Sociology > Education > "Manufacturing Dissent": Turning the lens on Michael Moore - Movie posted on alt.binaries.movies
| Topic: |
Sociology > Education |
| User: |
"CB" |
| Date: |
15 Sep 2007 12:11:12 PM |
| Object: |
"Manufacturing Dissent": Turning the lens on Michael Moore - Movie posted on alt.binaries.movies |
"Manufacturing Dissent": Turning the lens on Michael Moore
By John Anderson
Published: February 26, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/23/news/moore.php?page=2
Michael Moore, who carries around controversy the way Paul Bunyan toted an
ax, has won legions of fans for being a ball- cap-wearing fly in the
ointment of Republican politics. For tweaking the documentary form. Even for
making millions of dollars in the traditionally poverty-stricken genre of
nonfiction film.
Many despise him for the same reasons.
The Toronto-based documentary filmmakers Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk
started out in the first camp. But during the course of making an
unauthorized film about Moore, they wound up somewhere in between. In the
process, their experience has added a twist to the long-running story of an
abrasive social critic who has frequently been criticized from the right,
but far less often, as is the case with Melnyk and Caine, from his own end
of the political spectrum.
"What he's done for documentaries is amazing," said Melnyk, 48, a native of
Toronto and a freelance TV producer, who even now expounds on the good she
says Moore has done. "People go to see documentaries now and, as documentary
makers, we're grateful."
But according to Caine, 46, an Ohio-born journalist and cameraman, the
freewheeling persona cultivated by Moore, and the free-thinking rhetoric
expounded by his friends and associates were not quite what they encountered
when they decided to examine his work. "As investigative documentarists we
always thought we could look at anything we wanted," Caine said. "But when
we turned the cameras on one of the leading figures in our own industry, the
people we wanted to talk to were like: 'What are you doing? Why are you
throwing stones at the parade leader?'"
Melnyk added, "We were very lonely."
Their film "Manufacturing Dissent" will have its premiere on March 10 at the
South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. To say it sheds an
unflattering light on Moore - whose work includes the hit "Fahrenheit 9/11"
and the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine" - would be an understatement.
Moore, who was reportedly in London finishing "Sicko," a planned exposé of
the American health care system, did not respond to voice mail, e-mail
messages or third-party requests for an interview; a spokeswoman for the
Weinstein Company, the distributor of "Sicko," said Moore had no comment on
"Manufacturing Dissent," and referred inquiries to a Web address,
www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/ f911reader/index.php?id=16as.
That link contains a refutation of a number of complaints taken up by
conservatives regarding "Fahrenheit 9/11," but the Melnyk-Caine movie isn't
really about that. "We didn't want to refute anything," Melnyk said. "We
just wanted to take a look at Michael Moore and his films. It was only by
talking to people that we found out this other stuff."
In part the "stuff" amounts to a catalogue of alleged errors - both of
omission and commission - in Moore's films, beginning with his 1989 debut,
"Roger & Me." That film largely revolved around Moore's fruitless attempts
to interview Roger Smith, then the chairman of General Motors, after his
company closed plants in Moore's birthplace, Flint, Michigan: an interview
that occurred, Melnyk and Caine said, although Moore left it on the
cutting-room floor.
"I'm still a big proponent of 'Roger & Me,' especially for its importance in
American documentary making," said John Pierson, the longtime producers'
representative who helped sell the film to Warner Brothers and now teaches
at the University of Texas in Austin. "But it was disheartening to see some
of the material in Debbie and Rick's film. I wouldn't say I was crushed. I'm
too old to be crushed. But my students were."
Calling the Melnyk-Caine film "unbelievably fair," Pierson said it asks what
really matters in nonfiction filmmaking: Should all documentary-making be
considered subjective and ultimately manipulative, or should the viewer be
able to believe what he or she sees? "I found it encouraging," he said,
"that my students were dumbstruck."
In "Manufacturing Dissent" Caine and Melnyk - whose previous films include
"Junket *****," about movie journalists, and "Citizen Black," about Conrad
Black - note that the scene in "Fahrenheit 9/11" in which President George
W. Bush greets "the haves, and the have-mores" took place at the annual Al
Smith Dinner, where politicians traditionally make sport of themselves.
