Most of the time, and par for the course, the Frail Moving Bastard doesn’t want to lose. So he just leaves the ring, and so the Big Bad Angel leaves the ring as well… to follow him, and to make sure that there is NO REST FOR THE WICKED.
Hence the Chase – the half-Christian, half-Marxist version of the Pursuit of Happiness. Especially half-Christian, but also half-Marxist.
I don't see it so much as confrontation. I see it more as a continuation of my Jesuit training. The pope has never liked the Jesuits much because they ask too many questions.http://www.detnews.com/2002/entertainment/0210/21/d01-616260.htm
Moore is clever enough to know when someone is making a fool of himself, and he gives them enough rope—time on camera—to hang themselves. If that doesn’t work he is not above getting his preferred results by creative editing that outrages his critics.http://bostonreview.net/BR28.3/stone.html
As Roger Ebert notices in his F9/11 review, “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.”
It’s vintage Moore because it’s the Mike at his Socratic best. William Karel once pointed out that Moorean questions were questions that a 4 year old could ask. This is very true and the key to the filmmaker’s brand of radicalism : a 4 year old asks naïve but essential questions, like “Why is it dark at night ?”. And very, very few people can actually answer that. And even less can answer that in a way a 4 year old will find satisfactory. For 4 year olds still have the metaphysical and moral urges that fake adults/real spiteful children have “reasonably” given up on. Mike knows that enlisting in the service is really up to the youth, not to the Congressmen. There’s a law about that. But the interesting thing is that the Congressmen DON’T know that law – at least not enough to answer the urge in a clean, straightforward way. No They RUN instead.
Run, bastards, run. The childlike documentarian will chase you for your childish irresponsibility.
Look, bastards, look. Hey, hey, hey, look what you doing to me. Hey, hey, hey, look what you dun.
PLAYBOY: Sometimes your confrontations with companies seem tasteless. The Voice Box Choir stands out.http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/michaelmoore2/04.html
MOORE: Well, I'm proud of it. Voice Box Choir was a group of half a dozen or so antitobacco campaigners, all of whom had had their voice boxes removed to stop the spread of cancer. They had been heavy smokers who could speak only by holding a small amplifier to their throat. We had the choir sing Christmas carols at the New York headquarters of Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds. We also went to the chairmen's houses. It gets a huge laugh, but it's the kind of laugh you can't believe you're laughing.
(above : a scene from "Voice Box Choir", The Awful Truth, I, 3)Mike also writes to his victims. He never shuts the dialogue. HE NEVER SHUTS UP.
He writes “Shame on you” messages to the bastards. He writes “Look what you dun” messages to the bastards. On and on, on and on.
October 30, 2002
To: Charlton Heston, President, NRA
From: Michael Moore, Winner, NRA Marksman Award
Subject: Your Visit to Tucson Today in the Wake of Another School
Shooting
Dear Mr. Heston:
When you showed up in Denver to hold your pro-gun rally just days after the massacre at nearby Columbine High School, the nation was shocked at your incredible insensitivity to those who had just lost loved ones.
When you came to Flint to hold another rally in the months after a 6-year old boy shot a 6-year old girl at a nearby elementary school, the community was stunned by your desire to rub its face in its grief.
But your announcement that you are on your way to Tucson today, just 48 hours after a student at the University of Arizona shot and killed three professors and then himself, to hold ANOTHER big pro-gun celebration -- this time to get out the vote for the NRA-backed Republican running for Congress -- well, sir, I have to ask you: Have you no shame?
I am asking that you not go to Tucson today. (…)
Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com mike@michaelmoore.com
His letters to Bush are famous and countless. Lesser known is the fact that they all convey the same underlying Fantasy of the Meeting.
A Supreme Meeting Where The Bastard Will See What He Dun :
http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/feature.jsp?id=133235Do you expect Fahrenheit 9/11 to be screened at the White House?
I would LOVE to have a White House screening of this film. I would attend it. I would behave myself. After all, it's a little known fact that, the first time we met, George W Bush's cousin was working as my cameraman on Roger And Me. His father, George The First, who was in the White House, did have a screening, down at Camp David. Young George and various others were there, but I was not invited to that one. I hope they'd consider doing it again.
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