DVD Talk review of 'Manufacturing Dissent: Uncovering Michael Moore'
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DVD Talk review of 'Manufacturing Dissent: Uncovering Michael Moore'
I read Preston Jones's DVD review of Manufacturing Dissent: Uncovering Michael Moore at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=29774 and... so what? Another controversial director sums up Moore's work better than any analysis I've seen:
“If we are paying attention about facts, we end up as accountants. If you find out that yes, here or there, a fact has been modified or has been imagined, it will be a triumph of the accountants to tell me so. But we are into illumination for the sake of a deeper truth, for an ecstasy of truth, for something we can experience once in a while in great literature and great cinema. I’m imagining and staging and using my fantasies. Only that will illuminate us. Otherwise, if you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.”
Werner Herzog
“If we are paying attention about facts, we end up as accountants. If you find out that yes, here or there, a fact has been modified or has been imagined, it will be a triumph of the accountants to tell me so. But we are into illumination for the sake of a deeper truth, for an ecstasy of truth, for something we can experience once in a while in great literature and great cinema. I’m imagining and staging and using my fantasies. Only that will illuminate us. Otherwise, if you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.”
Werner Herzog
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The problem in Moore's case is that his works are sold and promoted as documentaries, not as works of art or fanciful vision. The truth, or lack thereof, of his very public stances is the heart of his credibility and if it is reasonably exposed as fabricated in order to invoke a directed response, all you have left is propaganda (much like those Moore attacks so routinely are accused of providing). In that sense, just as some of us have stated that Moore's titles are important to watch, so too should the works that expose his methodology if it is as contrived as reported.
If Moore is so certain of the righteousness of his causes, he should be willing to apply the facts as they exist rather than feed a populist sentiment devoid of reason. As others have pointed out in the past, Moore's use of manipulation and deceit only water down any valid points he may have had. Preston nailed the matter by watching closely and coming to his own decision, something uncommon these days from what I've seen (those that want to hate Moore's targets don't seem too picky about his means as though the ends justifies them completely).
If Moore is so certain of the righteousness of his causes, he should be willing to apply the facts as they exist rather than feed a populist sentiment devoid of reason. As others have pointed out in the past, Moore's use of manipulation and deceit only water down any valid points he may have had. Preston nailed the matter by watching closely and coming to his own decision, something uncommon these days from what I've seen (those that want to hate Moore's targets don't seem too picky about his means as though the ends justifies them completely).
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Actually I liked Preston's review. The "so what" comment was for the filmmakers. A doc with the title "Manufacturing Dissent ..." kind of set me off. In each of Moore's movies the dissent existed before the movie did. "Exploiting Dissent ..." might be a truer title. That said, Moore has always been regarded more as a polemicist rather than a straight documentarian. It's not a lot of work to point out why that's true. It's also why his movies are a lot more entertaining.
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Originally Posted by Houstondon
The problem in Moore's case is that his works are sold and promoted as documentaries, not as works of art or fanciful vision.
No one ever complains about Werner Herzog, Errol Morris or D.A. Pennebaker, but all their films have taken a particular slant to them. Moore just gets singled out becuase he's currently the "flavor of the month" (or one of them, at least) for those of conservative or centrist politics to slam.
Those who attack Moore's facts or point out flaws in his logic/figures are really missing the ultimate "truths" of his movies. They're not meant to be "gospel", they're meant to get people to think/engage about a certain issue.
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Originally Posted by Shannon Nutt
There's a huge jump between documentary and fanciful vision. Moore's movies DO have a bias, but I would suggest that no filmmaker worth his salt (documentary or otherwise) approaches his or her material without a bias.
Originally Posted by Shannon Nutt
No one ever complains about Werner Herzog, Errol Morris or D.A. Pennebaker, but all their films have taken a particular slant to them. Moore just gets singled out becuase he's currently the "flavor of the month" (or one of them, at least) for those of conservative or centrist politics to slam.
Originally Posted by Shannon Nutt
Those who attack Moore's facts or point out flaws in his logic/figures are really missing the ultimate "truths" of his movies. They're not meant to be "gospel", they're meant to get people to think/engage about a certain issue.
#6
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The level of scrutiny that Moore films are being subjected to has reached astronomical levels of silliness. So one might ask why Moore seems to be subjected to this "special treatment" when other provocateurs and especially the media are not? Not to mention that, ironically, those who criticize him, whether it's the media or the general public (who only screams about bias when they don't agree with the opinions expressed), tend to use the same methodology based on half-truths, distorsions and exaggerations they so vehemently condemn when it comes from Moore.
The MSM's Michael Moore Inferiority Complex
In a world full of political provocateurs and public hotheads, why is it that only Michael Moore triggers the media's all-too-absent obsession with factual accuracy? Because he scares them.
