The Sicko director takes his own pulse
By PETER KEOUGH | June 27, 2007
About 500 excited fans are waiting for him beyond the curtain at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, New Hampshire, for a discussion of his Sicko, which is also selling out every screening in New York where it just opened. But Michael Moore seems a little down on himself. Just mentioning the word “controversial” ticks him off.“I don’t accept it,” he declares. “I don’t quite understand what the controversy is about. What have I done? I’ve kind of thought about this a long time. The things I’ve made films about — a dying auto town, school shootings — what’s the controversy?”
Not only does Moore feel persecuted, he also seems to be having doubts about whether anything he does makes a difference. Despite stirring up people with films like Roger & Me (1989), Bowling for Columbine (2002), and Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), the problems those films confronted remain the same. Isn’t he starting to feel as if he were banging his head against a wall?
“Yes. And I often think, and maybe this is just my Catholic upbringing, but I often feel like a failure. I spend all this time trying to get people to pay attention and maybe do something. I take it out a lot on myself and say, ‘Maybe you’re not doing it the right way. Maybe you’re not reaching enough people and maybe you need to think about doing it differently.’ I started with Roger & Me because I was hoping to do something to save my home town. That didn’t happen. It’s in worse shape than ever. School shootings continue. We’re in the fifth year of this war. You could make a case that Michael Moore is fairly ineffectual in terms of using his art to affect change. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. Maybe I’m taking the short view of this. Maybe in the long run it will have a cumulative effect.”
Maybe he’ll have better luck with Sicko, since just about everyone agrees with the film’s premise that health care needs a total overhaul. On the other hand, though Moore is on stage here in New Hampshire, where it’s almost impossible to drive a block without running over a presidential candidate, none of them has shown up for his event, and the only campaign workers in evidence are a couple of eager beavers for Dennis Kucinich. Will Sicko affect the 2008 election? Or, as Moore laments about his other films, will it not make much of an impact after all? And could it be that none of the current presidential candidates would make a difference anyway?
“I’ve not endorsed a candidate and have no intention to do so any time in the near future,” says Moore. “I want to see what they have to say and what their plans are. There’s one candidate that I wish would get into the race because I think he’d be good for the discussion.
Don’t say Ralph Nader . . .
Related:
You don’t know Dick, Left, right, wrong, Courting dissent, More 
- You don’t know Dick
You’ve got to figure that a guy who makes a film about a performance artist who nails his penis to a board isn’t going to worry about getting a PG rating. Peter Keough interviews Kirby Dick (mp3) Rating the raters: Kirby Dick goes after the MPAA. By Peter Keough
- Left, right, wrong
Regarding “Dirty Politics”: surely Peter Keough can appreciate a good piece of balanced cinematic tomfoolery.
- Courting dissent
One of the great principles of American jurisprudence, though not necessarily of film criticism, is a defendant’s right to confront his accuser in a court of law.
- Review: Capitalism: A Love Story
In his new film about the Wall Street meltdown, Michael Moore — surprise! — denounces capitalism and its exploitation of the working class. Not that he's above doing a little exploiting himself.
- Moore of the same
I suspect that Moore had altruistic motives in presenting the case studies of victims of HMOs, hospitals, and drug companies in his movie.
- Flashbacks: November 3, 2006
These selections, culled from our back files, were compiled by Dan Peleschuk, Ian Sands, and Eva Wolchover.
- Michael and me
Arriving in Austin for the South by Southwest Film Festival, Mr. Film Culture was one swell-chested dude.
- Review: In the Loop
Six years ago, Armando Iannucci's slick and merciless political satire might have drawn more blood, but even now it blows away the recent satiric competition with its sharp, sardonic screenplay and uncompromising cynicism.
- Cinema of Shadows
It’s not likely, but Judd Apatow’s pitch for Knocked Up might have sounded something like this.
- Springboard
In “ Kicking and Screaming ,” Adam Reilly did not mention the most critical piece of the party-unity puzzle: the fact that our late-September primary is almost last on the national calendar.
- Death watch
Perhaps because of the film’s provocative subject, few even among those who have seen it have commented on Death of a President ’s more allusive and ironic touches. Beating around the Bush: Death of a President misfires. By Peter Keough
- Less
Topics:
Features
, Elections and Voting, Politics, U.S. Politics, More
, Elections and Voting, Politics, U.S. Politics, U.S. Presidential Election, Entertainment, Movies, Al Gore, U.S. Republican Party, Bill Clinton, Shootings, Less
