June
29
Sicko Watch: Pierson vs. Moore
U of Texas, Austin film prof John Pierson, who wrote Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes, used the anti-Michael Moore docu Manufacturing Dissent to teach his film students. They were disillusioned about Moore after seeing the film, he writes in an open letter to Moore in Indiewire.
I saw Manufacturing Dissent before I did the first interview with Moore, published during Cannes. There are some embarrassing revelations in the docu, which shows all too clearly that Moore doesn't mind bending the truth to make his point. He's a little like Orson Welles in Touch of Evil; he'll use any means to get his man.
Clearly, though, Moore has matured. When I saw Sicko I forgave him his past trespasses. He is on the side of the angels on this one. The man cares about these causes (even if he drives the folks who have to work with him crazy).
UPDATE: Moore is laughing all the way to the bank with Sicko.
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Here is Michael Moore's reaction on "Manufacturing Dissent".... kind of....
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/celeb/articles/0617moore-ON.html
[ "Anybody who says that is a (expletive) liar," Moore told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday after a showing of "Sicko," his take on U.S. medicine, in the northern Michigan village of Bellaire.
Moore, who said he hadn't seen "Manufacturing Dissent," acknowledged having had "a good five minutes of back-and forth" with Smith about a company tax abatement at a 1987 shareholders' meeting, as reported by Premiere magazine in 1990. But that was before he began working on "Roger & Me" and had nothing to do with the film, Moore said.
A clip of the meeting appears in "Manufacturing Dissent," released in March. Filmmakers Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk also interviewed an activist who said he saw Moore interview Smith in 1988 in New York.
Caine and Melnyk say that undercuts the central theme of "Roger & Me" - Moore's fruitless effort to interview Smith about the effects of GM plant closings in Flint, Moore's hometown. Moore, however, said the film wasn't primarily about interviewing Smith, but getting him to observe the economic devastation in Flint.
"If I'd gotten an interview with him, why wouldn't I put it in the film?" Moore said. "Any exchange with Roger Smith would have been valuable." And GM surely would have publicized any interview in response to the movie, he said.
"I'm so used to listening to the stuff people say about me, it just becomes entertainment for me at this point," Moore said. "It's a fictional character that's been created with the name of Michael Moore." ]
Posted by: marychan | June 29, 2007 at 09:55 PM
Hey Anne-
I stole that "on the side of the angels" from you
back in Cannes. Also poached "icon of infotainment" from Gina Piccalo at the LA Times. I think I wrote the rest on my own.
Love SiCKO and hope one and all go this weekend and beyond.
John
Posted by: John Pierson | June 30, 2007 at 10:43 AM