Documentary questions Moore's tactics

[tuvor]

AUSTIN, Texas - As documentary filmmakers, Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine looked up to Michael Moore.

Then they tried to do a documentary of their own about him — and ran into the same sort of resistance Moore himself famously faces in his own films.

The result is "Manufacturing Dissent," which turns the camera on the confrontational documentarian and examines some of his methods. Among their revelations in the movie, which had its world premiere Saturday night at the South by Southwest film festival: That Moore actually did speak with then-General Motors chairman Roger Smith, the evasive subject of his 1989 debut "Roger & Me," but chose to withhold that footage from the final cut.

The husband-and-wife directors spent over two years making the movie, which follows Moore on his college tour promoting 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11." The film shows Melnyk repeatedly approaching Moore for an interview and being rejected; members of Moore's team also kick the couple out of the audience at one of his speeches, saying they weren't allowed to be shooting there.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070311/ap_en_mo/film_manufacturing_dissent

[maggiegault]

1. Whatever.

Picking on Michael Moore is what * enablers do when they aren't warmongering or taking away Americans' rights.

Next.

[MADem]

2. What are they, crazy? MM is a PRODUCT, as well as a documentary filmmaker.

Why would he give away his product? It's his bread and butter. And why EXPECT him to? No one OWNS the guy. He has a right to his privacy, his persona, and the dough he makes from it. At least he's not making it like ENRON did.

Manufacturing DISSENT, eh? Sounds to me like these idiots are Manufacturing CONTROVERSY:

At their own premiere Saturday night, the Toronto-based filmmakers expected pro-Moore plants in the audience heckling or trying to otherwise sabotage the screening, but it turned out to be a tame affair.

No hecklers....awwwww. Maybe because their film...sucked? Won't break out? Is a tempest in a teapot, perhaps?

Gee, next time they'll have a few friends there, to 'manufacture' some dissent, maybe.

If these guys "looked up" to Moore, it's possibly because they were SHORTER than him. They seemed awfully eager to change the focus of their effort, didn't they?

IMO.

[Rex]

3. So now someone will have to make a documentary about the couples

struggle against the evil Moore and his growing ambitions for world domination! :rofl:

[rusty charly]

4. "the same sort of resistance Moore himself famously faces in his own films"

so, what's the problem? you want to do a 'michael moore'-style movie? you work like michael moore has to when he tries to interview YOUR friends.

[Selatius]

5. One thing I pretty much realized is that Moore is a propagandist

Granted, he's an entity of the left, as opposed to the right, but a propagandist still. The fact that he left out his meeting with GM chairman Smith is just one example. If you don't report the truth to the fullest integrity, what does that make you?

The last piece of that article:

The fact that Moore spoke with Smith, including a lengthy question-and-answer exchange during a May 1987 GM shareholders meeting, first was reported in a Premiere magazine article three years later. Transcripts of the discussion had been leaked to the magazine, and a clip of the meeting appeared in "Manufacturing Dissent." Moore also reportedly interviewed Smith on camera in January 1988 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.

Since then, in the years since "Roger & Me" put Moore on the map, those details seem to have been suppressed and forgotten.

"It was shocking, because to me that was the whole premise of `Roger & Me,'" Melnyk said.

She and Caine also had trouble finding people to talk on camera about Moore, partly because potential interview subjects assumed they were creating a right-wing attack piece; as self-proclaimed left-wingers, they weren't.

[niyad]

6. so the fact that people didn't trust them is somehow moore's fault?

[Selatius]

7. Nope.

The fact that he omitted his talks with Chairman Roger Smith is.

[niyad]

8. I was referring to the fact that people didn't want to talk with them

[Selatius]

9. I realize that, but that's beside the point of my post.

My point hits upon the fact that he omitted certain key facts like the Roger Smith meeting. You're talking past me.

[niyad]

10. I was addressing one specific aspect of it, which is permitted. you are free to focus on whatever

you want, just as I am.

[Selatius]

11. Well, to answer your point, I would've, at first glance, thought they were rightwingers too

I would've gotten them on record as to their intentions before I let them do anything with me. With that said though, since you sidestepped the central crux of my original post, then the point still stands.

[shadowknows69]

12. For what it's worth

and since it's just the word of one person probably not much, but I met someone who claimed to work for Moore once as a secretary and she said he was a major jerk to work for. Maybe she just didn't like to work, just throwing it out there.