Manufacturing Dissent - Who has seen this documentary about Michael Moore

nepalnepal Posts: 143
edited October 2007 in A Moving Train
I saw this Canadian made documentary yesterday. Basically it tells that Michael Moore set up some scenes in Roger & I and Bowling for Columbine, for example the part where he goes to open up a bank account to get the rifle. That particular scene had been planned 30 days beforehand, and the rifle had to be brought to the bank from the vault 300 miles from the actual bank just for Michael Moore. He has also taken some scenes totally out of context, for example some speeches Bush held (that were in Fahrenheit 911). "Some people call you the elite, I call you my base." that for example was a situation where Bush was suppose to tell jokes and make fun of himself. Now I'm not a Bush supporter but I think that was still unfair. Moore was also really paranoid and mean to everyone who were against him or who he thought were against him or the ones he didn´t like, Ralph Nader for instance. There were also other things that the documentary brought to daylight. I now see that all the talk about Sicko getting confiscated because Moore visited Cuba without permission is just another marketing trick from him. I totally lost my faith in him and don't think I wanna see anything made by him in the near future.. If only you have the chance to see this documentary please do so, it would be interesting to see other comments about the documentary. (My first post ever to the "A moving train")
...the dreams ain't broken down here now,
they're walking with a limp
Post edited by Unknown User on
«1

Comments

  • CosmoCosmo Posts: 12,225
    I believe about as much in Michael Moore's movies as I do in Ann Coulter's books. Both are in the business of making money.
    Allen Fieldhouse, home of the 2008 NCAA men's Basketball Champions! Go Jayhawks!
    Hail, Hail!!!
  • edgarcampedgarcamp Posts: 100
    Michael Moore is well known for editing out any information that might actually be the truth.
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    I disagree with his support of Clinton and the Clintonian Health Reform ideal, but I love the guy's work. He does more, in his fashion, to inform the public than anyone else in America.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    edgarcamp wrote:
    Michael Moore is well known for editing out any information that might actually be the truth.

    Like what?
  • ByrnzieByrnzie Posts: 21,037
    nepal wrote:
    I saw this Canadian made documentary yesterday. Basically it tells that Michael Moore set up some scenes in Roger & I and Bowling for Columbine, for example the part where he goes to open up a bank account to get the rifle. That particular scene had been planned 30 days beforehand, and the rifle had to be brought to the bank from the vault 300 miles from the actual bank just for Michael Moore. He has also taken some scenes totally out of context, for example some speeches Bush held (that were in Fahrenheit 911). "Some people call you the elite, I call you my base." that for example was a situation where Bush was suppose to tell jokes and make fun of himself. Now I'm not a Bush supporter but I think that was still unfair. Moore was also really paranoid and mean to everyone who were against him or who he thought were against him or the ones he didn´t like, Ralph Nader for instance. There were also other things that the documentary brought to daylight. I now see that all the talk about Sicko getting confiscated because Moore visited Cuba without permission is just another marketing trick from him. I totally lost my faith in him and don't think I wanna see anything made by him in the near future.. If only you have the chance to see this documentary please do so, it would be interesting to see other comments about the documentary. (My first post ever to the "A moving train")

    Did this documentary give Michael Moore any opportunity to counter any of the above criticisms, or was it just a totally biased piece of right wing cack, simply made to try and discredit him?
  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    were you somehow under the impression that michael moore is not in the business of propaganda? i am a fan of michael moore but i dont believe everything he tells me. i'm too smart for that and you should be too. :)
    hear my name
    take a good look
    this could be the day
    hold my hand
    lie beside me
    i just need to say
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    were you somehow under the impression that michael moore is not in the business of propaganda? i am a fan of michael moore but i dont believe everything he tells me. i'm too smart for that and you should be too. :)

    I think there is a class of people who get too caught up into the minutae of a do-gooders deeds or work and we all do that kind of dance from time to time.
    The thing is, whether it be Bush, or Moore and a vision of how things could (or should) be, where is your heart on the matters that are?

