Posted on 03/04/2007 4:44:31 AM PST by MadIvan
THE hunter has become the hunted. Michael Moore, the celebrated left-wing film-maker, has become the unwilling subject of a new documentary that raises damaging questions about the credibility of his work.
The director and star of successful documentaries such as Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore has repeatedly been accused by his right-wing enemies of distorting or manipulating the material in his films. On his website he dismisses his critics as “wacko attackos”.
Yet the latest assault on Moore’s film-making techniques has come from an unexpected quarter. In Manufacturing Dissent, a documentary to be shown for the first time at a Texas film festival on Saturday, a pair of left-wing Canadian film-makers take Moore to task for what they describe as a disturbing pattern of fact-fudging and misrepresentation.
“When we started this project we hoped to have done a documentary that celebrated Michael Moore. We were admirers and fans,” said Debbie Melnyk, who made the film with her husband, Rick Caine. “Then we found out certain facts about his documentaries that we hadn’t known before. We ended up very disappointed and disillusioned.”
Melnyk and Caine are best known for their previous documentary Citizen Black, about Conrad Black, the Canadian-born former proprietor of The Daily Telegraph. Last week both of them acknowledged an important debt to Moore for popularising the documentary genre.
Yet when Caine and Melnyk began to follow him as part of their own documentary, their efforts to interview him met with the same kind of obstruction, denial and, ultimately, physical ejection that Moore had suffered when he tried to track down Roger Smith, the former chief executive of General Motors, for his first film, Roger & Me.
It was in Flint, Michigan, Moore’s former home town, that Caine and Melnyk made the first discovery that they say rocked their confidence in his approach. Roger & Me was a hugely successful account of what Moore portrayed as a fruitless task to force Smith to answer questions about GM’s policies in closing the car manufacturing plants that had long been Flint’s economic lifeline.
Caine and Melnyk claim that Moore interviewed Smith on camera twice. But the scenes were left on the cutting room floor, apparently for greater dramatic effect.
Manufacturing Dissent includes a long catalogue of alleged exaggerations or distortions in several of Moore’s films. In Bowling for Columbine, a scathing indictment of US gun violence, Moore visited Toronto to show parts of the city that were supposedly so free of crime everyone left their front doors unlocked.
“In the film, Michael makes it look as though 100% of the doors were unlocked, but his local producer told us it was really only 40%,” said Caine.
Caine and Melnyk said they had hoped to interview Moore about his views on how much editing was acceptable before a factual documentary turned into misleading propaganda.
“We had met him at a premiere of the Columbine film in Toronto, and he said, ‘Oh yes, talk to my people and they’ll set something up’,” said Caine. “We then called his people and they said he’s not doing any more interviews in Toronto. We had his e-mail, we sent a letter to his lawyers, we had his phone number in New York. But each time he said no.”
Then Caine and Melnyk began to run into open hostility. Eventually, in a scene that might have come from Roger & Me, they were bundled out of an event at Kent State University, where Moore’s sister, Anne, knocked aside Caine’s camera.
Moore is reportedly editing his next film, Sicko, about the US healthcare system, and a spokesman said he had no comment on Manufacturing Dissent. On his website he dismissed critics of Bowling for Columbine as “lying liars” and claimed that “organised groups [are] going full blast trying to discredit me”.
Yet Caine and Melnyk insist they should not be confused with the right-wing hordes who want to damage Moore.
“If you have to sell out your values and principles to get at a greater truth, where does that leave you?” said Melnyk.
“If we think it’s wrong for the government to lie and manipulate, how do we think that [left-wingers] doing it is the solution?”
Well, he is a handsome man...that may have soemthing to do with it. :-)
Note I didn't say he was articulate...wouldn't want to get in trouble.
Not that you couldn't be a genius... :-)...but I thinkit has more to do with what Churchill said about how if you're not a conservative when you're 40 you have no brain.
Sorry, that's considered a gay slur these days.
Not right wing? Why the fR account?
Regards, Ivan
Though I certainly didn't expect better, it was still tough to watch Al Gore, who appears to weigh about a quarter of a ton, getting an Oscar over a documentary about children who survive by scrounging in the garbage dumps in Guatemala City.
Racial pandering?
Yeah, I think you're right.
I haven't seen the comments or a transcript, so I'm not going to specualte on a reason without context. I'd say it's far more likely that Deutch took her out of context or she was talking about non-ideological aspects of Ford than it is that she thought a pro-abort liberal deserves her vote.
Lets be honest...Harold Ford was a loser to start with...so it wasn't that big of a race.
As for the Gore election results...he did lose...but its a 4 percent margin, which isn't alot. Had Gore picked a more identifiable VP...he might have made up some points...who knows. But then...aren't we lucky that we stuck to the electoral college? A single-person vote election...would have brought totally different results (half-million more voters nationally for Gore than GW).
When its all said and done...the 2000 race was the luckiest Republican moment in 100 years...no one can deny that part.
I watched the entire segment with Ann, TWICE. Nothing out of context.
Well, the problem is that when people who actually wonder if Michael Moore's for real (or don't wonder at all, but just buy into his crap) use the phrase "right wing," they are talking about conservatives. Some of them are talking about everybody to the right of Kucinich.
Do you have any specific instances and people, or is this just another Drive By Attack by a Moonbat?
Example: Larry Klayman, who was supported by many of us (including me) and who garnered quite a few donations from people here. When President Bush was elected, Klayman suddenly (and I do mean suddenly) turned and began attacking Bush, Cheney, and even Laura Bush. Apparently he felt that with Republicans in office his best chance for getting donations for his "investigations" was through appealing to the left.
Another example: Arianna Huffington, who was once very conservative, but became a "populist" once the President was elected.
I have seen pundits scoriate the President over Katrina, even though anyone with knowledge knows that the fault lies with the democrats of Louisiana. The only explanation I can offer is that it gave them more time on TV.
Everyone has the option to believe whoever they wish. Myself, I no longer buy political books nor do I pay much attention to these folks, and that includes Coulter. You are free to follow whoever you wish.
I can't disagree with you on these examples.
Too bad there so many political prostitutes.
Moore treats the audience as if they had a zero IQ. I have only ever seen one of his films and that was on cable TV. I would certainly never pay to see one.
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