Selling out
By Tom Macy
October 7, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Question: Is it possible to discuss a Michael Moore film with someone of different political affiliations than your own?
Answer: When discussing a film directed by Michael Moore it is important to know one's audience. If you are conversing with a fellow cinephile of whom you are less acquainted, you must admonish any misconceptions that your opinion is based on your allegiance or dissension to Moore's political and social positions. For example, you could preface a statement, favorable or not, with the phrase "love him or hate him.."
If you are familiar with your companion, this is not as much of an issue. However, if your political affiliations are the same, discussion of a Michael Moore film will often quickly lead to a conversation having nothing to do with film.
Question: Michael Moore's films are so politically saturated. How do I talk about the film's elements without addressing the delicate topics directly?
Answer: This can be done in conversation by drawing a line between Moore's message and Moore's craft. If you focus on things like form, composition and the skill, or lack there of, applied to good or bad effect things will remain civil. But you would want to avoid debating over, say, whether showing President George W. Bush getting his makeup applied before a TV appearance was a manipulative cheap shot or a clever metaphor for the façade Bush and his administration created for the American people.
Question: But those sound like two perfectly reasonable arguments that are both relevant observations in the filmmaking.
Answer: While this may sound cordial, one must tread lightly. True enough, both opinions are valid and are related to the craft of the film. However, even the slightest voice inflection could cause one to interpret said opinion as a comment on Mr. Bush himself - a comment that your partner in pontification my not agree with. If not careful, this could be the first step down a slippery slope that ends in a vicious battle royale.
Question: Couldn't I just rebuke my statement if it was misinterpreted?
Answer: The trouble is in these situations, once a certain line has been crossed, i.e. an opinion stated or perceived, the opposite party will invariably be compelled to voice theirs. This can be very dangerous. In 2004, when Fahrenheit 9/11 was released, before this list of guidelines on how to approach such interactions was established, an epidemic of spontaneous flare-ups around dinner tables, watercoolers and kegs exploded across the country. While this resulted in financial gain for Moore to the tune of a $23 million opening weekend, making it in those three days the highest grossing documentary in history and beating Moore's own Bowling For Columbine mark of $21 million, it made small talk a tremendous burden for several weeks. With headlines and talk shows saturated with coverage of the film, any conversation longer than three minutes inevitably approached the controversial film. If you were not prepared with an eloquent fence-straddling opinion, i.e. "whether or not I agree with Moore, his insistence to be a such a dominating presence in his own film's undermines any and all of the points his is trying to make," you risked inadvertent yet irrevocable damage to the person with whom you were speaking.
Question: Interesting. What about his appearance? Is it appropriate to bring up the fact that Michael Moore is fat and ugly?
Answer: Unfortunately, no. While the physical appearance of most personalities in the public eye is consistently judged and ridiculed. Comments on Moore's obesity and general unappealing outward semblance are once again open to being misconstrued. One could interpret a remark which included words like "fatass," or other popular variations often (apparently) searched on Google, "Michael Moore fat pig" or "Michael Moore fat slob," as a declaration of one's political position. This is a situation you will want to avoid.
Question: Come on. Does it really make a difference whether or not people think Moore is good looking?
Answer: Dude, think about it. It makes a world of difference. One of the things that's so fascinating and confounding about him is that he's unattractive and yet people want to watch him. It is totally in contradiction with the normal habits of the movie-going public.
Imagine if he were good looking. You think his films are successful now? What if Michael Moore looked like George Clooney? Everything's the same except Moore looks and sounds like Clooney. Bush would not have been re-elected. We'd have socialized health care and guns would be outlawed. Moore is a master manipulator, but Clooney wouldn't have to manipulate. I would watch Clooney do anything. Scramble eggs. Hammer up drywall. Do squat thrusts. I never want to see Michael Moore do squat thrusts. Drywall would be bad too. Actually I don't really like seeing Michael Moore do anything. The sight of him is repulsive. But he's such a damned good provocateur with such a razor sharp wit. It's all so confusing!
Question: What is happening?
Answer: I don't know.
Question: Um, okay. This is all really intense and weird. Maybe it's best to avoid Moore in film conversations altogether.