Ezra Klein | July 12, 2007
"Facts," Ronald Reagan famously said, "are stupid things." But that may be too harsh. They can just be made to do stupid things. For instance, if I told you that the American economy had grown by a robust 3.2 percent in 2004 and 2005, you'd think it had done pretty well. If I told you that the bottom 90 percent of American workers actually lost income over that same period because so much went to the very rich, you might think differently. Both facts are true. They just need context.
And context is what facts so rarely get. Here at The American Prospect, the economist Dean Baker writes a blog dedicated to providing some of that sorely needed context in the media's reportage of economic and social policy data. It's a big job, because he's one of the few people doing it. Except when a new Michael Moore movie comes out. Then, suddenly, the press becomes obsessed with facts and context and the relevance of omissions.
Take CNN. A few days after the release of Sicko, they set a whole team on fact checking the provocateur's documentary. "We found," they said, "that his numbers were mostly right, but his arguments could use a little more context. As we dug deep to uncover the numbers, we found surprisingly few inaccuracies in the film. In fact, most pundits or health-care experts we spoke to spent more time on errors of omission rather than disputing the actual claims in the film."
So Moore was on solid ground. But that wasn't enough for CNN. This week, Moore was set to appear on Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room. Before he came on, though, Blitzer had CNN's medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, offer a "reality check" on the film:
As Dean Baker pointed out, the "reality check" needed a reality check of its own. But never mind that. It's more important to ask, what accounts for this unrelenting obsession with Moore's accuracy? As a certified health care wonk who loves nothing more than posting comparative spending graphs, I'm all for rapidly increasing the complexity and accuracy with which these issues are debated. But the media rarely indulges such passions. Apparently Michael Moore has a peculiar effect on them.
To wit, Moore is a documentary filmmaker. Fred Thompson is a likely Republican candidate for president. Thompson recently released a radio commentary on the Moore's movie that mixed outright falsehoods with deceptive omissions. There was no media outcry, no Wolf Blitzer follow-up, no CNN truth squad. Nothing. Silence.
Or forget Thompson. Recently, the entire field of announced Republican candidates debated, live on national television. Mitt Romney, one of the frontrunners, took the opportunity to claim that Saddam Hussein never let the inspectors into Iraq, and if he had, we wouldn't have gone to war. This is untrue. The media did not collapse into paroxysms over the inaccuracy. Indeed, they hardly seemed to notice it.
So what accounts for their peculiar obsession with the truth of Moore's films? It's not that these media outlets relentlessly examine the veracity of other public figures, or that Moore is somehow greater in stature than leading presidential candidates. It's a mystery.
Here's a guess, though: Michael Moore elicits a very specific type of status anxiety in mainstream journalists. Moore's product -- passionate, provocative political commentary -- is a close cousin of the media's product -- bloodless, boring political commentary. And Moore is a former journalist, an editor at papers in Flint, Michigan and Mother Jones. What he does is, broadly speaking, in the same realm as what they do. But there are differences between the product he puts out, and what the media offers. A major one is that Moore's releases strike massive emotional chords with the American people, setting off weeks of heated discussion every time he unveils a film. Additionally, he is paid in the tens of million for the production of his documentaries and invited to Cannes when they're released. Nice as the occasional invitation to the White House Correspondents Dinner may be, the two just don't compare.
So there's an acute desire on the part of the press to separate what Moore does from what they do, both in order to explain away his successes and to underscore their own assumed strengths (objectivity, rationality, etc). His failings may be manifold, but that hardly renders him unique. His treatment, however, is unique. The world is full of political provocateurs and public hotheads, but only Moore triggers the media's all-too-absent obsession with factual accuracy. Ann Coulter doesn't, and Al Franken doesn't, and Rush Limbaugh doesn't, and Mitt Romney doesn't. Only Moore. Because he scares them.
Here's a radical thought, though: Maybe if these mainstream media types were as incredulous towards the powerful as they are to Moore, his productions wouldn't pose a threat. After all, there's nothing wrong with fact-checking, and asking hard questions, and raising an oppositional eyebrow towards pabulum and propaganda. The problem isn't that the media so quick to doubt Moore. It's that they're so trusting the rest of the time.
In a world full of political provocateurs and public hotheads, why is it that only Michael Moore triggers the media's all-too-absent obsession with factual accuracy? Because he scares them.
Ezra Klein | July 12, 2007
"Facts," Ronald Reagan famously said, "are stupid things." But that may be too harsh. They can just be made to do stupid things. For instance, if I told you that the American economy had grown by a robust 3.2 percent in 2004 and 2005, you'd think it had done pretty well. If I told you that the bottom 90 percent of American workers actually lost income over that same period because so much went to the very rich, you might think differently. Both facts are true. They just need context.
And context is what facts so rarely get. Here at The American Prospect, the economist Dean Baker writes a blog dedicated to providing some of that sorely needed context in the media's reportage of economic and social policy data. It's a big job, because he's one of the few people doing it. Except when a new Michael Moore movie comes out. Then, suddenly, the press becomes obsessed with facts and context and the relevance of omissions.
