The Documentary Films of Citizen Activist: Michael Moore; A Man on a Mission or How Far a Reinvigorated Populism Can Take Us
2006; Issue: 70 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2562-2528
Autores Tópico(s)Populism, Right-Wing Movements
ResumoMy focus in this essay will be on Michael Moore's four documentaries--Roger and Me (1989), The Big One (1997, Bowling for Columbine (2002) and (2004)--with most of my attention being given to first and third of these, and least to second. These four films are significant and worth studying for a number of reasons: (i) The size of audiences they have succeeded in reaching; (ii) political impact they have had (on which, among other things, see Robert Brent Toplin's useful book on Michael Moore's Fahreneit 9/11: How One Film Divided A Nation [2006]); (iii) and extent to which they helped prepare reception for such recent political documentaries as, for example, Errol Morris's The Fog of War (2004), Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott's The Corporation (2005), Alex Gibney's Enron: The Smartest Guys in Room (2005), Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight (2005), David Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth (2006), and Chris Paine's Who Killed Electric Car? (2006). It may not be redundant to rehearse some of facts. If Roger and Me was more successful at box office than any documentary that preceded it, Moore went on to break same record on two subsequent occasions--first with Bowling for Columbine, then with 9/11. And as far as latter is concerned, we get some sense of excitement that was generated when it first screened in US by Foreword that John Berger wrote in 2004 for The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader (while film was playing in hundreds of theaters across America (1)). He begins with these words: [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] is astounding. Michael Moore's film profoundly moved artists on Cannes Film Festival jury, and they voted unanimously to award it Palme d'Or. Since then it has touched many millions of people. During first six weeks of its showing in United States box office takings amounted to over 100 million dollars, which is, astoundingly, about half of what Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stone made during a comparable period. People have never seen another film like 9/11. (ix) Astounding seems to me exactly right word. It is astounding, first of all, that a documentary (and a political documentary at that) could ever have attained such popularity. And it is even more astounding if we consider when it made its appearance: at a time when (in Berger's words) the daily wall of lies and half-truths, the conspiracy of silence, [and] manufactured atmosphere of fear, seemed impenetrable--at least within realm of mass-media itself (x, xi). It was precisely at that moment that Moore's film achieved its breakthrough, nothing less than effective and independent intervention into immediate world (x, ix). But for all commercial success of his documentaries, and all praise they have received, Moore's stature as an artist is still something that needs to be argued for. And this is true in spite of what Quentin Tarantino (who headed Cannes jury that gave first prize to Moore's film) states on one of featurettes on dvd. Know[ing] all this political crap would be brought up, he whispered following in Moore's ear: just want you to know it was not because of politics that you won this award. You won it because we thought it was best film that we saw. And he [Moore] said, That means more to me than anything ... If I had wanted to make political statements I would run for office. I want to make movies. Though Moore seems here to be accepting rigid distinction between art and politics that Tarantino proposes, my own view is that such a distinction applies to only one of his documentaries so far--to The Big One, which has no particular cinematic ambition and is all political statement (even if of an often entertaining and by no means negligible kind). …
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