With the release of the new Michael Moore documentary film “Sicko” (his new film looking at the American Health Care System and the failings thereof) quickly approaching, the pro and negative rhetoric regarding Michael Moore and his films are heating up already. Some sites hailing him as the single greatest documentary filmmaker of all time… and some literally comparing him to Adolf Hitler (I’ll come back to Hitler in a minute).
I’ve always appreciated Moore’s skills as a documentarian. His ability to not only talk about tough subjects, but also his knack for finding ways to make discussion about those topic entertaining and engaging to watch. He gets you invested in the story and in what’s going on. Now… having said that… his opinions and conclusions in those films are entirely up for debate.
What I have found is that most people who bash on Moore usually do one of three thing:
1) They call him a liar
The interesting thing about this approach is that I have yet to find one single instance of this being true. Usually what happens is people strongly disagree with something he says, and thus label his opinion a “lie”. Sometimes, facts that Moore states are indeed open to more than one interpretation, and thus, even though it’s not the most upfront thing to do on Moore’s part, people use the term “Lie”, which I don’t think is accurate here. Also, sometimes Moore uses creative license to drive a point he is making (the most notorious of these situations is when in “Bolwling for Columbine” he edited together various pieces of footage of Charlton Heston speeches which on the surface looked like they were made at the same time and in a certain place. Is that the most up front and “honest” thing to do? No, it’s not… but nor do i think use of the term “lies” is appropriate here either. To say Moore “lied” in a movie is to suggest that he flat out said a fact that was out right not true… free from interpretation. When put to that test, I’ve yet to find anyone to accurately point out a “lie” in any of Moore’s films. That doesn’t mean everything Moore does is “right” and that I don’t have issue with certain things he does…. but it’s inaccurate to refer to it as “lies”
2) They call him fat
This is when the school children in us all come out to play. A wise man once said “If someone can’t attack the message, they’ll attack the messenger”. We see this all the time. Small minded morons who just don’t like what Moore says or strongly disagree with him… so since they lack the basic intelligence to formulate actual debatable facts and ideas… they just resort to “Oh yeah… well Michael Moore is a fat scruffy slob”. This is sad. Michael Moore IS INEED a fat scruffy slob. That’s 100% true. However (as I once pointed out to a guy I was debating), Moore being a fat slob doesn’t change the fact there were no WMD’s in Iraq now does it? There are lots of sound arguments to make in an anti-moore rant… but referring to the man’s hygiene just makes people look ignorant.
3) They Say His Films Aren’t Objective
This is the main one I’d like to focus on, and the one that I personally believe to the most outrageously dumb. Some people suggest that documentary films are supposed to be objective. What they usually mean by that is they want equal representation of their point of view in a film that is about the opposite point of view from their own. I never hear Right Wingers cry about objectivity when it comes to Fox news… or Left wingers cry about objectivity when it comes to Al Franken. It’s only when it’s about something we DON’T like that we cry for what we call “objectivity”. These people would have you believe that in any documentary, both sides of a subject should be given equal fair representation.
But the question that is raised for me is…. are documentaries SUPPOSED to be totally objective? Are they SUPPOSED to equally show both sides of the issue? Are they SUPPOSED to totally keep the filmmaker’s point of view out the equation? This is what some people would have you believe. I strongly believe the answer to that question is NO NO NO.
Let’s use an extreme example here to make the point. Let’s say you were going to do a new documentary on Adolf Hitler during his time in power while focussing on the events of and surrounding the second world war. Should you, as the filmmaker, make sure to dedicate 50% of the film to showing the good side of Hitler? Make sure that 50% of the people you talk to and interview say positive things about Hitler, the benefits of the things he did and how his plans were all good ideas? After all… if you’re going to be “objective” you’ve got to show both sides right?
Our how about Osama Bin Laded? If you were to make a documentary on him… should you make sure to spend at least half the film showing people talk about how 9/11 was justified, how Osama is a hero and a great man. After all…. you should be objective and let the audience decide for themselves right?
Obviously the answer to the previous 2 examples are a resounding NO! Documentaries are movies… they’re not the 6 O’clock News. Total objectivity should be the news (aside from Fox I guess). Documentaries, like all films, are a look at the world through the eyes of the filmmaker. A look at what the world is, is becoming, or even what it can be. It presents facts, tells stories and engages the viewer to look at the world through their point of view. The brilliance in great documentaries is not reporting the news… but rather in giving us the opportunity to look at something in the world from a perspective we’ve perhaps never considered, or raise awareness about issues we’ve never contemplated. They let us look at the world through a different set of eyes and see things perhaps the way someone else sees them… regardless of the issue. These, in my opinions, are the best documentaries.
There are many valid and solid reasons to dislike Michael Moore’s films and many items in his filmmaking that can be debated (hell, there is a list of stuff that I don’t like about his films in general). I just can’t help but laugh at those who cry that his films are just propaganda and not objective. What they’re really saying is “We don’t like that something is out there that expresses a different point of view than our own! That lying, fat, un-objective bastard… how dare he!?”
