The following is actually a post by Mrs. CaptMurdock, though I agree with the spirit of her statement:
As you are aware, Micheal Moore won the Academy Award this past year for best documentary, Bowling for Columbine. As you may also be aware that the Academy as certain subcategories, these inclued best short, and best documentary. Not best comedy or best horror.
It has come out recently that he was caught fabricating and manipulating several things on his " documentary"…such as stringing together several of Charlton Heston’s speeches and making it seem as if it was one speech where it was more than one.
One state was said to have no waiting period to purchase a gun, where it really does. He misquoted how much money was given to groups, saying that billions of dollars were given when in actuality nowhere near that amount was contributed.
I saw his interview when the flim was new, while he was on the Oprah Show where the audince had also viewed the flim. All of them. including Moore, took it as a very serious film about a serious subject. He spoke about how the media manipulates us into this fear culture.
When Moore was confronted recently about the inaccuracies of his “documentary,” he said that it was a black comedy.
A friend agreed with saying that he, as the ceator of the film could say what it truely was, and too bad on us if we did not get the joke.
I feel that Moore, by call the flim a doucumentry and presented it to the world as such, has committed fraud and should give back his award.
After all in his acceptance speech at the Oscars he gave no indication that the work was in any way anything but a documentary.
Do you think, do you really think that anything you see presented as a documentary will be true?
The same interview, cut the same way, could be perceived totally different depending on lighting, camera angle, music in the background. There are so many factors involved.
By deciding to do a documentary, you’re taking a stand. You’re saying “This subject is worthy of being made into a documentary”.
So having done that, deciding that the Rodney King incident and the events afterwards, are indeed worthy of making into a movie, you then have to decide which people to interview. By your choices, you’re eliminating part of the reality, the ‘truth’.
By editing these interviews, you’re cutting even more.
_ Why have you made these choices? Because you want to make a point. You want the people who see your documentary to perceive what you think is the truth. Why is your POV the real one? Why are your views unbiased?
I’ve been a journalist for many years. There is no unbiased reporting. There is no absolute truth. And when people are making documentaries, they’re constantly faking and ‘bending the turth’. All those clips on Animal Planet - many of them are staged. An interview where the subject is elaborating to give more depth to the subject’s POV - it’s on the cutting room floor. You didn’t get the answers you wanted from A? Make an interview with B instead.
I’m not surprised that Moore cut some corners, or even that he cut quite a few. Moore had a story to tell and he was using the form of the documentary. I think the only thing to judge is if the story he tells is interesting and has any bearing on the real world.
For my money, it does. I’m seeing the development here, in my country. And by comparing to the U.S. I an see where we’re going. Pepper-spray, self defense classes for women, gated communities, illigal guns, vigilantes, racial hatred. The mosque in my hometown (we have 55.000 moslems here, of 260.000 total in pop.) was torched a few weeks ago and of course arson is suspected.
So, do we live in a ‘culture of fear’? Yes, I think we do. And I think that maybe Michael Moore’s documentary can shine a light on what I think is a big problem. Therefore, I’m prepared to cut him a lot of slack. If we’re debating his film, and talking about reasons people act like they do, gun laws and if he fabricated stuff for the movie - then we’re also talking about the bigger issues. And that’s a good thing.
If you take the outrageous step of just reading the Academy rules about documentaries, you’ll see that Moore broke zero rules. So there’s no reason for him to give the award back.
But is there not the implicit assumption by the viewer that you will not blatantly lie? And a duty of responsibility not to do so?
Spoken as an absolute truth?
I think the beef is not that he cut cornmers but that he falsified information. Big difference.
Agreed that acts such as torching mosques are bad and stupid, but trying to fight ignorance with falseness is wrong too, yes?
Deliberate falseness ought not be portrayed as a documentary - Joe Public assumes that documentaries will deal with facts; that although editing will occur the basis for the documentary will not be a fable.
No, there is no absolute truth. There is always a filter.
Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. For me, it doesn’t matter if Moore lied or not. Also, it doesn’t matter if he’s right or not (with or without using lies and fabrication). The interesting thing is the deabte that ensues. So he was wrong about gun laws in one state. Well, that mess has been cleared up and we have faught ignorance.
However - the most important question he asks: Same ratio guns population in Canada and The US. A demographic that’s fairly similar, and yet lots and lots more murders in the US. Why so?