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • nepalnepal Posts: 143
    Byrnzie wrote:
    Did this documentary give Michael Moore any opportunity to counter any of the above criticisms, or was it just a totally biased piece of right wing cack, simply made to try and discredit him?

    Yes they tried to get an interview from him for two years but for some reason he didn´t give it to them. In a short meeting they had with him in some other event where Michael Moore was the host, they did ask about the fact that he owns some Halliburton stocks, he denied this, even though the documentary makers had documents to prove this. The funny thing was, that the documentary makers were actually fans of his works, but during the make of the documentary they saw this other side of mr. Moore and find out things about him that that didn´t please them.
    ...the dreams ain't broken down here now,
    they're walking with a limp
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    nepal wrote:
    Yes they tried to get an interview from him for two years but for some reason he didn´t give it to them. In a short meeting they had with him in some other event where Michael Moore was the host, they did ask about the fact that he owns some Halliburton stocks, he denied this, even though the documentary makers had documents to prove this. The funny thing was, that the documentary makers were actually fans of his works, but during the make of the documentary they saw this other side of mr. Moore and find out things about him that that didn´t please them.

    The Halliburton stocks thing has been debunked. It's total BS.

    Go to Sean Hannity's board if you need that kind of stroking.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • nepalnepal Posts: 143
    gue_barium wrote:
    The Halliburton stocks thing has been debunked. It's total BS.

    Go to Sean Hannity's board if you need that kind of stroking.

    I´m just telling what I saw in the documentary, no need to start bashing. When and where has this been "debunked" ? Anyway the whole documentary wasn´t just about the Halliburton stocks.
    ...the dreams ain't broken down here now,
    they're walking with a limp
  • nepal wrote:
    I´m just telling what I saw in the documentary, no need to start bashing. When and where has this been "debunked" ? Anyway the whole documentary wasn´t just about the Halliburton stocks.


    The stock thing is just propaganda.

    It's old news....and fake
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • jlew24asujlew24asu Posts: 10,118
    The stock thing is just propaganda.

    It's old news....and fake

    he asked for proof. like always, you simply saying is fake is good enough.
  • jlew24asujlew24asu Posts: 10,118
    nepal wrote:
    I´m just telling what I saw in the documentary, no need to start bashing. When and where has this been "debunked" ? Anyway the whole documentary wasn´t just about the Halliburton stocks.

    don't sweat it dude. michael moore is treated like a god around here. even though he is nothing more then a hateful fat bag of shit
  • jlew24asu wrote:
    don't sweat it dude. michael moore is treated like a god around here. even though he is nothing more then a hateful fat bag of shit


    Stop being such a hateful bag of shit...
    Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
    and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
    over specific principles, goals, and policies.

    http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg

    (\__/)
    ( o.O)
    (")_(")
  • jlew24asujlew24asu Posts: 10,118
    Stop being such a hateful bag of shit...

    thats a personal attack. something thats not allowed here. I hope you get banned
  • catefrancescatefrances Posts: 29,003
    don't make me have to separate you boys.
    hear my name
    take a good look
    this could be the day
    hold my hand
    lie beside me
    i just need to say
  • chopitdownchopitdown Posts: 2,222
    http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070420/moore_doc_070420/20070420?hub=Entertainment
    TORONTO -- Canadians Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine still remember with glee watching documentarian Michael Moore assail President George W. Bush for waging a "fictitious war" against Iraq when the filmmaker won an Oscar in 2003.

    Four years later, the husband-and-wife filmmaking team would never have dreamed that their own documentary about Moore would prompt the American right-wing media to try to claim them as poster children for the anti-Moore, pro-Bush cause.

    "That Oscar speech - when he did that, we were standing in our living room literally on our feet applauding," Caine recalled Thursday. "At that time, four days into the Iraq war, 80 per cent of the American public was onside with that war. So it was an incredibly courageous thing to do at that juncture."

    Filled with admiration, the couple set out to make a film about their hero, who first became a darling of the left with "Roger and Me." That 1989 documentary centred on Moore's supposedly unsuccessful attempts to get GM president Roger Smith to talk to him about the devastating effects on Flint, Mich., after the carmaker closed down a plant there.

