In 20 years how will he be perceived ? His protests and films ? (independently of Bush Jr’s fall or rise)
Documentaries have gotten a new market appeal and attention… is he the one responsible for that ? Will this new trend in documentaries be one of his legacies ?
I think an excelent documentary like “The Corporation” owes a lot of attention it might get to having a blockbuster predecessor like MM’s films.
Before people start calling him names… I think it should be remembered that he was the first… or one of the first to stick their neck out and criticise Bush. A culture that claims to be suspicious of government should value more their rebels ? Don’t forget his books…
Or will MM be a mark of "cultural gap or war" in America ?
( Disclaimer: I know Michael Moore in terms of truth and bias was severly lacking in objectivity and that he was too outrageosly anti-bush, or that some like to claim he lost the election… whatever… still he was one of few going against the grain… and loudly so.)
I don’t think that he has contributed anything of lasting value and importance to the country. Like most political commentators, he will fade away and be forgotten.
He’ll have no legacy…except maybe as the master of the ‘not lie’, or of the slight of hand ‘documentary’. His movies will be shown for what they are…twisted ideological partisan trash without much REAL content. Just tin foil and smoke and mirrors…when there was REAL stuff that COULD have been criticized and shown. In short…pander to the converted. I doubt if, 20 years in the future, people will give him much thought.
Fifteen years later, highschool classes still watch Roger and Me, so I think that film will certainly be rememberd.
His TV shows were hilarious, but sadly short lived. They did, I think, have a strong influence on the Daily Show (then hosted by Craig Kilborne), so if your one that thinks that show has become influencial, then you could argue that it is part of Moore’s legacy.
Also, whether you think of him as lying scum or not, I think its undeniable that Moore’s political documentaries, Bowling for Columbine and Farenhiet 9/11, will have an influence on other political documentaries, both how they’re made and viewed, for many years.
Documentaries showing how ‘rotten stuff is’ are great…and necessary in a democracy. Unfortunately, thats not what MM does. He takes a biased and partisan position and then spins things through not lies and inuendo or shell game distractions to make his ‘points’. Thats not documenting anything…its simply propaganda to the converted, or to the uninformed. Again, my guess is that 20 years down the pike, when people can look at things through the lense of time, they will reguard MM for the clown he was…if they think about him at all (which I doubt).
You asked for a guess as to the future…thats my guess. YMMV.
Still Xtisme… in a country full of scared democrats, independents and liberals… MM was was a lonely protest voice… or should liberals always be pussies ?
f you can take off your partisan hats for a second and look at the films themselves, (not the content but the techniques and methods) they are brilliant pieces of documentary film making. Whether you agree with the politics or not they invoke a reaction from the audience and they make people discuss an issue in a way they did not think of before.
Those who whine about how biased his films are are out to lunch as to what a documantary is. It is the film makers take on a real life topic that does not use actors and are not pre scripted.
The fact he made scads of dough on his last one is also important because suddenly Hollywood will see the benifit of what a relatively cheap form a film making can be to the pocket book. That will give others in a mostly disregarded form of film making a chance to use their voices heard in the mainstream.
Oh, don’t be overly melodramatic here. First off, he wasn’t the ‘lonely protest voice’ by any means…there were shrieking liberals wringing their hands for the past 4 years every where you turned. And only the lunitic fringe were ‘scared’…most everyone else (who wasn’t a fervent Bush supporter) were varying degrees of apathetic towards Bush…hardly frightened by the man.
Look, there was a lot of REAL stuff that MM could have put into his movie about Bush, and done so in a calm and honest manner. THAT would have gotten the attention of the majority of the people, and he had the connections and the medium to do it…but it wouldn’t have made his real target audience happy. They wanted to hear how EVIL Bush was, they wanted tin foil about 9/11, they wanted BLOOD. So…he chose to do what he always does…pander to the fringe by twisting and turning so that he presents them with what they want to hear.
Let me put it a different way…MM’s movie was showing in theaters from coast to coast…hell, its STILL playing at the dollar theater here in New Mexico. I think its safe to say he got his ‘message’ out, that it was widely viewed by a hell of a lot of people in the US and abroad, etc. Did it help? Did it connect with the majority of American’s? If so…how does one explain the elections last week? And if not…why not?
My bolding. Cognitive dissonance is most often caused by fautly assumptions.
Don’t confuse the general tenor of this board with the that of the US. And even then, it would be a gross exageration to say that this board is FULL of “scared democrats…”.
*I’m serious. I’m not all that great a fan of Rush’s, especially since the Chelsea Clinton episode and I haven’t watched or listened to him in over eight years. And I think he’s been quite a strong factor in bringing about the idiotization and demonization of the opposition that has become so strong in this country on both sides. But he is smart as hell. He has a quick and agile mind and an excellent grasp of facts, figures and events, and he’s an excellent self-editor (Chelsea aside).
Moore, however, much like the image he portrays, seems more like just the average ignorant, opinionated Joe Blow from the neighborhood bar. Every time I’ve seen him in a conversational or interview setting, I’ve been astounded at his lack of brilliance. He stumbles and bumbles, redirects, makes false attributions and denies the obvious…all with a smug, self-satisfied smirk on his face.
I’ve really been disappointed in him. Though I’m not a fan, I did expect that he would be rather brilliant…sort of a misguided genius.
But noooo…he’s just an average everyday schmuck who deserves no more credibility in the question of what’s wrong with the country or the course it should follow than your next door neighbor.
Hasn’t Moore shown the power of documentaries? A genre until then mostly associated with grey social realism and dusty, boring and presumptuous holier-than-thous. These days documentaries can be fun. I heard from a film festival movie screener (didn’t catch which festival), that the number of documentaries have tripled since only last year. I guess that’ll have a lasting effect and clearly that’s something to be proud of. I just saw one called SuperSizeMe – the Moore inspiration was obvious, though not so well executed.
Limbaugh, didn’t he revitalize local radio? Brought politics into the living room, or car radio, of everyday Americans – who were else not very political interested. Again, regardless of his political opinions, getting more people interested in politics – empowering them, must be considered a good thing.
I agree. Prior to Bowling for Columbine Moore was not very famous, but he was mildly well known…and not because he made very many movies or because his TV shows were very successful. It was because of Roger and Me. I’m confident that it will still be considered a significant film for some time to come.
I loved TV Nation, and I was young enough then that I didn’t have much in the way of strongly held political beliefs. I mostly just liked it because it was funny. Moore has been called “The Limbaugh of the Left” in more places than just this thread, but if nothing else I think Moore is much funnier. Maybe I wouldn’t think Moore was very funny if I saw him as a representative of everything that I hated, but I don’t think I’d find Limbaugh terribly amusing even if my political views aligned with his.
I don’t think there can be any question that Moore’s work will be considered important in the history of documentary filmmaking as well. Even if future film scholars decide that his work has no real merit (something that would greatly surprise me), it would at least rank a mention in any course on the subject as something that brought a huge amount of attention to the genre and encouraged other documentary filmmakers to tackle controversial political and social issues.
Probably a much-admired person amongst film majors. To think he recreated the documentary (and made a bundle of money) is heady stuff for college students.
But we would have to agree that MM will (probably) be short-lived phenomena. The Bush reelection might extend his shelf life.
It is hard to imagine that he will be looked back on in the same way as Arlo Guthrie or Hunter Thompson. His work is simply lighter and more specific to our time.
As the most important and influential American documentary filmmaker since Robert J. Flaherty, who transformed a sedate and boring genre into a popular one.
