Capitalism: A Love Story Michael Moore\'s Capitalism:

Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore is an expert at tugging on viewer's heart strings, and never passes up an opportunity to do so in Capitalism: A Love Story -- even though the docu-tragi-comedy would have been better without so much bathos. Moore's main problem lies where it always does: with him focusing the camera on humanity's tragedies and milking them for all their worth. It is not to his advantage. His strong points have always been his ability to mock modern culture by splicing together hilarious shots of bumbling corporate goons, or satirically reminding us of our (once great) nation's serious decline into the grifter paradise it has now become. Capitalism does all this, but with a mixture of failure and success. This paper will show where Moore fails and where Moore succeeds with his latest attempt to win over the American public to the unpopular view that we've all been duped.

We have all been duped -- and that's Moore's first point: by opening the show with a hilarious and alarming montage of bank robbery scenes from real bank camera footage, he sets up the fact that America's banks have been looted -- not by robbers, but by bankers themselves. (The sweet irony of Michael Moore!) It's also biting commentary on a system that allows such robbery to take place: the imagery is sound because it is akin to what is really going on at Capitol Hill: armed robbery of taxpayers. Here is where Moore shines brilliantly -- when he says most by saying little and just letting the sequences and music do the work.

The next little intro has Moore ramping up the satire by comparing modern day America to Ancient Rome -- a comparison that is supposed to make us all realize we are in an era of decline. It works. Moore has my attention when he asks, "I wonder how future civilizations will view our society?" Now I want to hear what he has to say.

Unfortunately, he doesn't get to saying what he wants to say just yet. Another montage follows: of people getting tossed out of their houses. Here, Moore makes the American people look like poor, innocent victims in a brutal police state, where the police are mercilessly destroying the lives of many by forcing them out of their homes at the command of the bankers who (though it is never said explicitly) have apparently ripped them off through bad mortgage deals. One farmer does vent his frustration with the banks who cruelly raised his interest rates -- and this sort of thing did happen during the housing bubble: what seemed like fixed rate mortgages turned out to be not truly fixed. While sympathetic to the plight of these people, Mike lingers on the tears, wails, moans and complaints for too long. This is supposed to be a documentary, not an Oprah Winfrey special -- enough of the drama.

Finally, Moore gets on target by showing exactly how corporate America and the banksters have been playing us for the past three decades since Reagonomics introduced the era of de-regulation into the world of Wall Street. Here, Moore works movie magic by displaying the lunacy of the entire project: from showing Wall Street cats who can't explain what a derivative is (although they sure know how to use them) to showing Congressmen who are willing to say (on camera) that the banksters have taken over America, Moore hits home the fact that we should not be feeling so comfortable about our lives.

Moore's only misstep during all this is, again, when he dwells too long on the tears. By showing so many tears (especially of children) Moore's shtick becomes tiresome and trite: he is trying to show how helpless we all are, how we are all hurting, and how there is no one to save us. But it is all a set up -- and it is typical Michael Moore propaganda. He's just waiting to introduce his hero (Mr. Yes-we-can! himself: the impetus of change: President Obama).