# Why Doesn't Someone do a Documentary on Michael Moore? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 24, 2004, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828 "2004-05-24T17:22:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/1 "2004-05-24T17:22:21Z")
It’s Monday, I’m cranky, it’s time for a pit thread. So yesterday I and a pair of my associates were having a late supper at a casual-dining sort of place, and our conversation was meandering, as it is wont to do. I believe I mentioned Fahrenheit 9/11’s winning of the Palm D’Or in Cannes and how that didn’t really bother me, but the fact the film was classified as a documentary did. My associates were quite in agreement as to the generally dishonest character of Moore’s filmmaking - as I put it, he ‘assembles grains of truth into a mosaic of fiction.’ I’m of the opinion that he basically makes these pictures simply to be inflammatory so as to line his own pockets while everyone, both pro and con sides of the issue the film claims to address, rushes out to see them. So why doesn’t someone make a documentary about how he operates? One of my associates counter-suggested a mockumentary, just taking Moore’s own quotes out of context from interviews and assembling them in a blatantly fake fashion to lampoon the man’s own technique, but I’d be more keen on an actual documentary. So, anyone interested in the idea? Both my associates regarded it as a capital idea, going so far as to suggest sources of filmmaking equipment, but we’d never be able to follow it through all the way. If it helps, I can offer a title : “A Little Moore to the Left”. See? It’s all clever and witty just like his. 😃 For the record? I’m a left-leaning moderate by nearly all measures. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/2 "2004-05-24T17:25:21Z")
Some mod, any mod, please fix my typo in the thread title? I looked over everything else. Sigh. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/3 "2004-05-24T17:30:59Z")
Well, lots of people SAY he’s making stuff up, but I have yet to see anyone prove it. Not once. Don’t you think all these people would be suing for slander and misrepresentation if they thought they could win? Them’s deep pockets for folks to be dipping into. I just want someone to discredit him if in fact he is as big a bullshitter as everyone says he is. By the way…I’m waaaay left but strive to be fair. Bring on the proof that he’s a liar. ---
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/4 "2004-05-24T17:34:06Z")
[www.michaelmoorehatesamerica.com](http://www.michaelmoorehatesamerica.com) That’s Michael Moore Hates America, dot com. Maybe you can help the young Mr. Wilson out - he “needs to raise some significant capital”. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/5 "2004-05-24T17:36:38Z")
Re: the OP, [Someone has](http://www.michaelmoorehatesamerica.com/). They’re trying to get it released now, with the hopes that it might be in theatres this summer. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/6 "2004-05-24T17:38:43Z")
Damn you, **RTA**! ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/7 "2004-05-24T17:39:28Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > Well, lots of people SAY he’s making stuff up, but I have yet to see anyone prove it. Not once. Don’t you think all these people would be suing for slander and misrepresentation if they thought they could win? Them’s deep pockets for folks to be dipping into. I just want someone to discredit him if in fact he is as big a bullshitter as everyone says he is. > > By the way…I’m waaaay left but strive to be fair. Bring on the proof that he’s a liar. I am rather partial to [http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/](http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/), and there was another debunker site mentioned in a recent anti-Moore thread. The issue isn’t him making things up, mostly, it’s out of context quotes, creative chronology rearrangement, and staged or partially staged scenes… which I guess is like making stuff up. One of my associates recalled a “documentary” of Moore’s about manufacturing in Michigan, or some such, where Moore made a big deal about not being able to get in to see executives when he showed up unannounced with a camera crew in tow. I don’t need a website to tell me that that’s a tactic designed to make the company look uncaring when in fact no company is going to let a scruffy-looking loudmouth with a camera crew come up and talk to the CEO with no notice. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/8 "2004-05-24T17:42:52Z")
Well, I’ve looked through the sites linked to there, and as far as I can see their objections are that - he edits interviews (gosh!) - he doesn’t screen entire election adverts, but cuts the irrelevant parts (golly!) - the French like him (KILL THE TRAITOR!!!) ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/9 "2004-05-24T17:49:59Z")