    What they discovered about Moore's techniques as they began to research the portly filmmaker stunned and disappointed them. Their journey can be seen in "Manufacturing Dissent," a startling documentary screening Sunday night at Toronto's Hot Docs film festival, running till April 29.

    "It was a slow reveal, really," Melnyk says. "We go into things and start to research them as we go along and start to do interviews with people, and we started to realize: 'Oh my God, there are some cheats in these films.' Obviously, the biggest one being that Michael actually did talk to Roger Smith twice during the making of 'Roger and Me.'

    "That one really, really bothered me. Because, OK, if you're willing to lie about the entire premise of the film, then what is sacrosanct? There must have been other smaller cheats along the way. So that was a shocker."

    Moore, for his part, hasn't commented on "Manufacturing Dissent," suggesting recently to a New York film website, http://www.thereeler.com, that he'd never heard of it - even though, as shown in the documentary, Melnyk approached him at various public events over two years to plead for an interview.

    "There are a lot of films made about me ... there's probably nine or 10 of them out there," he told a reporter for the website.

    Such apparent disingenuousness is par for the course for Moore, according to those who spoke on camera to Melnyk and Caine. Indeed, the couple say the dishonesty about Roger Smith wasn't the only false note in "Roger and Me" - an entire segment featuring an ABC news reporter telling viewers how a disgruntled autoworker had driven off with the network's satellite truck was a fake.

    The reporter was a friend of Moore's and agreed to stage the phoney report as a favour to him, they say.

    "The story never happened to begin with, but then to trot out the unemployed autoworker as the culprit - that really had political motivation written all over it and it wasn't necessary. There were other stories out there to be had; he didn't need to make one up," Caine says.

    With those sorts of revelations - "Manufacturing Dissent" unveils similar questionable tactics used in Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11" and his Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine" - it's no wonder American right-wing news organizations, longtime Moore foes, quickly came calling after the film screened last month at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas.

    Several Fox News shows were keen to book the couple for some on-air Moore-bashing. They agreed to go on a live Fox show - but only to prevent their comments from being edited to fit what they feel is the network's political agenda.

    The couple came out with guns blazing on Fox's "The Live Desk" with host Martha MacCallum (watch it at http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/03/14/fox-news-gets-a-little-taste-of-th e-truth/.)

    "We said: 'This is crap. We do not want to become poster kids for the right-wing media. No, we haven't seen the light and converted.' That is exactly what they were thinking," Melnyk says. "But we were intent on telling them that it's not only Michael Moore who is lying and cheating, it's mainstream news organizations and George Bush."

    Adds Caine with a laugh: "I could hear a person in New York screaming into my earpiece: 'Get that asshole off the air.' They cut us off."

    The couple, in short, refused to bitterly attack Moore, even though his handlers once had them kicked out of the audience at one of his speeches.

    "He really is media-savvy so he likes to know where everyone's coming from," Melnyk says. "So he doesn't know us from Adam. He doesn't know our film. He couldn't predict where we were going to go, and he really likes to have control of everything."

    She sounds almost defensive of her erstwhile idol, yet Melnyk is also still clearly dismayed by what she discovered while making "Manufacturing Dissent."
    make sure the fortune that you seek...is the fortune that you need
  • 810wmb810wmb Posts: 849
    jlew24asu wrote:
    don't sweat it dude. michael moore is treated like a god around here. even though he is nothing more then a hateful fat bag of shit


    HAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHA...

