Many directors and stars who come through town to promote a film do so quietly, giving press interviews and perhaps appearing at a preview screening. But Michael Moore isn’t just a director; he’s a liberal firebrand campaigning for change. That means his recent one-day visit to Chicago was as tightly scheduled as any politician’s. He did radio and television interviews, a roundtable interview with a group of print journalists (in which we took part), a rally at Millennium Park, a guest spot on US radio show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, a Q&A after a screening of Sicko, and a late-night reception at which he continued preaching the gospel of healthcare reform.
Ever since Roger & Me, Moore has been as much a crusader as he is a filmmaker. Unlike many documentarians, Moore believes in making his positions on issues absolutely clear, eschewing neutrality – which many people see as the sine qua non of a proper documentary – and playing gotcha with the people in power (GM chairman Roger Smith, NRA spokesman Charlton Heston, etc). He’s like a cross between P.T. Barnum and Ralph Nader.
When Moore decided to tackle American healthcare, he went on the web and solicited medical horror stories from the uninsured. In just a few weeks, he got 25,000 responses, many from people who had insurance, but got screwed by their HMOs. That changed his original plan to pick a few people and help them with their healthcare woes. ‘I thought that we needed to focus not on individuals, just saving 10 lives, but rather on trying to save a whole lot more lives by going after the system itself,’ Moore explains.
Of course, going after the system means annoying people with a lot of power. This spring, the government declared that it was investigating him for taking September 11 rescue workers to Cuba in search of better healthcare. ‘They’ve sent me a certified letter telling me I’m under investigation,’ Moore says with a bemused smile. He’s sanguine, though, because he is sure he’s done nothing wrong. ‘The law is very clear. If you go down there for journalistic endeavours – that’s what this was, it’s a documentary, it’s a non-fiction film – you don’t have to get a license, you don’t have to get approval. So I was kind of surprised that they actually came after me.’
Moore’s wry sense of humour kicks in. ‘I’m surprised at another level, too, that they would want to bring publicity and attention to the film…. If they want to go after me, go after me six months from now after the film has already left the theatres. Why would you do it just a few weeks before? It just doesn’t seem very smart…and that’s the key word. This is another one of those Brownie situations and no one really thought it out.’ Sceptics might wonder, is all this talk about a government investigation just another Moore publicity stunt?
They might wonder the same about the leaking of a high-quality copy of Sicko onto the internet just before its opening weekend. Moore has his suspicions about how that happened. ‘Who has the most interest in trying to destroy the opening-weekend box office of this film? Because this wasn’t a kid that took a home video camera to a movie theatre; this was a master digital. Clearly an inside job. So if I were a cop, if I were a detective, I would ask that question. What’s the motive here in doing this?’ He stops short of accusing the healthcare companies, letting the journalists fill in the blanks. Regardless of how the film was leaked (expect Moore critics to say he did it himself), Moore figures any publicity is good publicity.
For those who find Moore’s blend of japery and rage annoying, the good news is that Sicko tones down Moore’s stridency. But that doesn’t mean he’s gone soft; he wants to start a revolution in healthcare.
‘I know that my audience has grown with each film, and I know they like to live vicariously through me, like, “Yeah, go at ‘em, Michael. Take ‘em on!” But this is never gonna change with just Michael Moore doing it. The audience has to get up outta the theatres. The audience has to go and participate. And I hope that they feel that, and I think they do. I’ve seen audiences at the end of this movie leave the theatre going, “Raaarhhh!’?” Barnum would love it, but so would Nader. Mission accomplished.
Sicko is out this month.
