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.