. I was very respectful.

PLAYBOY: Heston looked ridiculous. He was frail and flustered.

MOORE: He was opposing gun controls in the aftermath of high school shootings. That made him fair game. All I did was ask some questions. He said the problem with America is our mixed ethnicity. He said he was proud of the white guys who founded the country. I was stunned. I was respectful when I asked the questions, but at the same time, how am I supposed to treat someone who, after leaving my interview, went back out campaigning for laws that would allow people to have Uzis and cop-killer bullets? Once again, most Americans are with me on this. They understand that duck hunters don't need Uzis and cop-killer bullets.

http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/michaelmoore2/04.html

But, Mike, aren’t you catching your subjects off guard ? How can this be fair game then ?

And - Boo ! Boooooooo !!! goes the self-righteous mob – louder than a poor guy’s bombs.

Apparently Bush and other members of his administration don't know what every TV reporter knows, that a satellite image can be live before they get the cue to start talking. That accounts for the quease-inducing footage of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz wetting his pocket comb in his mouth before slicking back his hair. When that doesn't do it, he spits in his hand and wipes it down. If his mother is alive, I hope for his sake she doesn't see this film.Such scenes are typical of vintage Moore, catching his subjects off guard.

http://www.fahrenheit911.com/about/press/view.php?id=6



Oh yeah – and in Comencini’s masterpiece “Lo Scopone Scientifico” too, capitalism was embodied by a frail, sick, ever so moving old lady who was just trying to steal, not only the poor’s money, but most of all the poor’s HOPES of ever becoming as rich as her.

I will say this, though: at the point where Charlton Heston wanders abstractedly away when the questioning gets too hot, with Moore in angry pursuit, the ageing actor suddenly wears an expression of weary, wounded blankness very similar to Ronald Reagan's when he was being questioned about the Iran-Contra scandal.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/fridayreview/story/0,12102,839711,00.html

The truth, as always, lies in MIKE’S MIKE. This seemingly incredibly violent, incredibly unfair struggle is in fact the sweetest, the fairest, the most terrifyingly peaceful there is to be found : no blows, no jabs, no punches from the Big Bad Angel. The violence is in the Frail Moving Weakling. The injustice pours out of the mouth of The Frail Moving Weakling and into the Mike of the Big Bad Angel, like toads from the villains in the ancient tales. And all the Big Bad Angel does is LISTEN. LISTEN in Golden Silence.

And IT HURTS !!!!!!!!

MICHAEL MOORE: I'm not going to give you the popcorn pleasure of watching me throughout the two hours shoving a stick up every member of the Bush administration.

EW: I'd say you did that throughout the movie.

MICHAEL MOORE: I let them do that themselves. They have the funniest lines.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=89

Heston took his NRA show to Denver and did and said exactly what we recounted. From the end of my narration setting up Heston's speech in Denver, with my words, "a big pro-gun rally," every word out of Charlton Heston's mouth was uttered right there in Denver, just 10 days after the Columbine tragedy. But don't take my word – read the transcript of his whole speech.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/

But, Mike, aren’t you still big and bad and fighting the frail and the weak ? How can this be right, whatever the intelligence and the elegance that you put in it ?

And - Boo ! Boooooooo !!! goes the self-righteous mob - louder than a poor guy’s bombs.

Well, self-righteous clowns – remember that The Frail Moving Weakling only LOOKS like a frail, moving weakling. Remember that the Wrestling is ALL A SHOW.

The Frail Moving Bastard is in fact rich, powerful, merciless, dead as ice and cold as stone. But he’s able to achieve a rather good and convincing schtick of Pity Me I’m Just A Man by CUTTING HIMSELF FROM ALL THE EVIDENCE OF WHAT HE REALLY IS.

(In this case) this is the Dick Clark restaurant, it is his name and he is a shareholder in it, and he profits from it. He didn't put the gun under the bed that the boy found. He didn't shoot the little girl. He didn't make that woman poor. But he was trying to benefit from her poverty. He was trying to get a tax break. He wasn't motivated by altruistic reasons, like, "Let's try to employ as many poor black women as we can to raise their standard of living." No! Try, "Let's get workers for our restaurant at the bare, base minimum wage and then let's get a tax break so we don't have to pay our fair share of the taxes that could help elevate some of the poverty." All right? That's his little role in it, and he can't just divorce himself from it.

http://www.splicedwire.com/02features/mimoore.html

And so, the receptive Big Bad Angel who listens is also an ACTIVE WRESTLER, whose art and strategy consist in forcing the Frail Moving Bastard to MARRY AGAIN HIS DIVORCEES.