I got the same thing out of that stuff that **GorillaMan** did. Not very compelling. As for “Michael Moore Hates America”; I don’t think that “interviewing people who live the American Dream” proves anything, since for every person who **does** there are 5 or 10 who **don’t** , not to mention that some people who “live the American Dream” do it off the backs of other people, some who are Americans and some who aren’t. And that title is just inflammatory and juvenile. Just because I point out the flaws in something, doesn’t mean I hate it. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/10 "2004-05-24T17:53:30Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Well, I’ve looked through the sites linked to there, and as far as I can see their objections are that > > - he edits interviews (gosh!) > > - he doesn’t screen entire election adverts, but cuts the irrelevant parts (golly!) > > - the French like him (KILL THE TRAITOR!!!) Editing is a funny word. One can edit for time, to cut something down to its most essential nature. One can edit for coherency, to put scenes in such an order as to make the most sense. One can also edit for disinformation … fashioning a picture of a ‘truth’ that’s really no such thing. According to the above-referenced website, Charlton Heston is painted as an uncaring malicious villain of a man who makes speeches extolling the virtues of gun ownership shortly after gun-based tragedies in the same community… even as one who **glorifies** gun ownership in that situation… which isn’t the case. There’s also the staged scene with Heston and Moore … Moore takes out some picture of a little girl, pleading with Heston to turn and look on her face, the face of a girl killed by a gun, as Heston coldly walks away… the website suggests that… as the scene is shown from two alternating angles, one just showing Moore holding the picture, the other showing Moore’s back and Heston’s back… that Moore did not in fact bring out the picture in Heston’s presence at all. Interestingly, the site also suggests if both cameras had been shooting that scene at the same time as shown, then one of them would’ve been in the field of view of the other. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/11 "2004-05-24T17:58:34Z")
> [@kung fu lola](#): > > And that title is just inflammatory and juvenile. What, like “Bowling for Columbine”? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/12 "2004-05-24T18:05:51Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > One of my associates recalled a “documentary” of Moore’s about manufacturing in Michigan, or some such, where Moore made a big deal about not being able to get in to see executives when he showed up unannounced with a camera crew in tow. I don’t need a website to tell me that that’s a tactic designed to make the company look uncaring when in fact no company is going to let a scruffy-looking loudmouth with a camera crew come up and talk to the CEO with no notice. What, [Roger & Me](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0098213/)? I highly recommend picking that title up next time you’re in a rental store. It’s not that Moore tried once to interview Roger Smith, CEO of GM. It’s that he tried about a thousand times. It’s one of my conservative friend’s favorite movies of all time. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/13 "2004-05-24T18:12:56Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > What, [Roger & Me](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0098213/)? I highly recommend picking that title up next time you’re in a rental store. It’s not that Moore tried once to interview Roger Smith, CEO of GM. It’s that he tried about a thousand times. It’s one of my conservative friend’s favorite movies of all time. Ah, thank you. My friend couldn’t remember the title. That does improve matters a little that he tried many times… I haven’t seen it, I was going of my friend’s recollection. Still, if I were CEO of a major corporation, and some random wanted an interview, I wouldn’t necessarily be inclined to grant it. Then again, after reading some of the things on Moore on Bowling for Truth, I wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up unannounced every single time. I’ll have to consider getting it from Netflix though. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/14 "2004-05-24T18:14:47Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > One can also edit for disinformation … fashioning a picture of a ‘truth’ that’s really no such thing. Charlton Heston painted a man of the community with some picture of a little girl. Heston turn and look on coldly at Moore’s back… Moore did not suggest shooting that scene. You don’t say! :eek: (Face it, someone had to do it. You just expected someone to do a better job of it. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/15 "2004-05-24T18:22:49Z")
