Sunday, October 17, 2004
The first Michael Moore movie controversy: Roger & Me
Long before Bowling for Columbine threw up its hands in the direction of violent crime in the U.S. and Fahrenheit 9/11 threatened to sway a presidential election, there was Roger & Me, Moore's scathing attack on General Motors for pulling out of Flint, Michigan (to which he's returned in each of his documentaries since).
All of you people who think Fahrenheit 9/11 is full of "deceits" (bah to you), have a look at this Roger Ebert essay from 1990, written about a similar controversy with that film. Before you point and say "You see? See?!! He's always been doing it!", have a look at what Ebert had to say about it back then. The names, places and details are different, but the points apply to the film even today -- that the movies are more about putting forth an opinion in an entertaining, poetic manner than being a rote recitation of facts. His films are not straight facts but an interpretation of them. That means they're opinion, but so what? Non-conservatives are still allowed to have opinions, aren't they?
Even if they were, they certainly wouldn't be as bad as those outright false attacks on Kerry's war record, you don't get much more evil than that folks.
Long before Bowling for Columbine threw up its hands in the direction of violent crime in the U.S. and Fahrenheit 9/11 threatened to sway a presidential election, there was Roger & Me, Moore's scathing attack on General Motors for pulling out of Flint, Michigan (to which he's returned in each of his documentaries since).
All of you people who think Fahrenheit 9/11 is full of "deceits" (bah to you), have a look at this Roger Ebert essay from 1990, written about a similar controversy with that film. Before you point and say "You see? See?!! He's always been doing it!", have a look at what Ebert had to say about it back then. The names, places and details are different, but the points apply to the film even today -- that the movies are more about putting forth an opinion in an entertaining, poetic manner than being a rote recitation of facts. His films are not straight facts but an interpretation of them. That means they're opinion, but so what? Non-conservatives are still allowed to have opinions, aren't they?
Even if they were, they certainly wouldn't be as bad as those outright false attacks on Kerry's war record, you don't get much more evil than that folks.