One technique is THE CROSSCUTS, which display analogies and metaphors meant to RESTORE THE TRUTH :

Why are these gun nuts upset that their brave NRA leader's words are in my film? You'd think they would be proud of the things he said. Except, when intercut with the words of a grieving father (whose son died at Columbine and happened to be speaking in a protest that same weekend Heston was at the convention center), suddenly Charlton Heston doesn't look so good does he? Especially to the people of Denver (and, the following year, to the people of Flint) who were still in shock over the tragedies when Heston showed up.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/

Another technique is THE QUESTIONS, which display impossible answers and missing pieces to RESTORE THE TRUTH :

It's vintage Moore, for example, when he brings along a Marine who refused to return to Iraq; together, they confront congressmen, urging them to have their children enlist in the service. And he makes good use of candid footage, including an eerie video showing Bush practicing facial expressions before going live with his address to the nation about 9/11.

http://www.fahrenheit911.com/about/press/view.php?id=6

And this is how the rare Frail Moving Bastards who are mad enough to actually think of themselves as frail and moving – LOSE.

Where does your relationship now stand with Nike CEO Phil Knight?

Deep tongue kissing.

Seriously.

Nike is very upset at this film. They got ahold of a bootleg copy and called and said, "We'd like to meet with you." I thought they were going to tell me they're going to build the factory in Flint, where I challenged them to build one. Instead, their director of public relations flies to New York and takes me out to breakfast. I sit down at the table and he says to me, "What would it take to have two scenes removed from the movie?" And I kind of freaked out. I didn't even want to hear what the offer was. I just said, "Well, I'm not taking anything out of the movie. I'll add a scene. I'll add a scene of you building that factory in Flint."

What scenes does Nike want out?

He said Phil was upset at two things in the movie where he felt he misspoke himself and he wanted to clear up. The thing about the fourteen-year-olds he didn't care were working [in Nike factories in Indonesia]. He said the age is actually sixteen, something Phil had already told me in the second interview. The second thing was, "In five years, one of those poor little Indonesians is going to be your landlord." They sort of figured out there's some subtle racism in that statement, and they wanted it out.

What made Nike invite you over in the first place?

I have no idea. Maybe Phil just thought he was a hip, groovy guy. Maybe his wife told him to.

http://industrycentral.net/director_interviews/MICHAEL MOORE02.HTM

But, Mike…Shut the fuck up now, self-righteous MOB.

SHUT THE FUCK UP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SAME OLD STORY

This entry is the first part of the section entitled "The Storyteller" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.



localroger has an interesting theory about Michael Moore, the filmmaker : to him, “he keeps making the exact same movie over and over. And surprisingly, it gets better every time.”

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/7/4/84621/13655

In other words, Mike keeps on telling the same STORY in rumbling spires, and with each new movie he’s getting closer to its own perfection.

In his remarkable essay, localroger still somehow fails to describe the exact plot of the Moorean Lost Story. He limits himself instead to a familiar but reductive analogy with the “Emperor’s New Clothes” tale instead : “Moore is simply the little boy at the Imperial parade who is willing to wonder very loudly why that guy with the crown isn't wearing any clothes.”

He then notices rightly that the pro-Moore and anti-Moore factions don’t define themselves by their political belongings (pro-Bush / anti-Bush, or even pro-capitalism / anti-capitalism), but rather through THEIR IDEA OF OBSCENITY : “The people who like Moore are the ones who have also noticed that the Emperor is naked and who welcome a voice brave enough to say it openly. The ones who dislike him are the ones who have some kind of investment in the fineness of the Emperor's raiment.”

(above : scene of “A Cheaper Way to Conduct a Witch Hunt”, the opening ketch to “The Awful Truth” series, I, 1)

And finally, according to him, the progress lies in “growing into more universally relevant topics.”

All of this is true. But not enough to explain Mike’s success in GETTING ACROSS WHAT EVERYBODY KNOWS.

For Andersen Just Said It.

But MIKE JUST DID IT.