Heh… very nice, tdn. [This](http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/bowlingforcolumbine/scenes/heston_confront_staged.htm) is a link to the Heston-Picture-Debunking thing. It’s pretty clear to me the second cameraman would have had to be invisible to get both angles in the same take. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/16 "2004-05-24T18:25:02Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > Editing is a funny word. > > (edited) > > Charlton Heston is painted as an uncaring malicious villain of a man who makes speeches extolling the virtues of gun ownership shortly after gun-based tragedies in the same community… even as one who **glorifies** gun ownership in that situation… which isn’t the case. > > (again edited) He didn’t do that? He didn’t go to an NRA meeting held near Columbine short after the shootings and proudly hold up a gun saying that 'they’ll get it when they pry it from his cold dead hands!" He didn’t do that? I could have sworn he did that. I could have sworn I saw on many news outlets that he did that. I wonder if they had to pry the guns for Eric and Dylan’s cold dead hands? ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/17 "2004-05-24T18:42:18Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > He didn’t do that? > > He didn’t go to an NRA meeting held near Columbine short after the shootings and proudly hold up a gun saying that 'they’ll get it when they pry it from his cold dead hands!" > He didn’t do that? > I could have sworn he did that. I could have sworn I saw on many news outlets that he did that. Actually, the website mentioned clarifies this issue. > [@](#): > > Timeline trickiness > > After this, we hear Moore telling us, ominously, that “just 10 days after the Columbine mass murders Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally.” > > The distortion is nauseatingly extreme. Heston’s “cold dead hands” speech, which leads off Moore’s depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver in defiance to Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was his gesture of gratitude upon being given the handmade musket he’s holding, at that annual meeting. A key word there is ‘annual.’ Although Moore successfully makes it appear that Heston has held the rally in response to the Columbine massacre - the gathering was preplanned. > > The portrayal is that the line is made in defiance of Columbine while at an insensitive rally in Michigan, when it’s actually a thank-you speech given a year later in North Carolina. It was a statement to reaffirm the right to own firearms…It had nothing to do with any tragic event and its just as unfair to cut the two together as it would be if you cut the parallel line from my steak scenario after footage from a from the sad families of those who have lost a loved one to mad cow disease. The evidence of this is that the “cold dead hands” line and the Colorado rally footage clearly show Heston wearing two different suits. Though Moore’s film doesn’t explicitly say the “cold dead hands” line was in Colorado, the film very clearly gives that impression. I think what you remember seeing was similar to the tactic Moore uses–showing Heston in general NRA president mode (“cold dead hands”) before talking specifically about the Colorado rally, even though the rally itself and the clip used weren’t directly related. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/18 "2004-05-24T18:44:01Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > He didn’t do that? > > He didn’t go to an NRA meeting held near Columbine short after the shootings and proudly hold up a gun saying that 'they’ll get it when they pry it from his cold dead hands!" > He didn’t do that? > I could have sworn he did that. I could have sworn I saw on many news outlets that he did that. > > I wonder if they had to pry the guns for Eric and Dylan’s cold dead hands? Well, the image in Bowling for Columbine that is used in that context wasn’t uttered in Columbine, or right after the tragedy, according to [this](http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/bowlingforcolumbine/scenes/hestonrally1.htm). Under the heading ‘timeline trickiness’. > [@](#): > > The distortion is nauseatingly extreme. Heston’s “cold dead hands” speech, which leads off Moore’s depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver in defiance to Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was his gesture of gratitude upon being given the handmade musket he’s holding, at that annual meeting. A key word there is ‘annual.’ Although Moore successfully makes it appear that Heston has held the rally in response to the Columbine massacre - the gathering was preplanned. ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/19 "2004-05-24T18:44:29Z")
Years back **Might** magazine did an article where they tried to visit Moore’s offices and get an interview with him sans appointment. It was pretty entertaining and wasn’t very flattering. See if you can dig it up. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2004, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828/20 "2004-05-24T18:45:42Z")
Well, crap, ArchiveGuy, you beat me to it. 😉 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-someone-do-a-documentary-on-michael-moore/246828.md?page=2)