interesting article on michael moore

[meggo]

can't wait to see this film! i met a guy from south carolina last week and we were getting into a bit of a discussion, luckily short-lived, about george dubya... south carolina buddy had not even HEARD of this movie. weird eh. apparently they're doing a decent job of hiding it over there.

i found the religious side of moore to be especially interesting..

from today's globe & mail:

Moore turns up the heat

'There are some things I don't think you get about me,' filmmaker Michael Moore tells LIAM LACEY, before happily agreeing with that 'manipulative' comment

By LIAM LACEY

Monday, June 21, 2004 - Page R1

Michael Moore has been described as media savvy, as if his greatest skill is publicity rather than filmmaking. He has the ability to quote The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News and CNN, Gallup polls, apparently at will, like a man conducting a perpetual filibuster against the roar of the powerful. But you don't imagine he reads everything, so it's a bit of a surprise when he opens an interview by saying:

"I've read everything you've written about my films and let me have it -- because there are some things I don't think you get about me and I wish you would."

Maybe it was that "shamelessly selective and manipulative" comment about Fahrenheit 9/11 that I wrote from Cannes (I also said Moore was "courageous" and a gifted synthesizer of information). You'd think Moore would have more on his mind.

Moore's new film, which condemns the Bush administration and Iraq war, opens on Friday, and he is in the midst of one of the shortest and most contentious marketing campaigns in Hollywood history, launched days after Fahrenheit 9/11 won the Palme d'Or.

Perhaps it's because Canadian reaction to his work is genuinely important to him. Roger and Me, his first film, broke out of the Toronto International Film Festival. His fiction feature was called Canadian Bacon and his biggest film, the Oscar-winning Bowling For Columbine, was produced here by Salter Street Productions. He has repeatedly compared Canada favourably to the United States.

The substance of Fahrenheit 9/11, which the movie tagline calls "the temperature at which freedom burns," is well supported by the public record: Bush's family and associates profited hugely from their Saudi connections, including with the bin Laden family; Bush's cronies, from the Project for the New American Century group, had a vision of controlling Iraq and Mideast oil long before Sept. 11. Many people would agree with Moore that the Bush administration has used fear-mongering and dishonesty to justify an invasion that has cost thousands of civilian lives.

Moore may be right, but his rhetorical approach can feel overheated -- there's more Steven Spielberg than Stanley Kubrick in his method. I mention a shot of Iraqi children playing in a playground, juxtaposed with Bush announcing the invasion and then a scene of buildings exploding. Was he implying Iraq was some playground before the Americans struck?

His response is that we all know Iraq was a brutal regime, but we never saw any other side of life there, of ordinary people living their lives. According to The New York Times last week, the first 50 bombs to hit Baghdad missed their targets and probably killed civilians.

As for manipulation, yes, he's guilty of "trying to manipulate the viewer into feeling something. And I mean that in a good way: sadness, joy, anger and laughter. Because I've chosen non-fiction, it's a harder way to do it because I have to base everything on the facts. If I say the Bush family and associates received $1.4-billion [u.S.] from the Saudis, I'd better be right."

A little-known fact about Moore is that he's a devout Catholic.

Paul Donovan, one of the founders of Salter Street, told me that Moore sometimes attends mass every day, and sees himself as doing God's work through his films, though he plays down his religion.

"I come from the opposite end of Catholicism to Mel Gibson," Moore says. Now 60, he grew up Irish Catholic and thought he would be a priest.

He convinced his parents to allow him to attend a seminary high school run by Jesuits and nuns. His influences, he says, are the Jesuits, the liberation theology movement and figures such as the Berrigan brothers and Cesar Chavez.

"I believe in compassion and we will be judged by how we treat the least among us," he says. "The spiritual and the moral thing that I was raised with informs a lot of what I do. I'm constantly questioning myself. I don't necessarily think I'm doing the right thing, which is why I mention the Jesuits. Self-questioning and a healthy questioning of authority are part of that tradition."

Perhaps that's why, despite the views of some of his detractors on the left, Moore bridles at criticism that he's an entertainer and a cynic, a kind of self-righteous David Letterman. After all, he's the man who coined the term "Repulicrat," suggesting that whoever is in power, nothing will change. "I'm not a cynic," he says. "Cynicism is poison because it paralyzes you and it makes you want to sit it out, and democracy is not a spectator sport. I believe things can change. I actually believe a movie can make a difference. That's kind of a crazy wild-eyed optimist at work there, because it's just a movie, Mike."

Apparently others are not taking it so lightly. Science-fiction author Ray Bradbury, who wrote Fahrenheit 451, is demanding Moore change the title of his film. Of more pressing concern, Moore is also fighting back against self-described grassroots movement called Move America Forward, which is running an e-mail campaign urging theatre executives not to show the film. The same group -- which turns out to be a front for Republican-affiliated public relations firm Russo, Marsh and Rogers -- managed to get the Reagan miniseries canned on CBS earlier this year.

Moore says three national chains have declined to show his film without offering a reason. Initially, Fahrenheit 9/11 was to open in 1,000 theatres. That has shrunk to 500, and he describes it as a daily battle to convince theatre owners not to be intimidated.

Is he surprised the Republicans would stoop to these kinds of political dirty tricks? "I'm not surprised," Moore says. "I respect their side. They're committed in a way we aren't. They're up at the crack of dawn trying to find a new way to screw people, and the only way our side can see the crack of dawn is if we've stayed up all night."