Naturally, in the middle of this comes Michael Moore, a guy who’s all heart and no head, more or less, with a really big ass besides. I thought it might be fun to peruse some recent reviews of his Capitalism: a Love Story.
The Nation:
…The problem with Capitalism is that its weakest moments are in its dénouement. It's still a great film, don't get me wrong. But I felt really ambivalent at the end, even Moore himself sounds tired, a little withdrawn. The film very effectively communicates that blood is on both Republican and Democratic hands when it comes to our nation's economic collapse.…
Moore seems to want to convince that there's a light at the end of the tunnel but this time I just don't believe him—even though I want to. His argument that the victory of the Republic Windows and Doors workers coupled with Obama's election represent a rebellion against capitalism just don't hold up. And let's face it, his other films' warnings were not heeded….
…Forget greedy borrowers, napping regulators or global economic imbalances. The recession is entirely the fault of Wall Street’s robber-barons ….
As in “Fahrenheit 9/11”, … Mr Moore sees conspiracies everywhere. The $700 billion bail-out after Lehman’s collapse was no genuine attempt to stave off depression, but a financial coup d’état, staged by big banks. Like nefarious screen villains, the bankers “had a simple plan: to remake America to serve them”….
The Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday:
… Moore hasn't become this country's most successful documentary filmmaker because of his formal elegance or philosophical density. Instead, he's perfected technique that puts heart before head every time, combining a scattershot, even sloppy narrative structure with riveting human stories and wry sarcasm….
…As it happens, the most galvanizing words in the movie come not from the current president but from Roosevelt, who in 1944 called for a “second bill of rights,” asserting that “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.” The image of this visibly frail president, who died the next year, appealing to our collective conscience — and mapping out an American future that remains elusive — is moving beyond words. And chilling: “People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” It’s a brilliant moment of cinema both for the man delivering the speech and for Mr. Moore, who smartly realized that he’d found one other voice that needed to be as loud as his own.
The UK Guardian’s Xan Brooks:
Capitalism: A Love Story is by turns crude and sentimental, impassioned and invigorating. It posits a simple moral universe inhabited by good little guys and evil big ones, yet the basic thrust of its argument proves hard to resist.
Crucially, Moore (or at least his researchers) has done a fine job in ferreting out the human stories behind the headlines….
Moore's conclusion? That capitalism is both un-Christian and un-American, an evil that deserves not regulation but elimination. No doubt he had concluded all this anyway, well in advance of making the film, but no matter. There is something energising – even moving – about the sight of him setting out to prove it all over again. Like some shambling Columbo, he amasses the evidence, takes witness statements from the victims and then starts doorstepping the guilty parties.
In a sense, "Capitalism" comes by its wide-ranging, scattershot approach naturally. After all, this is a heck of a big subject….
That said, Moore's scattershot is a lot more interesting than some filmmakers' focus, and many of those individual parts are classic. For one thing, Moore retains the instincts of a shrewd stand-up comedian – the astonished, baffled looks he often wears are a case in point, as is his decision to include under the rubric of "When did Jesus become a capitalist?" the dubbing of a section of a biblical epic with free-market platitudes.
…
The main point Moore wants to make, the thing that drives him craziest, is his notion that capitalism, far from being a system that rewards excellence, is a scheme set up to make a profit on absolutely anything. He fears it has in recent decades turned American society into a culture that says money is the only value, and he has a number of cases he wants to use to make his point….
…
…While another documentary, Leslie Cockburn's "American Casino," does a better job with the questions surrounding massive housing foreclosures, Moore's film, aided by strong statements from Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), raises questions about the nature of the multibillion-dollar government bailout.
At the end of the day, perhaps the most startling thing about "Capitalism" is that Moore stands revealed not as some pointy-headed socialist but as an unreconstructed New Deal Democrat who admires Franklin D. Roosevelt, believes in increased democracy and opportunity, and feels that the decades-long weakening of unions has fatally weakened America. The fact that this will be a controversial stance says as much about today's political culture as it does about Moore's place in it.
13 comments:
What? You don't like Moore? He's a genius!
All heart, no head...so what? Moore's films try to reach masses of people and the best way to do this is by appealing to their emotions, sense of right and wrong, etc. Heady films don't have mass appeal in the US. I haven't seen Moore's latest, so I can't comment on the film itself. But I imagine the sentiment is similar: looking out for the humble, hard working American.
And what does the size of his ass have to do with anything? What's the size of your ass, Roy?
8:07, my reference to Mr. Moore's posterior was meant as a light jibe, but I guess it is possible to read it otherwise. It amazes me that so many progressives think it a small matter that people like Moore (and, to a lesser degree, Mr. Gore) get things wrong. Mr. Moore's target is not "capitalism," but aspects of contemporary capitalism. His conspiracy theories are at best speculative. Nobody is angrier than I am about what's happened, but it is important for critics to try to get things right. Otherwise, politics boils down to who's got the greater propogandist/song and dance man.
