Michael Moore doesn’t make documentaries. He makes illustrated essays from a
heart dipped in bitterness. This filmmaker knows exactly what he wants to say
and he sets forth with his camera to make his case. He brings this, his eighth
film, to a public that understands they will be seeing a presentation, not an
exploration. Awash by turn in laughter, shocked silence, or applause, audiences
root for this rotund, slothful provocateur who is determined to fight power with
his camera.
Moore still
carries the memories of a happy childhood in Flint, Michigan where his father
was a contented and proud automobile worker for GM, and where even today, his
heart aches when he looks at the flattened remains of the once prosperous town.
His bitterness springs from GM arrogance - then and now.
While his
film is a predictable attack on corporate power and malfeasance, it is also a
heartfelt summons to all of us to open our eyes to the corporate tentacles that
run through the Washington power structure. It is impossible, Moore believes, to
regulate capitalism. When money is the sole reward, people will do anything to
get it, and they are doing anything to get it even now.
In a dazzling
visual opening, Moore compares the fall of Rome with the fall of America.
Startled to full attention, we then watch a string of the gravely sad stories of
families losing their houses to foreclosure. Enforcement brings out the ugly
words of foreclosure: carcass, vulture, vomit. We are reminded that in post-war
America, families needed just one income and a safe pension; but with the
industries of Germany and Japan destroyed by war, there was virtually no
competition from the countries who would later become America’s competitors.
We visit
Wilkes Barre, PA, where the juvenile detention center is shut down in favor of
PA Childcare, a private company whose CEO secures the cooperation of the local
judge in building its detained population. The judge simply incarcerates
juveniles for minor infractions to fill the private coffers. A minute later we
learn that several millio n Americans are covered, without their knowledge, by
their companies with life insurance policies (beneficiary: the company). They
are more valuable dead than alive to their clever employers. Think Wal Mart,
Citigroup, Bank of America, to name just a few. The name of this smarmy
practice? Dead Peasant insurance.
Do you know
about FOA? Friends of Angelo, the CEO of Countrywide Credit. Senator Chris Dodd
was given over a million dollars in unsecured loans, and he’s just one FOA. It
is very ugly stuff. Were derivatives used to destroy Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
in order to destroy government competition? What are the longtime effects of the
revolving door between Wall Street and Washington? How many Goldman Sachs
executives hang their coats in Washington? Where do their loyalties lie?
You won’t be
surprised to hear that this movie is Mic hael Moore’s emotional call for a
“revolt of the peasants.”
Copyright (c) Illusion