"I MAKE MOVIES"

"I make movies," Moore told me plainly, when I asked him how he answers the critics who say his films are not documentaries. "I don't write non-fiction books," he continued, referring to his successful career as an author. "I don't call it non-fiction, I call it a book."

http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040624moore.html

I have set out to write my thoughts about Michael Moore’s contribution to film.

But all of my efforts will be lost on the reader if I overlook the basic paradox at the core of his work, and if he/she fails to admit that essential truth that, although Mike makes documentaries, he is NOT a documentarian ; and that, although Michael Moore “lies”, he is NOT a liar.

Mike writes books. He doesn’t call them non-fiction, he calls them books.

Well, just the same, Mike MAKES MOVIES. He doesn’t call them documentaries, HE CALLS THEM MOVIES.

In other words, Mikes endorses a superior, global vision of what The Truth is : his base is non-fiction, but his home is vaster and includes personal themes, artistic references and lineage, and an original know how when it comes to the lost and ancient art of storytelling.

In Godard’s words, “A great artist who starts from fiction is bound to meet non-fiction in the end. A great artist who starts from non-fiction is bound to meet fiction in the end.”

And the fact that this very filmmaker, initially enthusiastic over Roger and Me when it looked weak and doomed, failed to acknowledge Mike’s genius and finally rejected F9/11 in 2004 at Cannes without having seen it, only goes to show how much The Truth of Lies is difficult to really figure out and to really accept, even to those who can see it.