Manufacturing Dissent

I liked that this film did not focus too much on the same stuff we've all read about before. About half of the film discusses Michael Moore before he made Bowling for Columbine. Specifically, they examine his work as a magazine editor, and they examine Roger and Me. But even then, the main focus wasn't to illustrate Moore's manipulative techniques. Most people already know about that. Instead, the main focus in the film was to illustrate that Moore, himself, is a phony.

There is a distinct parallel to the plot of Roger and Me, which I thought was too much of an homage to Moore, but perhaps appropriate given the context of this documentary. The film crew is constantly struggling to get an interview with Moore, and Moore consistently gives them the runaround.

So I guess one interesting aspect of the film is that they show how Moore is very willing to put other people in uncomfortable situations or catch them off guard so as to juxtapose their fumbling against his well-prepared rhetoric. However, when Moore is threatened with the same tactic by his opponents, he cowers and fights dirty to avoid it. He knows how chicken sh*t it is.

Probably the biggest point that this film makes, regardless of your political beliefs, is that Mike Moore is largely a cultural icon rather than a strong and rational political voice. And following on from this, the film correctly draws a distinction between the more intelligent left - Chomsky, Hitchens and so on - and the popularist left like Moore, whose desire to bring about genuine political change is seemingly surpassed by an ambition to make money.

But it's far from one-sided. The film shows intelligent restraint at times with its criticism of Moore. For example, we are shown how Moore manipulated the chronology of Roger & Me, but one of the interviewees correctly points out that criticism of the manipulated chronology is largely pointless in real terms as there was no doubt that the closure of GM was devastating to Flint. I liked how it qualified or tried to balance some of the common criticism that we would hear from the die-hard Moore-haters.

Similarly, we get the reports of Moore being a shocking senior member of staff at the newspaper that he was fired from, yet we get another member of staff saying that Moore gave him a few days off work and paid for his airfares to and from Canada for the premier of his film. That balance helps you appreciate the film for rising above ridiculous one-sidedness that so many other documentaries are guilty of, including Moore's.

As for substance, the fact that the documentary makers are lefties that start off seemingly admiring and wanting to interview Moore (though we'll never know whether this was their real motivation from the beginning) works to alleviate concerns about this being a response from the right.

There are some troubling techniques that Moore employs to augment his documentaries, but that alone wasn't a killer punch. The knock-out blow really came from disgraceful facts that more severely undermines major points in Moore's documentaries, such as the fact that he did interview Roger Smith, despite the film's premise, and the fact that handguns are deeply restricted in Canada, despite Moore's implication that their gun laws are commensurate with US. A private Moore trust that owns Honeywell stock will similarly leave some Moore fans a bit red-faced.

But definitely the most important aspect that emerged was the view that he's just a celebrity and cult icon who sells popularist politics that lacks thoughtfulness and thoroughness. Well presented doco from the more intelligent left.

I don't watch documentaries because I believe in a cause, I watch them to get informed. Sometime they may run counter to what I perceived to be the truth, and that's OK. If I learned something, then the film is worthwhile. If I was entertained at the same time, then that's cool.

Here, I learned something and was entertained, and that makes this a documentary worth watching.

I am not surprised that Michael Moore plays fast and loose with the truth. I don't see my father's name on the cast list for State Fair, even though he was in it. His part ended up on the cutting room floor. Well, some of Moore's work ends up there also. He may not lie by editing, but he is not telling the whole truth either.

Do I care? No. He has managed to get the discourse going outside the right wing dominated radio and TV media, and the silent corporate media that we used to rely on for the truth. In that, he is a hero. So what if he has a few character flaws. Don't we all?

Though I'm aware of the various liberties Michael Moore takes with his films, I never really gave it much careful thought. Mainly because I like Michael Moore and I agree with many of the arguments he makes. The film portrays Moore as a manipulative performance filmmaker who is quite egoistical and doesn't allow for much dissent against his own views when ever he organizes an event or make a speech. The film portrays him as a man who doesn't practice what he preaches, particularly when Moore's various security guards and media handlers refuse to allow the filmmakers film Michael Moore events and speeches. It demostrates that by careful editing, Michael Moore can manipulate events to fit his version of what happens and is a master of pulling stunts on camera to prove his point.

The film isn't a shrill diatribe about how Moore's ideas will lead to America's ruin. Instead it's a thoughtful film that asks people to be more media savy by setting Moore as an example. The fact that it's a Canadian production probably removes the filmmaker from the distracting American liberal and republican "issues" concerning Moore. Instead, we focus on the veracity of what Moore presents to us and the ethics of the way he manipulates the documentary genre. How Moore's appeal is not based on what he says but the entertainment value of how he presents his point of view.

After watching this film, I'm more cautious about Michael Moore, to always be mindful about what he presents and not always accept it as is. But even at that, I still like Michael Moore. He's a talented man who seems to have his heart in the right place when he makes his films and I don't think he's as egoistical as the film suggests he is.

Manufacturing Dissent (2007)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This documentary has director Debbie Melnyk following around Michael Moore as he promotes Fahrenheit 9/11 and calls him on various lies he's told throughout his career. I've said this countless times that I find Michael Moore to be a very talent filmmaker and I think he makes very entertaining films but there's no denying that he's a hypocrite and lies just as much as the people he goes after. This documentary tells Moore's story from his high school days all the way up to the release of his controversial film and the funny thing is that when this documentary is released, there's even more lies out in the open. Moore's use of fear is something that he often tries to go for yet he uses this against people claiming they use fear to push their points. In 2004 Moore was saying the draft was coming yet here we are four years later and this appears to have been a use of fear to try and sell your point. Another thing that I'm glad got cleared up was the heated debate over the Charlton Heston sequence in Bowling for Columbine. I've always felt Moore crossed the line in this segment and we get to see that the original speech from Heston was not made days after a little kid was killed but four months before it. There's a lot of debate on whether Moore really believes in freedom of speech but I'll let the clips in the movie speak for themselves. I'm not sure if this movie was made to make one hate Michael Moore but it really didn't change my mind of the mind. I still think he's a great talent but as far as calling him a documentary filmmaker is a joke. There are three legendary documentary makers interviewed here and their comments are priceless.