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Summary: Turnabout is more than fair play in this documentary
Comment: What is interesting about this documentary is that it is made not by conservatives, but by Canadian liberals who largely share Moore's left-wing perspective. They start out sympathetic to Moore, but, by the end, are finally forced to admit that Moore is a self-aggrandizing liar whose films, while entertaining and well made, are certainly not "documentaries."
The filmmakers are clearly not hostile to Moore or his politics. For example, they point out that Moore was absurdly and unfairly prevented from being admitted to his high school's "hall of fame." And one of their critiques of "Bowling for Columbine" was that Moore, instead of calling for a ban on the handguns which are involved in most gun crimes, launched into a convoluted critique of American culture. Most of the interviewees were left-wing activists who totally share Moore's politics, and worked with him at places like "Mother Jones."
So it is all the more damning when they expose Moore's shoddy propaganda. The film most comprehensively dismantled is the one that made Moore's reputation--1989's "Roger and Me." The whole conceit of the film is that Moore chases GM CEO Roger Smith around with a camera and microphone, but never gets an interview. In reality, Moore got a 10 minute interview with Smith, the transcript of which still exists, although Moore tried to get his left-wing colleague to deny its existence. Moore crafted the movie to make it appear that he was alone in his quest to call GM to account, when in reality, there was a huge union and activist movement calling for the same things Moore was calling or. Moreover, Moore changed around chronology and invented out of whole cloth a story about a stolen news van (and shot a fake local new segment reporting the "story"). He also created a scene to make it appear that he had been cut off from speaking at GM shareholder's meeting when, in fact, that never happened.
Then there is "Bowling for Columbine," in which Moore staged a scene in which he receives a gun in return for opening a bank account, making it appear that you could get the gun right there in the bank, when he knew very well that that was not how it worked. And his ambush of Charlton Heston, who was already suffering from Alzheimers, is aptly decribed by another left-wing activist as "mean," which it certainly was.
Moore is a good and entertaining propagandist, but he is no journalist and he has never made documentary in his life.
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Summary: An intriguing and fair film for Moore detractors and fans alike
Comment: Some other anti-Moore films have fallen short, but Manufacturing Dissent provides a fair and interesting view of Michael Moore's filmmaking tactics.
I first only thought that Fahrenheit 9/11 was Moore's only film with twisted facts and out-of-context imagery, but it seems that's been Moore's process from the very beginning, from Roger & Me on down.
While other reviewers criticize these filmmakers of repeating Moore's own techniques, they did so in attempting to get an interview from Moore that he never granted. Instead, they were frequently dismissed and even removed from an event on one occasion.
Bottom line: Michael Moore does not make documentaries, nor has he ever. He makes movies, if only to entertain an audience that he would be lost without.
Give this documentary a try -- while the editing and flow of the film is a little jaunting, the lies it exposes is worth giving it 5 stars.
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Summary: An Inconvenient Truth About Michael Moore
Comment: Most intelligent people can decide for themselves after seeing a film done by Michael Moore whether it's factual or not, but I think many people instead may want to believe it if they agree with it, or disbelieve it if they don't. But the most telling thing about this film exposing Michael Moore's tactics is that his most staunch supporters...the people who know him personally and have worked with him...disapprove of his methods and talk about his distortions in his films. When his closest collaborators are willing to be interviewed saying he twists the facts, and outright lies, I feel vindicated in my suspicions about Michael Moore. This is a good film telling the other side of the story about the real Michael Moore. I highly recommend it to people who want to know all sides of an issue, and not just the side they agree with.
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Summary: Character Assassination Fails to Ring True
Comment: I just saw "Manufacturing Dissent" for the first time, and what I came away with mostly is that most of the arguments intended to discredit Moore are calculatedly specious. At the same time this documentary is claimed by some to be an even handed account of Moore and his methods.
For example, much is made of Moore's manipulativeness. Well, I don't think I've ever known anyone in public life, especially in the political arena, get up to speak before an audience, on camera, without presenting a point of view! Usually just exactly what he thinks his audience wants to hear, which he thinks will gain him the most political mileage.
Moore is trying to present legitimate alternative points of view, which despite their frequently perfect validity, have been systematically ignored, if not derided, by public officials, politicians and journalists, who are supposed to represent the citizenry, but who in fact actually represent money and power, in most cases. Of course he's trying to manipulate us to his point of view, exactly like every other person in public life. You can't demand that every leftist also present his opponent's position! Neocons and other right wingers don't do that! People in journalism, business, industry, the military and every other source of power do the exact, identical thing, albeit in much slicker, better funded ways than Michael Moore ever did.
Take the case against the gun give-away by a bank in Columbine scene, in "Bowling for Columbine." He's criticized for having made it appear that they had 500 guns in the vault in the back room, and that they just handed them out over the counter there in the bank; they didn't - they were, apparently, in a warehouse 300 miles away. Well, effectively, that is exactly what they did! Perhaps they used a roundabout, circuitous method of delivering those guns, so that guys like Michael Moore (or any guy with a camcorder) couldn't film it so easily, but it came to exactly the same end. Those guns were in fact delivered to people who opened bank accounts, which is the only point. Sure, perhaps Moore made it happen in a way that was more cinemagenic, a way that made a more compact and tellable story, but the essential truth behind the story, as he told it, is absolutely true.
