THE HEIR OF SOCIAL COMEDIES

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



Mike has realized and known since long that Something is rotten in the state of Hollywood, Denmark :'

'Most films in America are dumb and stupid and make a lot of money,'' he says. ''Then you have a few art-house films that don't make much money. I think there's a big middle ground. People who live in the Pittsburghs and the Milwaukees and the Flint, Michigans, have a brain and would like to see a film that has all the normal movie conventions but is also about something. Why do these things have to be incompatible? Couldn't you have a Jim Carrey movie that makes social commentary?'' The great divide between comedy and commentary didn't always exist, in Moore's view. ''Look at Charlie Chaplin, our great film comedian,'' he says. ''All his early films were social comedies or political comedies. He was commenting on the times in which he lived. Where are those films today? They don't exist. The closest we get is 'The Player' and a few others."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/dogeatdogfilms/cbcst.html


Yes, Romeo Social and Juliet Comedy divorced a long time ago. And Mike says : “Come together… Right now, over me.”

Capra, Chaplin, Sturges : Michael Moore is the heir of social comedies.


Think back to Roosevelt. He had the Capras, Sturges, Steinbecks and they moved millions, the nation, with their art. That brought popular support to a radical agenda. Don't need to make polemical documentaries.

http://www.thenation.com/edcut/index.mhtml?bid=7&pid=2104


For example, Roger and Me was described as “a comedy about 30,000 people losing their jobs.”

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

Capra, in particular, showed how one single ordinary guy can be crucial to his environment : his family, his city (“It’s a Wonderful life”), his country (“Mr Smith Goes to Washington”).

And Charlie Chaplin “made comedies about the politics of his time. Where are these films today? These are the films I want to make," he said. "It's difficult to pull off -- making people laugh and think at the same time. Hollywood seems to think those two things are incongruous."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/dogeatdogfilms/cbhrep.html

Mike is their heir.