Michael Moore's documentaries on politics, healthcare, and economic decline

Filmmaker: Michael Moore

Michael Moore is not only a documentary film maker but also a satirist. Roger and Me was his first film and it turned out to be the highest-grossing American documentary of that period. Moore's politics and comedy arose from his background in a working-class society that he enjoyed from the manufacture of automobiles at several General Motors factories till the company left the town, as narrated in Roger and Me. Moore was a very firm opponent of GM as well as local Flint politics since the beginning of the Flint Voice, a newspaper at 22 years of age. The newspaper was partly funded by him via the weekly display of films, and supported it via work on the local public radio station where he hosted a show named "Radio Free Flint." In addition, he wrote essays for the National Public Radio. At the age of 18, Moore was elected into his local school board and successfully strived to have its meetings open to the general public (biography.com, n.d).

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Sicko (2007), Roger and Me (1989)

Question a Fahrenheit 9/11 is simply a documentary regarding the political agenda concerning America's choice of waging war on Iraq. The major idea of the film is that the U.S. President, George W. Bush, is not suitable for office and does not always act in the best interests of the American citizens. . According to Fahrenheit 9/11, due to President Bush's commercial and political commitment to Saudi Arabia, the responsibility for the calamity of 9/11 is deflected and utilizes it as flimsy reason for attacking Iraq (Film Education, n.d).

Michael Moore's 'Sicko', an amusing as well as emotionally compelling movie, reveals the importance of healthcare to most of the Americans. Moore skillfully depicts the matters of concerns of ordinary individuals that overwhelm the audience. Nobody could compete with him (Gowans, 2007).

Michael Moore's film, Roger and Me, displays why and how our society is basically seriously flawed. Moore utilizes vernacular dialect, to reveal the real face of the truth capitalism we as ascribe to. Dialects are the organized evaluation of tension, interconnections, discrepancies, and/or disagreements amidst opposites. The movie's plot circulates around Moore's mission of confronting the CEO of General Motors at that instance, and to bring him into Flint, Michigan, to have a view of what his actions have done to individuals who work and reside in the vicinity. Smith did not wish to be interviewed by Moore and the movie rapidly discloses the reason. Moore's film is a mixture of stock footage from documentaries concerning General Motors (GM), documentaries regarding Flint, Television news footage, movie footage that he took recording the plant closures, and his quest for Rodger Smith. Moore hardly ever utilizes narration to tell the story (Jensen, n.d).

Question B

When Fahrenheit 9/11 premiered, various individuals viewed this as an exceptional indictment of the lead-up to an unfair battle. Some viewed it as an unsubstantiated liberal propaganda structured to provide the Democrats a helping hand in the lead-up to the 2004 U.S. presidential elections (Dean, 2007). Fahrenheit 9/11 is a lively and engrossing documentary, which competently merges several different aspects of the film language. While the movie certainly sustains majority of the modern aspects of the documentary genre, Moore broadens and stretches the resources within his reach to come up with views that are not only unique but also memorable (Film Education, n.d). After knowing that on 11th September, a commercial aircraft had hit the World Trade Center, President Bush, surprisingly, continued with a reading as well as a photo-op at a grade school in Florida. When he came to know that the second aircraft had hit he still was reading a book to a classroom of kids. This is probably the most derogatory portion of Fahrenheit 9/11, one that strengthens Moore's point that the presidency of Bush did not have any focus. A clock is utilized by Moore just to stress how long President Bush stayed passive following the disastrous revelation (Patel, Joseph, 2004).

Moore furnishes distressing and compelling tales in Sicko. A woman is not given payment for a major procedure she has to undergo since she overlooked stating on her insurance that she had an inconsequential yeast infection in the past. A mother loses her 18-month-old baby since a hospital would not attend to her without authorization from her insurance company and her insurer maintains that she takes the baby to an in-network hospital (Corn, David, 2007). A woman involved in car accident is denied payment for an ambulance trip since she did not obtain pre-authorization for that particular cost to be incurred. A man is denied a bone-marrow transplant, which could save his life and eventually dies. Moore conducts an interview on the health care industry insiders who verify the worst suspicions. An ex-worker at a health insurance sales center sobs as she narrates about how she was taught to deal with future clients that may be health risks. Physicians that work for health care organizations narrate how they were encouraged to refute accusations in order to save the money of their companies. A video footage from a surveillance camera displays a Los Angeles hospital dumping a poor patient on Skid Row. Moore points out that we have turned out to be a country which dumps its citizens (Corn, David, 2007).

According to Moore in 'Roger and Me', the disaster in Flint could be blamed on the failure of Reagan's administration to control policy of General Motors. Therefore, the scene whereby Reagan pays a visit to the Flint citizens in a pizzeria advises them to move to Texas, a circumstance which, although hilarious, is depicted by Moore with anger. There are, however, two sides to every coin. Even though General Motors is viewed in the negative sense, they would have discovered equally compelling arguments to oppose Moore's socialist position, and to support a market-based kind of capitalism (Film Education, n.d).

Question C

The title of the film is a reference, made despite the opposition of the author, to Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," a classical sci-fi novel set in future wherein firemen set books and libraries on fire in a constant campaign to repress independent views (MORGENSTERN, 2004). The visual and linguistic features that make the final product presented to analysts are the outcomes of the linguistic decisions made by the author in association to the pictures of editing methods that may delete insignificant contextual data (Castaldi, 2007). Michael Moore is seen in the movie as the interviewer. The allocation of different text kinds in this genre is similar to one used in the commentary genre: the huge percentage of report sentences (64.7%) prevail over the narrative ones (7.14%) (Castaldi, 2007). The subjectivity is not only restricted by the insufficient incidence of narratives, but also by the mere fact that ordinary individuals utilize this kind of text commonly (Castaldi, 2007). Music in the documentary is utilized to make a remark on the pictures that we view (Film Education, n.d). Voice-over narration in documentaries or even television news normally assumes a soothing, authoritative tone that we are to receive as unbiased; however, Moore's voice-over commentary is actually a personal and a biased expression of thoughts (Perez, 2004).

