Michael Moore: America's most feared film maker
Oct 09, 2009
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Moore: an 'Ordinary Joe'
Michael Moore is back with his angriest movie yet. Capitalism: A Love Story features the usual stunts, misty-eyed emotion and polemic that have become Moore's trademarks, and it has opened in the US to mixed reviews (see below).
Early signs, though, suggest yet another blockbuster, says the Boston Globe. After all, if anyone can turn "a kernel of truth into a barrel of popcorn", it's Moore.
In his baseball cap, ill-fitting jeans and plaid shirt, the man from Flint, Michigan, is "both fat enough and angry enough to be convincing in the role of a real American", says The Big Money.
Therein lies his secret. A talented film maker and best-selling author/lecturer, he's first and foremost a movie star. "For all his girth, Moore fits the mould of the little guy in classic Hollywood movies," says Time. "He bucks the odds and takes on the power elite."
In Fahrenheit 9/11, it was the war-mongering Bush administration; in Bowling for Columbine, the gun lobby; in Sicko, big pharma. But whatever the target, Moore strikes a chord with the public as the ordinary Joe who got mad. That gives him power.
His publicity blurb claims he's "the most feared film maker in America". He's certainly one of the most provocative. There are now nearly as many movies attacking Moore as there are films directed by him.
Moore's enemies accuse him of distorting facts and "acting", but in the early days the rage was real enough.
Born into a blue-collar family dependent on General Motors for its livelihood, he came to prominence 20 years ago with Roger & Me. The film chronicled Moore's attempts to stalk GM chairman Roger Smith, whom he blamed for the mass layoffs that had crippled Flint. The film successfully made a monster of GM, an idiot of Smith, and a star of Moore.
From the nostalgic home-movie footage sewn into the film, it's clear Moore was an "impish" child, says The Times. He grew into a bolshie student (dropping out of the University of Michigan) and an articulate, argumentative, journalist. In 1986 he moved to California to edit radical liberal magazine Mother Jones, but was fired after four months. Moore sued for wrongful dismissal, eventually settling out of court for $58,000. That was his seed money for Roger & Me.
Now heavily garlanded with Oscars and Palmes D'Or, Moore has produced three of the top six grossing documentaries of all time and become a brand himself.
It is arguably the worst thing that could have happened to him, says the Canadian National Post. He might live simply with his wife and step-daughter, and insist on driving a five-seater mini-van, but critics claim his credibility is shot to pieces. Moore is rich! He's out of touch with the common man! Indeed, many regard him as far more controversial than the topics he investigates – not just "a pinko", but a godless "anti-American" to boot.
"But who really cares?" asks Time. Publicity, good or bad, only boosts his star. In Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore finds himself back outside the gates of GM 20 years on. The company, after declaring bankruptcy, is "far less solvent" than Moore himself. Talk about the little guy triumphing over the system.
What the critics say about his film
Capitalism: A Love Story lacks focus, says James Scurlock on The Big Money. "When it comes to settling on a particular villain, a convenience we've come to expect from Moore, he doesn't deliver." Instead, pretty much everyone who's ever worn a suit is fingered. The Founding Fathers, whom he clearly thinks wiser to keep sacrosanct, are excepted. But, in doing so, he rewrites history. Washington was a speculator; Jefferson a slave-owning serial debtor.
Even so, there's lots to enjoy in "his most vigorous, rollicking and broadly ambitious work yet", says Time. There's the usual grandstanding, such as his attempted citizen's arrest of AIG executives. But "the movie's strongest moments are when he trains his camera on Americans who've lost their homes", says the National Post. "There are scenes that might spark the audience to descend on the banks with pitchforks and torches."
Yet Moore's nihilism is beginning to grate, says the Boston Globe. Yes, banks need reform and the haves have profited at the expense of have-nots. But he makes us seem more helpless than we are. It's "a movie about the inarguable ravages of the free market that omits the possibility of free will".
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