Don’t Be Fooled, Michael Moore Doesn’t Make Documentaries
2009
Michael Moore burst onto the screen 20 years ago with his groundbreaking film Roger & Me. In it he discussed the negative impact that the auto industry, specifically General Motors, had on the town of Flint, Michigan which is, incidentally, where Moore lives. Roger & Me exposed the economical implications of a town completely dependent upon one business for its way of life and brought it to us on a personal level when Moore showed us some of the 30,000 people who had lost their jobs. It was also the first time that we had seen the smart talking way in which he presents his argument or the kamikaze interview style we’ve become so familiar with. Roger & Me was revolutionary but soon Moore and his politics disappeared from the scene until Bowling for Columbine.
With Bowling for Columbine Moore did somethign special, by tapping into an event that was horrifying, such as children killing children, and gave it a story beyond that we could see in the news. First he showed us what really happened in the school at Columbine, then he tied it to a specific cause, highlighting the overarching problem in American culture. Moore’s film took what was left in the void and filled it with a story we could all latch on to. The problem is, it’s just his opinion.
You see, while Michael Moore is a brilliant filmmaker, he is not a documentary film makers per se. It’s true that he uses footage from real events and discusses real politics, what he’s really making is an opinion editorial. Unfortunately, a lot of people consider who Moore is and what he stands for to be the honest truth, which may or may not be the case. Because of his politics he is often vilified in the media, Moore’s films and actions have actually brought a kind of legitimacy to documentary filmmaking that wasn’t there before. He has paved the way for all kinds of documentaries to take root and has whetted the appetite of the moviegoing public for films like these.
Always a contentious figure, stories circulate on the interwebs about that his net worth is, that he has owned a number of stocks (contrary to his statements otherwise) – some of them in Haliburton- and contradictions about what he has earned for his movies. What Moore doesn’t realize is that when he says or does things that turn out to be false (like “surprising” Charlton Heston with an interview) he actually hurts all documentary filmmakers, because he’s the one who’s out in front of the cameras. Few other documentarians have come as far and have achieved as much publicly as Moore has, nor for as long. Quite frankly, I think that Moore owes it to them to be the figurehead that documentary filmmakers deserve. It will be a long time before docs have the same following, audience and appetite as main stream movies do. While I’m certain that Mr. Moore would disagree with my assertion that he’s the leader for anyone, I think it’s time to stop painting himself as the underdog, agree that he’s now a force to be reckoned with and start acting like it.
Certainly, I’ll be out there seeing Capitalism: A Love Story as soon as I can, but I’ll also recognize what I’m doing: seeing the opinions of the man who put the face on documentary films.
Any op-ed movie to me counts as a a documentary, they’re documenting their editorial opinion. If C:ALS isn’t a documentary, then neither is RIP: A Remix Manifesto and a number of other films.
Actually Goon, I completely agree that RiP: A Remix Manifesto isn’t a straight up documentary. Neither is Fuel, Age of Stupid, Crude, or any number of other docs that have come out recently. Mostly what I’m getting at is that I think it’s high time that we separated the straight up, little to no thesis documentaries from the op-ed docs. I’m not intending to diminish the accomplishments of op-ed filmmakers, in fact just the opposite. I think that by separating the two in the mind of the public less opinionated documentaries will have a broader audience, since they’ll stand out more from the crowd.
A documentary without a thesis? That pretty much leaves security cam tapes, no?
Nope. In fact there’s lots of documentaries that don’t have a specific thesis. Some of them just observe, have little narrative and do not interact with their subjects. Some just show events with no opinion imposed. Not all of them are this hyper op-ed platform that they have become; although that does seem to be what most audience’s are asking for these days.
But I would totally watch a documentary made from security cam tapes.