If he has not falsified the gun/people ratio or the murder ratio, I think that question needs to be debated.
It’s stupid to falsify to that extent, though, since it will clearly move the focus from the main issue. It’s not as if the questions and ‘real’ facts aren’t controversial enough.
I think you have made some great points. But it seems that you are saying that documentary is a stylistic choice, such as drama. Then why should it be regarded as a different category?
All things must have a point of view; otherwise, it’s, well, pointless.
But it does seem that some things should be judged more on whether not it was just entertaining.
I do not think that all documentaries are nothing more than Blair Witch.
When books are classified as fiction or non-fiction, it is more important that the book be factual than be an enjoyable read, if it is going to be classified as non-fiction.
I understand that there is no such thing as absolute unsubjective truth but there is such a thing as committing a lie of omission.
I could be wrong but it seem that because you agree with his basic concept that we live in a society that the media is in the business of selling the concept of fear (and I am not saying that it is not), you seem to be okay with the fact that he committed fraud.
According to the dictionary a documentary is a “movie or TV program presenting facts and information, especially about a political, historical, or social issue.” Where I never thought a documentary was unbiased or well balanced, I do think that when you present something as truthful and then do your best to fool me, that this is fraud and not artistic license.
Wow… I was being facetious when I said it was OK to lie for a noble cause. I guess some people really think that it’s OK!!
And I disagree with documentaries having to be biased toward one side or the other, certainly not needing lies to push a point or prosecute your agenda.
I recently saw When We Were Kings which also won for best documentary. I’ve never been a Ali fan, but after watching that documentary, I had a much greater respect for the man. A fine documentary, very entertaining and informative.
By the way, if my last post seemed a little nervy, it’s because there’s actually an older thread on this topic (well, a very similar one). It might be worthwhile to look that one up as well.
Also, as Mrs. CaptMurdock says, Moore basically presented himself saying: “here is an issue of which you are ignorant. I will teach you what you need to know. Here is the information that you require.” He also criticizes the media for perpetrating the “lies” (and who’s to say they aren’t) and selling their point of view. Then he, at the very least, heavily distorted the facts to favor his point of view.
Please keep in mind that many claims about “lies” in the documentary are themselves really outrageous lies. Politics has entered into it here. Moore has gone to far greater length to get affidavits proving almost all of the challenges false. But people do make mistakes.
The “stringing together” of Heston speeches hardly qualifies as a lie. Heston really did say those things.
The actions of the “give it back” crowd is …, umm, well you know.
Allow me to actually take Marley’s outrageous step and quote the actual rule:
It appears that as long as his “emphasis” was on fact, then the movie can be considered a documentary. Not having seen the movie, I’ll not judge it, but if a significant percentage of his facts were indeed fictional, then he violated the terms.
I think if he knew that the film was not all “truthful” then he should not have given it the title of documentary (because I am sure that he assummed that we as an audience would think it was a factual film because it was given that title). However, I think he won the award for other things, not JUST his truthfullness. I do not agree with what he did, but I do not know if he should give the award back IMHO
Emphasis mine. Nothing about it having to be 100% truthful or balanced or free of deception or manipulation. Personally, I found B4C a terrible movie–fundamentally dishonest and poorly assembled. But it passed a screening panel of fellow documentarians, and if they didn’t object to its content (and these complaints aren’t recent, but date back virtually to the film’s release), then that’s that.
Micheal Moore is hardly the first person to edit an interview and broadcast it ‘as if it were one long conversation’ is he?
He’s also not the first person to use statistics or facts in a ‘potentially misleading fashion’ or to make his facts sound ‘other than they really are’…
From what I can see, America lies to itself every second of every day - that allowing the widespread ownership of guns makes it a free-er and safer place to live.
Someone who attempts to highlight the STAGGERING stupidity of that stance is not allowed to lie of course - or to call what they’ve created “black comedy”?
Shit - from here it’s the blackest comedy I’ve ever seen…
TTFN
JP
p.s. You didn’t need to edit what he said to make Heston look like an insentive and misguided idiot - he does that quite well enough himself…
Turns out Cheesesteak beat me to the punch, so let me volunteer a film that was nominated for the Documentary Oscar that was 100% staged and not very factual at all. These things tend to be pretty fluid with the Academy, after all.