Answer: No! Michael Moore is a pivotal figure in modern cinema. He single-handedly showed that documentaries could be entertaining. Before him, documentaries were condemned to PBS and middle school classrooms. But films like Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 demonstrated their box office potential to be much more lucrative than previously thought. This led the charge for breakout successes like as the $77 million earner March of the Penguins and gave way to an exponential increase in documentary releases. In the year 2000 three documentaries were released compared to 64 in 2007!
Question: Yeah, but even though the number of documentaries produced and released has increased, the average quality of the documentary has steadily gone down. Mainly because they all adhere to the simplistic one-sided approach that Moore always uses. This newer type of documentary, one could argue, is degrading the genre and reducing it to a cinematic version of reality TV.
Answer: Um, that's not really a question. That was a statement. I'm the one making statements, you just ask questions. If we both make statements then it's just a conversation.
Question: I thought that was the point. To have a civil conversation about Michael Moore.
Answer: No, that's not how this works. You ask a question and I tell you the answer.
Question: Well, who says you know everything?
Answer: My name is answer.
Question: This is ridiculous.
Answer: What was the question, Question?
Question: Ugh. I'm just saying that ever since Michael Moore proved documentaries could be successful they've been getting worse and worse. Any time money is a goal in filmmaking people will start making films for the wrong reasons. Previously you could usually count on a doc to be well made because it was a labor of love. Before the days of digital people had to use actual film. Think about how expensive that must have been. And with hardly any hope for commercial success? People would only make documentaries if they had something really important to say. Nowadays all you need is a political agenda, iMovie and YouTube. You can film a bunch of stuff, throw in a parade of talking heads, and you've got people believing 9/11 was an inside job. That's not a good thing.
Answer: Okay, that wasn't even close to a question, but fine. I'll respond by saying none of that has anything to do with Moore. It isn't his fault that people imitate his style badly.
Question: I don't know. I think Moore's approach is a little questionable, too. His films are wrought with manipulation. You betray the audience's trust when you don't tell them everything.
Answer: Whoa whoa whoa, these aren't newsreels. They're films. All documentaries contain some form of commentary. It's a subject shown to the audience through a filmmaker's eyes. There are no rules. They aren't required to tell the audience anything.
Question: I'm just saying his films could be a little more objective. Maybe then people would take him seriously.
Answer: Are you a Republican?
Question: What?
Answer: Because you don't agree with his views, you're declaring that he's "destroyed the documentary!"
Question: It has nothing to do with what I believe. It has to do with the filmmaking.
Answer: Oh get off it! It's impossible to have an opinion on Michael Moore and not have it be political!
Question: What? What about all the stuff you said earlier about separating the message from the craft?
Answer: I was reading from a script! You think you can honestly have a civil conversation about Michael Moore if you disagree politically? It's like having a conversation about Lost without divulging any of the plot. Ooooo, I love how the title is only one word. Me too. It's so short and easy to remember.
Question: Okay, you're freaking me out. I'm going to leave.
Answer: You can't leave! We're just imaginary characters inside some weirdo's head who is trying to figure out how his article on Michael Moore turned into an argument with his subconscious.
Question: Seriously?
Answer: Yep.
Question: That's really odd.
Answer: And sad.
Question: Whoa. I feel sorry for that guy.
Answer: I don't.
Question: Okay, look, maybe we should give it up. Michael Moore is just too inflammatory talk about with someone who has different opinions than you. It does more harm than good.
Answer: *Sigh*. Agreed. It'll be much more pleasant if everyone stays in their respective camps. All the liberals can go on loving and praising his flag waving bravado while ignoring all the holes in his grossly generalized arguments and conservatives can continue to call him fat and use his face as a dart board at Texas Tech frat parties while never seeing one of his films.
Question: I'm glad we sorted this out.
Answer: Me too.
Question: Cool. So what should we do now?
Answer: Wanna catch a movie? I hear that new Drew Barrymore one is playing - the one with the roller skating. It looks like it really subverts the chick flick genre by focusing on the power of women. Should we check what the times are?
Question: Ehhh, I don't know if I want to see that.
Answer: Oh, right, sorry. You're a bible-touting evangelist who doesn't believe in woman's rights.
Question: That's it, you tree hugging hippy. You are going down!
Answer: BRING THE NOISE, RUMSFELD LOVER!
Question: YOUR ASS IS GRASS, GRANOLA BAR!