HE MAKES MOVIES - Concluding the set of essays about Mike as a filmmaker

CONCLUSION : HE MAKES MOVIES (The Documentary Ends Where The Quest Begins)




(above : Filip in action in Kieslowski's "Amator")

In “Amator”, a movie written and shot under Jaruzelski’s dictatorship, Polish director Kieslowski portrays a man who naively and almost inadvertently buys an 8mm movie camera when his first child is born for family fun purposes. But, because it's the first camera in town, he's named official photographer by the local Party boss. His horizons widen when he is sent to regional film festivals with his first works, but they also lead to domestic strife and philosophical dilemmas when his focus on movie making becomes a passion and he perceives that the eye of his camera witnesses Things That Shouldn’t Be Seen and silently, inevitably accuses Those Who Shouldn’t Be Accused.

More than Chaplin, more than Capra, more than Lenny Bruce, more than Zola, more than Nick Broomfield, more than Saul Alinsky, more than Socrates, more than Andersen, more, even, than the modern embodiment of Nemesis, the Impartial Goddess of Righteous Vengeance – Michael Moore is this man.

After all is said and done, Michael Moore is just Filip, a little guy who just felt like filming his people and his town as the “dawn” of the American Empire was rising and shadows got longer and things grew bleaker – always bleaker. A little guy who was vaguely looking for some fun to have, vaguely searching for something to do – and got awoken by accident.

It could have been me. It could have been you.

But it was him.

Because He Made Movies.