In Sicko, what Moore actually performs very efficiently is narrating this tale to a mass audience, weaving together the emotionally-powered tales of the American citizens who lost husbands, children, or other family members to preventable ailment, all thanks to intentional, properly-arranged payment denials by health insurance organizations. In one portion of the movie, he includes archival footage of former President Nixon, who firmly authorizes a new 1970s healthcare idea known as the "HMO" where more the number of patients not given health care services, the higher the accruals of the health insurance organizations and hospitals (Adams, 2007). According to the World Health Organization's ranking of health systems, the U.S. has sunk to position 37in international rankings. Apart from the alteration and exclusion of facts a lot in "SiCKO" is useful. The movie is strongest when Moore permits normal Americans to narrate their heart-rending tales regarding the abuse they suffered in our highly profit-oriented insurance companies (Wong,2007). The manipulative utilization of music by Moore gives the required emotional motivation. The music influences the tempo, atmosphere, as well as the energy of the movie. At certain instances it is humorous and even exciting. The superstar of Michael Moore's movies is always Michael Moore. Initially, "SiCKO" appears to be the exemption. His aw-shucks-gee-whiz character is not impressive till half of the movie is through. The "SiCKO" initial half is more powerful due to its physical nonexistence, providing us the chance to concentrate on the personal suffering caused by our inefficient healthcare system (Wong, 2007).

"Roger and Me" possesses an extremely personal axe to grind and makes no effort to be politically neutral. One is constantly aware of the presence of Michael Moore, not just when he is shown on the screen, but also through his overbearing commentary and position as an editor, molding the material into the required shape weigh more powerfully. For example, the documentary concludes through "Pat Boone" playing "Happy Birthday" to the Michigan State that turned a hundred and fifty years. While Boone sings " ... and 150 more ... " a tower block is shown falling down in slow motion. Pat Boone's triteness is intentionally compared with the harsh reality of today's Michigan, with clear dramatic effect. The power originates from juxtaposition of pictures (which is the careful placing of differing imagery), that is fake and has been engineered in the edit (Film Education, n.d). Affronted in a chain of events to get to Smith, Moore turned the mission into loopy skullduggery. "William Tell Overture" the theme song from "The Lone Ranger" is incorporated in the sound track in one of his periodic raids to give Smith a surprise attack; he positions himself as a stockholder at the yearly General Motors shareholders conference and has his microphone disconnected just a few moments prior to posing a question to the press (RAINER, 1990)

Question D

Michael Moore's bowling for Columbine that picked up a dark-comic appearance in the U.S., was the winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2003. The acceptance speech of the director entailed quite a Moore-like statement in opposition to the Iraq war. It was mentioned that we live at a time where we have a man sending us to war for fabricated reasons and that we are in opposition to this war. In addition, at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, the movie was awarded the Special 55th Anniversary Prize. The director initiated a one-man stage show, Michael Moore-Live in late 2002 at London and New York. The Walt Disney Company debarred Miramax from handing out Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004 that critically assessed Bush's administration's handling of Iraq as well as the 'war on terror'. The movie also won the popular Palm d'Or at the Cannes Festival and finally became the very first documentary to win the weekend box office (biography.com, n.d). In order to make an influential documentary it has to successfully involve the audience into it. This is actually what drew me to Moore's work; the achievement of the Fahrenheit 9/11 falls in the manner through which Michael Moore engages his audience at all stages of the movie (Film Education).

Question e

The major subtext of the movie was the critical analysis of the presidency of Bush that is displayed and justified by Moore via certain occurrences. Another subtext of the documentary is that the powerless and needy are the main individuals whom we sent to fight in our battles and they end up losing their lives in those battles. This fact is well illustrated by Fahrenheit 9/11. Just one member of the Congress has his son in the armed forces at Iraq, Moore highlights, and he talks to several Congressmen outside the Capitol in Washington with the proposition that their own children should sign up to fight in the battle that they chose (Perez, 2004).

Various subtexts of Sicko include: political insinuation in support of Clinton with regards to her plan for national healthcare; nations are evaluated through means of which they treat their citizens and the United States scores quite badly. Healthcare is better in several nations outside the United States that ranks just above Slovenia. Health insurance providers utilize cruel techniques to obscure, holdup and/or get rid of health benefits from their insured citizenry and patients; monetary incentives and necessarily not the express interests of their constituency mostly inspire political leadership of the nation.

"Roger and Me" is basically a socialist documentary. We are left with an explicit of what is actually right and what is not, whereby capitalism emerges as the looser. To recap the position of Michael Moore: 1) Individuals are more significant when compared to profits; 2) Companies such as General Motors that gain from the profits are inclined to overlook individuals; 3) Hence, in affairs of society, it is either the individuals who manage the corporations, or the government manages the corporations on behalf of the individuals (Film Education, n. d)

Question F

Fahrenheit 9/11

"This has been my greatest challenge: because the current reality now seems so unreal, it's hard to make nonfiction seem believable. But you, my friend [Michael Moore], are able to do that."

Kurt Vonnegut (Goodreads, n.d.). Michael Moore to an interviewer when he asked how he responded to the critics who say that his films aren't documentaries:

"I make movies. I don't write nonfiction books. I don't call it nonfiction, I call it a book" (Hernandaz, 2009).