Other Crap

Roger Ebert writes about Michael Moore and the nature of documentaries.

• Ebert raises a very good point. Almost no documentarian starts his film as a tabula rasa, exploring the truth as he goes, open to take either side of the argument, depending on what the evidence reveals. The documentarian is generally inspired to do his film by his passion for the subject, and passion for a political subject implies a point of view.
• Using only the facts, it is possible to make a documentary showing that President Bush is a valiant, decisive leader who responded forcefully to 9-11, or that he is a manipulative, immature thinker who allowed irrelevant personal preconceptions to distract him from the really important elements of the War in Terror. The key question is "which set of facts do you want to look at?" A documentarian makes that call based on his own passion and his own inclination toward advocacy. I think we all know where Michael Moore stands.
• What Ebert fails to say explicitly is the logical conclusion from his premise: that nobody watching a documentary should be persuaded by it, because the film he is watching is some small and carefully selected portion of the footage shot, that portion which best justifies the filmmaker's POV. And the portion which contradicts the filmmaker's POV was never even shot to begin with.
• In other words, if you are moved or entertained or enlightened by Moore's film, then it has done its job, but if you think it is a scientific investigation into the truth, or an attempt to view the complete situation in balance, then you have not done your own job.
• The key to Michael Moore's strategy is not to affect the hardened positions of the right and left. There are two things his film may accomplish (1) it may make a powerful enough case to stir some of those who agree with his position to override their natural apathy and go to the polls (2) it may influence those still in the "undecided" camp. Will Moore's film affect many votes? No. But it does not take many votes to affect the outcome of an election, as the State of Florida showed in the year 2000. Moore's film will have no impact at all on perhaps 99.9% of the tens of millions of people who vote in November. But that's not really important. If Moore can affect only 500 votes in a swing state, he may influence an election, and Lord knows that's what he's hoping for.
• Well, that and to create a memorable film which a large audience can relate to in some way.