Manufacturing Dissent - Who has seen this documentary about Michael Moore

nepal

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")

Cosmo

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.

edgarcamp

Michael Moore is well known for editing out any information that might actually be the truth.

gue_barium

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.

Byrnzie

edgarcamp wrote:

Michael Moore is well known for editing out any information that might actually be the truth.

Like what?

Byrnzie

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?

catefrances

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.

gue_barium

catefrances wrote:

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?

nepal

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.

gue_barium

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.

nepal

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.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

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

jlew24asu

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

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.

jlew24asu

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

RolandTD20Kdrummer

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...

jlew24asu

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

Stop being such a hateful bag of shit...

thats a personal attack. something thats not allowed here. I hope you get banned

catefrances

don't make me have to separate you boys.

chopitdown

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."

810wmb

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!!

angelica

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.

binger

Whose purpose does he really serve? He who does not unite, divides. Simple as that.