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 ?
http://www.indiewire.com/onthescene/onthescene_040702docs.htmlIs "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
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.
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)