And sure, Moore understood early on that he was better off using humor if possible to get his message out. How does one get people to listen to ideas that run contrary to what virtually the whole commercial and conventional political establishment wants you to hear? How does one get people to hear words and think thoughts which government and industry have spent billions of dollars on PR and propaganda, over the course of the last 60 years at least, to prevent people from hearing and thinking? It's an established fact that the government spends more on propaganda, aka PR, than every other client of the marketing industry combined (re: Inventing Reality, by Michael Parenti, 1993).
What this film actually showed me is that Michael Moore is in fact a wonderful, highly intelligent and sensitive, mostly ordinary human being, as well as a bold activist, being savagely maligned by those whose vested interests are threatened by his films, ideas and success. Practically every effort to demonize him and assassinate his character falls flat, in MHO. The very cases used to discredit him instead show me a man of practically unimpeachable character, standing practically alone against that juggernaut that is the establishment in this country.
So what if he's not comfortable with his new-found celebrity, power and exposure, and makes a verbal misstep once in a while? Who wouldn't? He's not a slick politician, thank The Goddess and the God. Despite the fact that he's made a little money, only recently that is, he is, unlike any established politician, truly one of us.
If Moore has any serious faults it may be that he is not very politic - perhaps an understatement. But that is also his charm. When one is faced with overwhelming power, as anyone who opposes our big government, big industry, big business, or the military establishment is, one can hardly demand that he hold back! When the president of the United States goes on the air 3+ times a day, repeating the exact same oversimplified, propagandistic message, stating nothing more than that "the US is Right to be in Iraq," for months on end, to justify and promote his unjust, illegal and murderous war to the American public, as I clearly recall him doing, one can hardly ask a man to be meek in opposition. When this nation is absolutely swamped by biased messages from the well entrenched right wing, one can hardly demand that one of the few leftists left willing to call a spade a spade "present a balanced message."
So I think this documentary is very telling, though not necessarily in the same way it was intended to be. It was without a doubt a very good experience to have, seeing it that is, my only concern being that it may be possible for some to understand it, that is, to misunderstand it, in the ways it was intended to be understood, which I think would be an unfortunate mistake.
My apology if some think I talk about Moore more than about the film, but to me the two are inextricable, so it's hardly possible for me to discuss the film without referring ultimately to the man.
My star rating humbly reflects my opinion that this is a very well wrought documentary, which subtly attempts to deceive its audience.
Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media
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Summary: No HOLLYWOOD backing... but THIS is a Documentary
Comment: I find it disheartening that so many people have bought into the Moore train. The truth about documentary is the allowance of letting the camera do the talking and giving a birdseye view into a story in order to shed some light and expose TRUTHS.
The thing I found after watching Fahrenheit 9/11, SICKO and MANUFACTURING DISSENT was that... walking away from Fahrenheit 9/11... there were no answers, only questions. How much of the video that was VOICED OVER by Democrat Michael Moore was just stuff made up by a man who hates REPUBLICANS? As time has gone by, I realize now... tons of it. He tells us that our government flew the Bin Laden family out of the country after 9/11 which was absolutely ridiculous. He tells us what BUSH is thinking... yes, what he's thinking as he sits in front of a classroom as he learns what has happened on that terrible day. Apparently BUSH is to be hated because he didn't spring up like SUPERMAN, dawn a cape and run from the building.
He was sued by a Iraq war veteran who's words in the film, were used out of context. Consequently, the case was quietly dealt with and barely reported by the biased media.
This, my friends, IS NOT DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING... this is sheer PROPAGANDA. Propaganda to change the world to suit Moore's hatred of the Republicans. It's this type of devisivness that destroys America. We're not Dems and Reps... we're Americans.
So, then I watched MANUFACTURING DISSENT, and I quickly remembered what a REAL DOCUMENTARY is. The camera tells the story. Not the DIRECTOR/NARRATOR. The facts are displayed through documents and interviews with people who know the man. Video of the supporters that MOORE stepped on in order to continue his PROPAGANDA mission. The actual time and dates of Moore's DISSENT from Ralph Nader and the REAL DOCUMENTARY filmmakers that he worked with and eventually DUMPED because they weren't PROPAGANDA filmmakers who weren't interested in telling stories/lies like Moore was intent on doing.
No. MANUFACTURING DISSENT doesn't have the big hollywood democratic $$$$ backing their production value like Moore has. The quality isn't HOLLYWOOD funded looking... but, the real thing that MANUFACTURING DISSENT has over anything Michael Moore decides to do is an AIR OF TRUTH.
You don't walk away from MANUFACTURING DISSENT wondering what was truth and what was made up by the creators. What you see is what you get. The truth. No speculation.
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