“What comes across to the common person who is not parsing the discourse like a debate squadder is a damning sufficiency of things that undeniably speak for themselves”, in localroger’s words, indeed. But Andersen didn’t show this sufficiency of THINGS. Andersen didn’t go to the HEART OF THE MATTER. Andersen merely showed the OBSCENITY of it all.

Whereas MIKE SET THE CONTROLS TO THE HEART OF THE SUN.

Whereas the Moorean Story is a QUEST.

The Quest of Socrates setting out as a Lone Wrestler to become Scrooge’s Nemesis.

LOUD AND CLEAR AND SUBTLE

This entry is the fourth part of the section entitled "The Innovator" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.


“Roger and Me” had a FORMULA. The film was lauded for its unique combination of acerbic editorializing and exploration of the deterioration of the Flint community in a most casual, accessible and personal manner. The former is the Moorean touch. The latter is the Quality Mainstream touch.

Mike has always been a master provocateur, adept at raising temperatures and arousing passions. Under his shambling, wilfully unglamorous persona lies a shrewd intelligence, someone with the keenest of eyes for the preposterous and the absurd, a filmmaker who knows both what he can make fun of and what makes fun of itself.

Mike is Today’s Master of Agit-Prop. And he handles it through the dialectics of emotion and restraint on the one hand, and the dialectics of comments and silences on the other.

(above : an Agit Prop poster based on the crosscut technique used by Mike in Roger and Me to point out the true nature of Roger's Christmas wishes)

Agit-prop is a contraction of "agitation and propaganda". The term originated in Bolshevist Russia, where it didn't bear any negative connotation at the time. It simply meant "dissemination of ideas". In the case of Agit-prop, the ideas to be disseminated were those of communism, including explanations of the policy of the Communist Party and the Soviet State. In other contexts, propaganda could mean dissemination of any kind of beneficial knowledge. "Agitation" meant urging people to do what Soviet leaders expected them to do at various levels. In other words, propaganda was supposed to act on the mind, while agitation acted on emotions, although both usually went together.

Now the Moorean Touch lies in the truly exceptional dignity the filmmaker shows in practicing this lost, difficult and now pejoratively connoted art. Its secret is simple – obscenely simple, to some : he treats the victims like victims, and the villains like villains.

Mike, who’s been accused of coming close to emotional pornography in occurrences such as his extended depiction of Lila Lipscomb’s pain in F9/11, or his leaving a photograph of murdered little Kayla at Heston’s home, finds in fact in such scenes the perfect dialectics between emotion and restraint, which generates in turn the most powerful emotional punch and the most effective appeal to a vast and receptive audience in the American heartland we ever witnessed since Chaplin and Capra. But, rather than featuring grisly images of the World Trade Center collapsing, he lets the screen go dark, like he was closing the eyes of 3 000, relying on sound to convey the horror of the event. And this scene restores the sense of infinity attached to the loss of these innocent victims, and brings back the sense of obscenity where it belongs – to the mainstream media.

As acknowledged by CNN Reviewer Paul Clinton :

“The heart-wrenching grief of Lila Lipscomb is a taste of exactly what the USA needs now: a head-on, popular confrontation with the Bush war machine. It's great if much of Fahrenheit 9/11 makes people uncomfortable. Better still that it makes the warmongers burn with shame at the senseless loss of life they have caused. And it'll be the very best if it helps fire the US people to throw out the warmongers and build movements for lasting social change.”

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/591/591p13.htm

Yes, this coming from a CNN reviewer. Now so much for the voyeurism.

On the other hand, the villains receive the perfect parallel treatment, through the dialectics of comments and silences. In F9/11, Mike doesn’t rub political salt into the continuous incompetence of the Bush administration, or its behavior. He doesn’t need to say anything when the AG starts singing Let the Eagle Soar. He doesn’t need to comment on Bush‘s “I call you my base” fund raising dinner. He lets the “talkies” do the work – and the effect is infuriating.

As for the traitors – the PR people dispatched when Mike charges, cameras rolling, into their polished corporate lobbies – their (self-)treatment is even harsher. Unable to laugh at his engaging brattiness, these hapless flacks must politely push him toward the door while defending corporate downsizing in an era of record profits. The look on their faces—a fascinating blend of fear, frustration and "I hear what you're saying, bro"—expresses the potency of the big-picture questions Mike asks in Roger and Me and The Big One.

