Documentaries can be very interesting without resorting to Moore’s tricks. They’re deceptive, and that’s bad for documentary filmmaking. He’s gotten progressively more loose over the years from what I understand.
Icarus is a fantastic fucking documentary. Some of the best documentaries are when the director goes out to document X, but finds out Y is so much better.
Icarus director fully set out to do a documentary on seeing if steroids would help in a bicycle race. YADA YADA YADA. Russians are banned from the Olympics.
I don’t even know what that means. I don’t care to dissect shit and be overly critical and pretend I’m a historian, fit to challenge minutia. The broad point remains and is what’s important.
We need more propagandists. That’s why the left is in dire straights, and people don’t bat an eye over 72 billion in annual profits by the Medical Insurance racket.
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The Jinx was supposed to be a special feature interview on a DVD, and went way out of control quickly. I think that documentary is a text book in what not to do as a documentary filmmaker, but they got their Emmy because of the outcome. I wanted to punch the filmmakers in the face, and had unbelievable rage over it. They might have tanked his court case, as an FYI.
Propaganda is fine if you advertise it as propaganda. Serious documentary filmmaking shouldn’t be on that standard. If your story is good, you don’t need that. If your story’s not good you have to cook it.
CEOs and shareholders are happy chefs.
While you want some fuckin standard upheld in film-making.
Yeah, it’s called not being a hack. I’m not a hack.
We are leftists and siting here disparaging an icon that has done more than his part to publicize various subjects we hold dear. And how on Earth are stories about gun violence, America’s crumbling manufacturing industry, Healthcare and meddling war not good stories? He didn’t have to cook anything.
detail the chronological objection you have.
Well, you know my thoughts about guillotines so maybe I can bridge this Moore divide. I think his ‘subtle’ editing tricks do more harm to the cause than otherwise. They’re unforced errors.
See I need help with the specifics. If you guys wanna go into detail about your objections to particular scenes etc.
I mean, that’s fine. Activities available. Film critics are needed by a select few
I’m not going to sit here and debate you on documentary style, but I’ll give you an example of bad chronology of the type Moore loves to use.
Let’s say John Kerry votes for the Iraq War. In 2004, he realizes it’s a mistake and votes against it. So, the GOP can paint him as a flip flopper instead of saying he’s introspective. In the Michael Moore style of filmmaking, he might have Kerry do something like be against the war, then for the war, then against the war. He doesn’t give you dates, he just randomly throws stuff out of order, often years out of context to fit his narrative agenda. That’s it. It’s the equivalent of ‘fake news’.
He’s a good filmmaker who tells good stories, but he uses often very offensive storytelling techniques that are completely unnecessary to telling his story.
The introspective euphemism for flip-flopper is a new one for me.
So you go to a fast food restaurant and get the runs. You regret you bought it, and wished you hadn’t. You don’t go back to the restaurant. Are you introspective or a flip flopper?
Btw I’m not disparaging him or cosigning the ‘hack’ comment. I quite like him and his films.
It’s just that nunnehi and I both have worked on audio for these types of things so the ‘LOL wait it is impossible this was one fluid shot’ moments are immediately glaring.
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Neither. I’m a knowing consumer of crap food and got a particularly bad batch that visit.
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I think this whole conversation should be excised to a thread called:
Documentary Filmmaking Choices
Or some such thing.
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It’s just the wider message, and a perfect salesman is hard to find.
It’s like with finding fault with Yang on his commitment to UBI, what do you want from him exactly? Some polished, focus-group-approved spiel?
It’s a new dawn, amigos. Trump has shown that strict playbook adherence isn’t needed, nor is it wanted by voters.
It never was
I’ve agreed with Michael Moore’s premise in every documentary I’ve seen of his.
I just think he would be more effective if he didn’t try to make himself a character in his documentaries.
Him being in the story is fine, it gives him a point of view. He just doesn’t need to cook it like he does. In no way would I call Michael Moore documentaries bad, but like 6ix said, it’s always a lot of unforced errors. He had a longer leash on Roger & Me because he had no clue what he was doing. He learned on the fly.