Melnyk and Caine received a video of the speeches from the dinner's sponsor,
the Archdiocese of New York. "Al Gore later answers a question by saying, 'I
invented the Internet,'" Caine said. "It's all about them making jokes at
their own expense."
Still, support for Moore can be found in the film, from the likes of friends
like Ben Hamper, from the actress Janeane Garofalo, and even from Pierson, a
self-proclaimed "flag-waver" for "Roger & Me." Others, including the writer
Christopher Hitchens, and filmmakers Albert Maysles and Errol Morris, take
exception to Moore's methods, which have involved questionable lapses in
chronology and what some would call a convenient neglect of pertinent
material.
There have been attacks on Moore: "Michael Moore Hates America," a rebuttal
of "Bowling for Columbine," was produced in 2004 by Mike Wilson, who says he
was inspired by "righteous indignation," but came to a more temperate
conclusion. "I understood what the guy struggles with," Wilson said.
Melnyk and Caine, who are married, admit to one fabrication of their own:
They printed their own business cards before an appearance by Moore at Kent
State University, identifying themselves with Toronto's City TV and its
owner, CHUM Limited, their chief financial backer and owner of Bravo! in
Canada, where the film will eventually be broadcast. (The network is no
relation to the American Bravo! network.) "We weren't employees, so we
didn't have cards," Melnyk said. Despite their ruse, the Kent State sequence
ends with them being banished from the event by Moore's sister, Anne, who
also knocks away Caine's camera.
The incident represents in microcosm the obstacles Melnyk and Caine said
they faced while trying to make their portrait of Moore. Among other
incidents, they said, they were prevented from plugging into the sound board
at Wayne State University in Detroit during a stop on Moore's "Slacker
Uprising" tour and were kicked out of his film festival in Traverse City,
Michigan, while other press members were admitted.
"I don't think he expected us to follow him around," Melnyk said.
Caine added: "We're bit more persistent than your average film crew that
way."
*** More: ***
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/23/news/moore.php?page=2
CB
There are only two kinds of Dim Libs: poor planners and propagandists who
purchase their ignorant votes
begin 666 dot_h.gif
K1TE&.#EA`P`!`( !`&9F9O___R'Y! $```$`+ `````#``$```("1%(`.P``
`
end
.
|
|
| User: "Amanda Williams" |
|
| Title: Re: "Manufacturing Dissent": Turning the lens on Michael Moore - Movie posted on alt.binaries.movies |
15 Sep 2007 12:43:14 PM |
|
|
"CB" <CB@PrayForMe.com> allegedly said in
news:46ec123a$0$15395$4c368faf@roadrunner.com:
"Manufacturing Dissent": Turning the lens on Michael Moore
By John Anderson
Published: February 26, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/23/news/moore.php?page=2
*YAWN*
--
AW - Head "Democrats for Larry" Campaign
<small but dangerous>
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
alt.education down the pan
Re: alt.atheism
alt.games.play-by-mail.quest,alt.tv.mtv-europe,alt.education,alt.politics.org.nsa.echelon,rec.travel.misc
alt.education,alt.sailing,misc.invest.futures,alt.creative-cooking,alt.mac
Koos' FAQ about the psychosis of alt.religion.scientology - summarizing eight years of experience with it - (Version 3.5 on 31 July 2004) - with some Footnotes by Koos on Small and Fine Particle Physics
Re: alt.atheism
Koos' FAQ about the psychosis of alt.religion.scientology - summarizing eight years of experience with it - (Version 3.6 on 3 Nov 2004). With some Footnotes by Koos on Small and Fine Particle Physics
Koos' FAQ about the psychosis of alt.religion.scientology - summarizing eight years of experience with it - (Version 3.7 on 14 Jan 2005). With some Footnotes by Koos on Small and Fine Particle Physics
| MI5 Persecution: alt.fan.mike-corley 6/6/96 (3134)
alt.education down the pan
Re: Rachel's War: Diary of American peace activist Rachel Corrie alt activism
Rehnquist's dissent, Wallace v Jaffree
Rehnquist's dissent, Jaffree v Wallace
Movie Clips: Reagan, Wife Trashed - CBS attempting to re-write commi history
(",) NEAT MOVIE FLICK ! (it starts up quickly)(awesome introduction)...
|
|
|