    made my day!!
    i'm the meat, yer not...signed Capt Asshat
  • angelicaangelica Posts: 6,038
    nepal wrote:
    I saw this Canadian made documentary yesterday. Basically it tells that Michael Moore set up some scenes in Roger & I and Bowling for Columbine, for example the part where he goes to open up a bank account to get the rifle. That particular scene had been planned 30 days beforehand, and the rifle had to be brought to the bank from the vault 300 miles from the actual bank just for Michael Moore. He has also taken some scenes totally out of context, for example some speeches Bush held (that were in Fahrenheit 911). "Some people call you the elite, I call you my base." that for example was a situation where Bush was suppose to tell jokes and make fun of himself. Now I'm not a Bush supporter but I think that was still unfair. Moore was also really paranoid and mean to everyone who were against him or who he thought were against him or the ones he didn´t like, Ralph Nader for instance. There were also other things that the documentary brought to daylight. I now see that all the talk about Sicko getting confiscated because Moore visited Cuba without permission is just another marketing trick from him. I totally lost my faith in him and don't think I wanna see anything made by him in the near future.. If only you have the chance to see this documentary please do so, it would be interesting to see other comments about the documentary. (My first post ever to the "A moving train")

    Congrats on your first ever moving train post! It's not for the weak-hearted around here, but you're off to a good start! I don't doubt anything you've said here, even though I respect what Michael Moore has done in general.

    I find his "slant" and his treatment of people to be viscious at times. He condescends to people. And he grandstands. He'll definitely do what he can to get his point across, even if he's not operating with balance and integrity all the time. He's only human, and is not perfect, even though he means well on the overview, I think.
    "The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr

    http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta

    Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
  • bingerbinger Posts: 179
    Whose purpose does he really serve? He who does not unite, divides. Simple as that.
    I want to point out that people who seem to have no power, whether working people, people of color, or women -- once they organize and protest and create movements -- have a voice no government can suppress. Howard Zinn
  • Kel VarnsenKel Varnsen Posts: 1,952
    I think the thing that bugs me the most about Moore, even more than the "facts" that he makes up are the ambush style interviews he does. I saw Bowling for Columbine where he used this technique a bunch of times; confronting people on the street when they totally weren’t prepared to talk to him. I know a lot of times these people probably wouldn’t give him an interview, but even so it totally comes across as hostile. Plus it seems that the whole point of this is to try and get the person to say “no comment” or “I don’t know” and run away (which he totally portrays as a bad thing and makes it look like these people are hiding soemthing). When in reality if some guy with a camera confronts you on the street and starts asking you things you are not 100% sure about of course you are not going to give him an answer.
  • onelongsongonelongsong Posts: 3,517
    gue_barium wrote:
    I disagree with his support of Clinton and the Clintonian Health Reform ideal, but I love the guy's work. He does more, in his fashion, to inform the public than anyone else in America.

    if someone tells the public lies; how can that be considered INFORMING the public? moore has done more to mislead the public that anyone else.
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    if someone tells the public lies; how can that be considered INFORMING the public? moore has done more to mislead the public that anyone else.

    I don't know what that disinformation might be. Let me put it another way. His documentaries get people talking about things we should be talking about.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    binger wrote:
    Whose purpose does he really serve? He who does not unite, divides. Simple as that.

    Why do you take his films personally?

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • onelongsongonelongsong Posts: 3,517
    gue_barium wrote:
    I don't know what that disinformation might be. Let me put it another way. His documentaries get people talking about things we should be talking about.

