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 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!