So, what does he say that is untrue?
10:23, Moore is difficult to dislike, for he obviously means well, as they say. But, logically speaking, he’s very problematic—perhaps out of ignorance—for he cheats and manipulates and cherry picks evidence to suggest a story that is largely a fiction. He’s an unsophisticated thinker who knows how to wow audiences with “scenes.” He’s on the side of right and good roughly in the sense that you and I are speaking truth when we say that “politics is corrupt.” Well, yes and no, and not quite. It really isn’t that simple.
There’s definitely much that is wrong and there are definitely many villains in this situation we're in. I’m all in favor of getting that all out there. But why ignore the complicity of our consumer culture? People got loans that they could not reasonably expect to pay off. They bought things with money they did not have.
The core of my complaint about Moore is not that he commits factual errors but that his analysis is simplistic.
Check out Steve Pearlstein’s recent piece in the WP (he’s very respected). He says: Moore's "love story" is really an oversimplified political melodrama based on half-truths, innuendo, fuzzy thinking and imagined conspiracies, held together by some genuinely funny gags….. The fundamental fallacy of the film is its assertion that Moore's home town of Flint, Mich., is somehow a metaphor for the rest of the American economy, a middle-class idyll transformed into an industrial wasteland by corporate executives so intent on breaking unions that they deliberately destroyed their own companies. In the World According to Moore, Silicon Valley and Seattle and the middle-class oasis of Orange County, Calif., simply don't exist. He even manages to spin a populist fantasy that last year's financial meltdown was, in fact, a faux-crisis manufactured by Wall Street to railroad Congress into passing a $700 billion bailout and to engineer a financial "coup d'etat." The curious thing about this movie, however, is that while many of its small points are exaggerated or misinformed, Moore's largest point is essentially correct: that the economic system no longer works for the majority of Americans.
This is a typical assessment by someone who knows something about how the economy works.
I recall going to see “Farenheit 911” years ago. It was very entertaining, but, in it, Moore suggested conspiracy theories involving oil companies and governments. Where’s the evidence? None given. I would be more impressed with so-called “institutional analyses” of the sort that Chomsky gives that allow one to speak of an industry’s “needs” while not hypothesizing goofy secret plots and schemes.
I haven’t seen this latest film, but I have seen most of Moore’s previous efforts (and I’ve read at least one of his books), and it is plain that Moore is happy to entertain silly theories and oversimplify complex situations. It is possible, of course, that his film will do some good, for it will cause people to think about the world-o-shit we’re in. They should be angry, every bit as angry as Moore is. But they should also try to get things right. If Moore had his way, they would never look to themselves, to “us.”
They should. Gotta run. -R
Moore's "fat ass" is definitely a part of his goofy charm. I, too, find him difficult to dislike, no matter how silly his theories can get.
I still don't see what's "silly" about his perspectives. Pearlstein's review is itself simplistic and apepars to have an agenda, although he does finally seem to get Moore's thesis.
Fahrenheit did far less of suggesting conspiracy theories than simply laying out the politics that led to 9/11--maybe you should take another look at it. To my knowledge, everything Moore laid out there was factually correct.
3:01, have you read the post? Have you read the comments? Are you incorrigible? To understand some of the silliness, you might start here: Conspiracy theories
Well, you see, there is a difference between a conspiracy theory as a small cabal of cigar smokers in a small back room, making up a plan to use the grassy knoll, and a serious concern that there is a mindset that drives the financial markets.
I'm suspicious of the Economist review, which is the only place in the post that the term "conspiracy" is found and one should consider the source.
It still seems that Moore hits the proverbial nail on the head, and should not be so easily dismissed by a callous use of sound bites.
10:43, nobody (or almost nobody) is "dismissing" Moore. Rather, they are noting his limitations, assessing them variously. Plainly, he is a skilled intuitive filmmaker/humorist and a crude thinker. For instance, in the film, he presents some very funny gags (I've seen these in clips); he also asserts that the banks intended "to remake America to serve them." That is a conspiracy theory. And, as it turns out, it's simplistic. (Almost) nobody's denying that there are some real villains in this story, that the financial structure of our society is unfortunate (and evidently disastrous), and that the people and organizations that Moore targets deserve condemnation. The point that I (and many others) are making is that we need to be careful to see Moore's film for what it is: good entertainment, good rabble rousing, etc. But it is not good scholarship. That would be OK if people (i.e., the rabble) were to view the (few) good documentaries that are available. But they won't. And, BTW, if I present an excerpt of a review, it is foolish to suppose that I am endorsing it. C'mon. -R
"he also asserts that the banks intended "to remake America to serve them." That is a conspiracy theory. "
Actually, it's an out of context quote from a hostile review and without more is far from a conspiracy theory.
Also, it seems fair to posit that the philosophy of the major players in the financial markets, like Goldman Sachs, fits that description.
Ah, I remember. You're the incorrigible one.
Was that a real response?
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