    his films detract from reality and give the sheep who believe his babble the wrong perspective. we do need to talk about healthcare but we need to stay within reality. for example; millions of people now believe you can pull into cuba and get healthcare. in reality; you are imprisoned. if you're in cuba legally but not a citizen; you go to a seperate hospital for non-citizens and you pay for services. cuban hospitals require you to provide your own linens and food. none are air conditioned. he also failed to reviel that cuban doctors earn the equivilant of $20USD per month.
    so without giving the public the facts; the public wonders why a little island can provide free healthcare while a mighty nation cannot. if american doctors would agree to earning only $20/month we'd have free healthcare. that was moores message.
    my best friend is italian and living in toffia. she's been suffering with back problems for years and hasn't been on the board because she can no longer sit at her pc. in the states they'd install a dorsal column stimulator but the italian doctors are still having her put wedges in her shoes trying to change the point her weight sits on her spine.
    as with everything else in life; you get what you pay for.
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    his films detract from reality and give the sheep who believe his babble the wrong perspective. we do need to talk about healthcare but we need to stay within reality. for example; millions of people now believe you can pull into cuba and get healthcare. in reality; you are imprisoned. if you're in cuba legally but not a citizen; you go to a seperate hospital for non-citizens and you pay for services. cuban hospitals require you to provide your own linens and food. none are air conditioned. he also failed to reviel that cuban doctors earn the equivilant of $20USD per month.
    so without giving the public the facts; the public wonders why a little island can provide free healthcare while a mighty nation cannot. if american doctors would agree to earning only $20/month we'd have free healthcare. that was moores message.
    my best friend is italian and living in toffia. she's been suffering with back problems for years and hasn't been on the board because she can no longer sit at her pc. in the states they'd install a dorsal column stimulator but the italian doctors are still having her put wedges in her shoes trying to change the point her weight sits on her spine.
    as with everything else in life; you get what you pay for.
    The problem is that people like you look for "personal" truths in what is in fact, facts presented to you in such a way to create dialogue on the subject at hand. It engages people to use their critical thinking skills. But if your critical thinking only lies within the realm of what your Daddy says to be true, then you may have trouble grasping that.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • onelongsongonelongsong Posts: 3,517
    gue_barium wrote:
    The problem is that people like you look for "personal" truths in what is in fact, facts presented to you in such a way to create dialogue on the subject at hand. It engages people to use their critical thinking skills. But if your critical thinking only lies within the realm of what your Daddy says to be true, then you may have trouble grasping that.

    the film was fictional. all his films are. they do not contain enough truth and by tricking the public into believing his babble; he makes a lot of money from the people he fools. if his intent was to bring the true healthcare crisis to light; it would have addressed the real problems keeping the us from having socialized medicine. for example; if we took the 14 million illegals in america and dropped them into any country; that country's healthcare system would fold.
  • gue_bariumgue_barium Posts: 5,515
    the film was fictional. all his films are. they do not contain enough truth and by tricking the public into believing his babble; he makes a lot of money from the people he fools. if his intent was to bring the true healthcare crisis to light; it would have addressed the real problems keeping the us from having socialized medicine. for example; if we took the 14 million illegals in america and dropped them into any country; that country's healthcare system would fold.

    There is no trickery, unless you're looking for trickery. There are no out-and-out lies, say, as there were in the Bush administrations excuse for war. Moore always stands by his facts. It's the in-between that's got you puzzled.

    all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
    except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
  • onelongsongonelongsong Posts: 3,517
    gue_barium wrote:
    There is no trickery, unless you're looking for trickery. There are no out-and-out lies, say, as there were in the Bush administrations excuse for war. Moore always stands by his facts. It's the in-between that's got you puzzled.

    CNN and HEADLINE NEWS both ran specials showing the trickery in sicko. both sent crews to canadian clinics and interviewed those waiting for hours to be seen. someone here posted a link to lawsuits brought against the canadian healthcare system. one involved someone waiting for a hip replacement and another concerning a movement to allow free enterprise medicine in addition to the socialized medicine program. this would allow those who could afford better medicine; access to it. another person posted a link to a story which claimed a dog can get a hip replacement faster than a human could in canada. the original poster mentioned a documentary pointing out the trickery.
    what ever happened to hillary-care? during the clinton era hillary had this wonderful idea to bring free healthcare to all americans. that idea fizzled when the real problems were brought to light.
  • AhnimusAhnimus Posts: 10,560
    Well, I know Sicko was full of shit because I researched some of the claims in the film. I did discover some interesting facts about Cuban health care and the relationship with the U.S. Especially concerning hurrican Katrina. But nothing that supported the claims in Sicko. And I know from personal experience with the Canadian Health Care system that Sicko's claims were false.

    But this raises a good point. How are we to trust this film, or that film or the next film. None of these documentaries or shockumentaries ever provide citations or sources for their information, any pans of newspaper clippings or government documents tend not to reveal enough to aquire them one's self. I've seen several Alex Jones documentaries and subsequently tried to independantly locate the documents provided in the films, to my dismay this proved to be impossible in many cases.

    The only way to know for sure what is going on is to do it yourself.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
Sign In or Register to comment.