Did you ever feel sorry for the PR people you pestered during the
filming of The Big One?

Look—they're workers too. The CEO won't come down and talk to me, so they've got to deal with me. So, I do feel bad for them on one level. On another level, they're the good Germans. And I gotta tell you something: Most of them are former journalists who saw they could make three times the money in PR. And every day, they sit in those cozy little offices and get softball questions from the mainstream press. For one lousy day out of their lives, some overweight guy in a ball cap comes into the lobby and asks a simple question: How do you defend the position that the company just made a record profit and laid off ten thousand people? They know it's indefensible; they're not stupid.

http://industrycentral.net/director_interviews/MM02.HTM

And above all that, but not, NEVER beyond good and evil, Mike never forgets decisive subtlety for his undertones in overall style. Discreet Monna Lisa smiles at the Winks of Fortune. Hints at the Cosmic Joke behind it all. This he calls his “10 percenters” :

I put these little films in the movies, I call them the 10- percenters. I know that only 10-percent of the audience will get it, but they're going to love me for it, because they're going to be part of the 10-percent who will get the joke. I know that less then 10-percent will read the French title of the film poster (Heston sits in front of the French poster for A Touch of Evil during his interview with Moore.) Thee French call [the movie] "A Thirst for Evil." A thirst for evil… and he asked to sit in front of it! We're just going, 'WOW!' Not everyone gets it when the women in the bank (where you can get a free gun if you open an account) says while I'm trying to remember how to spell, 'Caucasian,' and she says, 'I don't think that's the part they're going to be worried about.' That line just speaks volumes! Two white people sitting down, 'Ah. Don't worry about that part, you're a white guy!' (laughs)

http://www.themovieinsider.com/celebrities/cid/116/

Now if the 10-percent were ever to turn into 90-percent, none of my pro-Moore pieces would be necessary, Dumb-ya’s would never get elected ever again, and the world would go rounder.

But it isn’t done….

ATYPICAL DOCUMENTARIAN

This entry is the third part of the section entitled "The Innovator" in my essay "Yes, He Makes Movies", devoted to Mike's contribution to film.


At this point, there’s a need to go deeper into the seemingly shocking contradiction between the words “documentarian” and “Genius”.

First of all – he Makes Movies – but does that make him still a documentarian ?

Is "Fahrenheit 9/11" a Documentary Film, or What is a Documentary Film?
by Eugene Hernandez

Discussions about Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" have raised questions about what exactly a documentary film is. (…) During a panel discussion about telling political stories, at the Nantucket Film Festival just days before the release of "Fahrenheit 9/11," panelists debated some of these very issues. (…)

How do you define the term "documentary film"?

Liz Manne, partner in the NYC-based production and consulting company Duopoly : "Clearly the definition evolves as our culture evolves, and morphs over the course of time -- whether you call it 'documentary,' 'non-fiction,' 'reality,' or simply 'unscripted,' all these terms are partly accurate and partly inaccurate."

Matt Dentler, from the reactionary SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas which is currently promoting “Manufacturing Dissent” (*) : "A documentary was once best described as 'academia on film' but now is best defined as 'journalism on film.' It may be world news, it may be arts & leisure. It may be serious and disturbing, it may be hilarious and irreverent. It may be Walter Cronkite, it may be Hunter S. Thompson. Whatever the case, it's journalism." (…) "It's also borderline propaganda, just like a newspaper's endorsement for a politician during an election. No matter how important I feel the message is, and no matter how much I agree with it, it's hard to look at the film as objective." Dentler added that he liked the film and agreed that it is a documentary. "Historical documentaries or 'talking head' pieces should tell both sides of the story, both sides of the history. And, in a sense, 'Fahrenheit' tries to portray itself as a historical doc, but it's really closer to propaganda. I think a very key point of this is how the film credits Michael Moore as the writer, a credit (that) documentaries rarely feature."

Josh Braun of Submarine, who has repped a number of docs for sale : "While we assume the term documentary film presently conjurs up thoughts of box office success stories such as 'Super Size Me' and 'Spellbound,' these films are really non-fiction narratives that start from a reference point of documentary film but have structural roots in fictional narrative and reality television. Therefore the term as it applies (or doesn't) to the new crop of non-fiction narrative films is outmoded and requires an overhaul."