Take CNN. A few days after the release of Sicko, they set a whole team on fact checking the provocateur's documentary. "We found," they said, "that his numbers were mostly right, but his arguments could use a little more context. As we dug deep to uncover the numbers, we found surprisingly few inaccuracies in the film. In fact, most pundits or health-care experts we spoke to spent more time on errors of omission rather than disputing the actual claims in the film."
So Moore was on solid ground. But that wasn't enough for CNN. This week, Moore was set to appear on Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room. Before he came on, though, Blitzer had CNN's medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, offer a "reality check" on the film:
As Dean Baker pointed out, the "reality check" needed a reality check of its own. But never mind that. It's more important to ask, what accounts for this unrelenting obsession with Moore's accuracy? As a certified health care wonk who loves nothing more than posting comparative spending graphs, I'm all for rapidly increasing the complexity and accuracy with which these issues are debated. But the media rarely indulges such passions. Apparently Michael Moore has a peculiar effect on them.
To wit, Moore is a documentary filmmaker. Fred Thompson is a likely Republican candidate for president. Thompson recently released a radio commentary on the Moore's movie that mixed outright falsehoods with deceptive omissions. There was no media outcry, no Wolf Blitzer follow-up, no CNN truth squad. Nothing. Silence.
Or forget Thompson. Recently, the entire field of announced Republican candidates debated, live on national television. Mitt Romney, one of the frontrunners, took the opportunity to claim that Saddam Hussein never let the inspectors into Iraq, and if he had, we wouldn't have gone to war. This is untrue. The media did not collapse into paroxysms over the inaccuracy. Indeed, they hardly seemed to notice it.
So what accounts for their peculiar obsession with the truth of Moore's films? It's not that these media outlets relentlessly examine the veracity of other public figures, or that Moore is somehow greater in stature than leading presidential candidates. It's a mystery.
Here's a guess, though: Michael Moore elicits a very specific type of status anxiety in mainstream journalists. Moore's product -- passionate, provocative political commentary -- is a close cousin of the media's product -- bloodless, boring political commentary. And Moore is a former journalist, an editor at papers in Flint, Michigan and Mother Jones. What he does is, broadly speaking, in the same realm as what they do. But there are differences between the product he puts out, and what the media offers. A major one is that Moore's releases strike massive emotional chords with the American people, setting off weeks of heated discussion every time he unveils a film. Additionally, he is paid in the tens of million for the production of his documentaries and invited to Cannes when they're released. Nice as the occasional invitation to the White House Correspondents Dinner may be, the two just don't compare.
So there's an acute desire on the part of the press to separate what Moore does from what they do, both in order to explain away his successes and to underscore their own assumed strengths (objectivity, rationality, etc). His failings may be manifold, but that hardly renders him unique. His treatment, however, is unique. The world is full of political provocateurs and public hotheads, but only Moore triggers the media's all-too-absent obsession with factual accuracy. Ann Coulter doesn't, and Al Franken doesn't, and Rush Limbaugh doesn't, and Mitt Romney doesn't. Only Moore. Because he scares them.
Here's a radical thought, though: Maybe if these mainstream media types were as incredulous towards the powerful as they are to Moore, his productions wouldn't pose a threat. After all, there's nothing wrong with fact-checking, and asking hard questions, and raising an oppositional eyebrow towards pabulum and propaganda. The problem isn't that the media so quick to doubt Moore. It's that they're so trusting the rest of the time.
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Originally Posted by eXcentris
Not to mention that, ironically, those who criticize him, whether it's the media or the general public (who only screams about bias when they don't agree with the opinions expressed), tend to use the same methodology based on half-truths, distortions and exaggerations they so vehemently condemn when it comes from Moore.
Pro-B
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Originally Posted by eXcentris
...those who criticize him, whether it's the media or the general public (who only screams about bias when they don't agree with the opinions expressed), tend to use the same methodology based on half-truths, distorsions and exaggerations they so vehemently condemn when it comes from Moore.
Originally Posted by Ezra Klein article
After all, there's nothing wrong with fact-checking, and asking hard questions, and raising an oppositional eyebrow towards pabulum and propaganda. The problem isn't that the media so quick to doubt Moore. It's that they're so trusting the rest of the time.
#9
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I find it interesting that Herzog gets brought up in this discussion, because he has flat out stated before that he has manufactured scenes for his documentaries in order to get the result he wants. But his documentaries are almost universally praised. I love them too, I just find it funny that Moore gets blasted while Herzog gets the love. It's probably because Herzog's documentaries are usually not about current political subjects.
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Originally Posted by Suprmallet
It's probably because Herzog's documentaries are usually not about current political subjects.
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Originally Posted by duluthdemon
There's never been a documentary made without a sense of bias. Not one.
Supr, I look forward to hearing from you when you get back. Have a safe trip!