(*) This is a personal note from fear_and_hate_9_11

http://www.indiewire.com/onthescene/onthescene_040702docs.html


Beyond moderate and objective Liz Manne, and against anti-Moore borderline fascist Matt Dentler, let Josh Braun’s be my conclusion. Say no Moore…

Now, what makes Mike so ATYPICAL a documentarian ?

First off, his global outlook and the universality of his aims necessarily cause bold, broad and clear-cut artistic licenses in the treatment of his MOVIES : and that means CLEVER EDITING, DISTORSION OF CHRONOLOGY AND STAGING THE FACTS FOR THE SAKE OF A HIGHER BUT TOO LENGTHY TRUTH.

For example, in Roger and Me, Reagan's visit and the pizza shop was in 1980, before he was president and Robert Schuller came to Flint in 1987, after the Great Gatsby party. This criticism was later reaffirmed by film critic Pauline Kael in a review in the New Yorker, when she declared the flick "a piece of gonzo demagoguery."

In defense, Moore stated in the interview, "The movie is essentially what has happened to this town during the 1980's. I wasn't filming in 1982...so everything that happened happened. As far as I'm concerned, a period of seven or eight years...is pretty immediate and pretty devastating....I think it's a document about a town that died in the 1980's, and this is what happened....What would you rather have me do? Should I have maybe begun the movie with a Roger Smith or GM announcement of 1979 or 1980 for the first round of layoffs that devastated the town, which then led to starting these projects, after which maybe things pick up a little bit in the mid '80's, and then _boom_ in '86, there's another announcement, and then tell that whole story?....Then it's a three hour movie. It's a _movie_, you know; you can't do everything. I was true to what happened. Everything that happened in the movie happened. It happened in the same order that it happened throughout the '80's. If you want to nit-pick on some of those specific things, fine."

http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/celebrities/michael-moore-faq/part1.html



For example, plenty of well-meaning Good Germans complained that, in F9/11, the story of Lila Lipscomb’s political conversion was fake because, the first time Mike met her, her son had already died in that helicopter crash, but he still constructed the sequence in such a way that you don't know he's dead until later in the film.

Only trouble is that this ANECDOTE doesn’t prevent the STORY from being TRUE… Lila did convert to anti-war after her son died.

And TRUE IN A SUPERIOR WAY… for a MOORE STORY beats an ANTI-MOORE ANECDOTE any time.

The truth is that chronology is distorted because Mike’s movies can reach up to TIMELESSNESS, in the superior significance of the overall substance as well as in the superior accuracy of the overall form :

As for the clip preceding the Denver speech, when Heston proclaims "from my cold dead hands," this appears as Heston is being introduced in narration. It is Heston's most well-recognized NRA image – hoisting the rifle overhead as he makes his proclamation, as he has done at virtually every political appearance on behalf of the NRA (before and since Columbine). I have merely re-broadcast an image supplied to us by a Denver TV station, an image which the NRA has itself crafted for the media, or, as one article put it, "the mantra of dedicated gun owners" which they wear on T-shirts, stamp it on the outside of envelopes, e-mail it on the Internet and sometimes shout it over the phone”.

Are they now embarrassed by this sick, repulsive image and the words that accompany it?

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/wackoattacko/

Moore cleverly structures Fahrenheit 9/11, achieving a sort of lyricism with his “rhyming couplets” effect. The rounding up of suspected resistance fighters in Iraq by US soldiers parallels images of the way US military recruiters target blacks in the poor parts of Flint. The wailing grief of an Iraqi woman whose uncle's house has been bombed is reflected by the heart-wrenching grief of Lila Lipscombe in Flint, whose son was killed in Iraq.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/591/591p13.htm

And still, the last word to all of this Superior Art, Superior Truth and Superior Knowledge remains a frustrating, and secretly excruciating, “What do I know ?”. For, contrary to what one might think from Godard’s really stupid statement that “Moore is more intelligent than his movies”, the tiny reed of a man in Mike does bow, at the end of the day, to the impossibility to possess his own art : his stories, and the makings of of his documentaries, are clearly journeys of discoveries for the man with the mike himself, who makes no bones about not having the answers EVEN THOUGH HE HAS SO MANY OF THEM.

And THIS is Genius.


(above : "Voyage to Lilliput", from Gulliver's Travels)