SubscribeDocumentary Reveals Michael Moore’s Deceptions
From the UK’s Times:
Tables turned on Fahrenheit 9/11’s maker
March 04, 2007
Tony Allen-Mills
The hunter has become the hunted. Michael Moore, the celebrated left-wing film-maker, has become the unwilling subject of a new documentary that raises damaging questions about the credibility of his work.
The director and star of successful documentaries such as Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore has repeatedly been accused by his right-wing enemies of distorting or manipulating the material in his films. On his website he dismisses his critics as “wacko attackos”.
Yet the latest assault on Moore’s film-making techniques has come from an unexpected quarter. In Manufacturing Dissent, a documentary to be shown for the first time at a Texas film festival on Saturday, a pair of left-wing Canadian film-makers take Moore to task for what they describe as a disturbing pattern of fact-fudging and misrepresentation.
“When we started this project we hoped to have done a documentary that celebrated Michael Moore. We were admirers and fans,” said Debbie Melnyk, who made the film with her husband, Rick Caine. “Then we found out certain facts about his documentaries that we hadn’t known before. We ended up very disappointed and disillusioned.”Melnyk and Caine are best known for their previous documentary Citizen Black, about Conrad Black, the Canadian-born former proprietor of The Daily Telegraph. Last week both of them acknowledged an important debt to Moore for popularising the documentary genre.
Yet when Caine and Melnyk began to follow him as part of their own documentary, their efforts to interview him met with the same kind of obstruction, denial and, ultimately, physical ejection that Moore had suffered when he tried to track down Roger Smith, the former chief executive of General Motors, for his first film, Roger & Me.
It was in Flint, Michigan, Moore’s former home town, that Caine and Melnyk made the first discovery that they say rocked their confidence in his approach. Roger & Me was a hugely successful account of what Moore portrayed as a fruitless task to force Smith to answer questions about GM’s policies in closing the car manufacturing plants that had long been Flint’s economic lifeline.
Caine and Melnyk claim that Moore interviewed Smith on camera twice. But the scenes were left on the cutting room floor, apparently for greater dramatic effect.
Manufacturing Dissent includes a long catalogue of alleged exaggerations or distortions in several of Moore’s films. In Bowling for Columbine, a scathing indictment of US gun violence, Moore visited Toronto to show parts of the city that were supposedly so free of crime everyone left their front doors unlocked.
“In the film, Michael makes it look as though 100% of the doors were unlocked, but his local producer told us it was really only 40%,” said Caine.
Caine and Melnyk said they had hoped to interview Moore about his views on how much editing was acceptable before a factual documentary turned into misleading propaganda.
“We had met him at a premiere of the Columbine film in Toronto, and he said, ‘Oh yes, talk to my people and they’ll set something up’,” said Caine. “We then called his people and they said he’s not doing any more interviews in Toronto. We had his e-mail, we sent a letter to his lawyers, we had his phone number in New York. But each time he said no.”
Then Caine and Melnyk began to run into open hostility. Eventually, in a scene that might have come from Roger & Me, they were bundled out of an event at Kent State University, where Moore’s sister, Anne, knocked aside Caine’s camera.
Moore is reportedly editing his next film, Sicko, about the US healthcare system, and a spokesman said he had no comment on Manufacturing Dissent. On his website he dismissed critics of Bowling for Columbine as “lying liars” and claimed that “organised groups [are] going full blast trying to discredit me”.
Yet Caine and Melnyk insist they should not be confused with the right-wing hordes who want to damage Moore.
“If you have to sell out your values and principles to get at a greater truth, where does that leave you?” said Melnyk.
“If we think it’s wrong for the government to lie and manipulate, how do we think that [left-wingers] doing it is the solution?”
It sounds like this documentary just scratched the surface on Mr. Moore’s many frauds.
Speaking of one of which, whatever happened to his Katrina documentary?
I thought for sure he was working with the obvious frauds at the Veterans For Peace just so he would be able to expose them.
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17 Responses to “Documentary Reveals Michael Moore’s Deceptions”
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March 5th, 2007 at 3:42 am
Has anyone read “Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man”? I can’t remember who wrote it, but it is a fantastic expose of Fatboy Moore’s litany of lies and paranoid delusions. Unsurprisingly, I could not buy it in any mainstream bookshop over here (we don’t stock pro-American books in Europe it appears). But I got it on Amazon. Please, please, please read this book and pass it around to all your friends (or buy it for them as birthday presennts, the authors deserve to make heaps of money) - particularly the deluded ones who actually believe the sewer crap that comes out of Moore’s fat gob.
March 5th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Michael Moore? Fact-fudging? Misrepresentation? You don’t say. I’m shocked, just shocked…
Actually, when I saw “Fahrenheit 9/11″ I was really surprised at how “high-schoolish” the whole thing was. I mean,as a piece of propaganda it was very effective but as an intellectual presentation it was so weak and poorly argued that I was amazed anyone took it seriously. Is that it? Is that all you got? I kept thinking, but it was enough, apparently, for that Oscar jury. Still, I’m glad Michael’s such a success - its always good to see a college dropout holding down a job.
March 5th, 2007 at 7:45 am
I haven’t read it, but I haven’t seen Farenheit 4/11 either–don’t even know if it’s out yet. I remember seeing how he’d taken six cuts of Heston’s speech, rearranged them, and then added a seventh cut from a completely different speech to present as Heston’s speech in Columbine for “Bowling for Columbine”, but the evidence is in and then some already. Anybody who actually believes what Micheal Moore says is an itiot.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Would someone please cover his face, I am about to puke.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:06 am
I suspect this documentary won’t even scratch the surface. What concerns me is the following statement:
“If you have to sell out your values and principles to get at a greater truth, where does that leave you?” said Melnyk.
This suggests that the film will still endorse the rubbish and lies spouted by Fatboy, just suggesting that he needed to resort to unethical measures to portray the “truth”.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Anybody who wants to know the real michael moore should read “Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy” by Peter Schweizer.
http://www.amazon.com/Do-As-Sa.....amp;sr=1-2
You’ll also see the real barbara streisand, al franken, nancy pelosi and several others.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:35 am
“This suggests that the film will still endorse the rubbish and lies spouted by Fatboy, just suggesting that he needed to resort to unethical measures to portray the “truth”.
Your absolutely right EC. Hence Dan Rather and the left’s motto “Fake but accurate.”
March 5th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I’m sure Micheal Moore not only scrubbed his Katrina documentary but would like everyone to forget that he was ever involved with the VFP’s fund raising. As I detailed here, the VFP now admits to mishandling at least $50,000. It’s a long way from a full accounting but probably all they will ever willingly confess. This one sentence from the VFP board minutes says it best:
Malik Rahim’s Common Ground seems to have received the lion’s share of the VFP’s cash and has been plagued with his own problems.
Back in September while Rahim was busy telling anyone who would listen how to run the country at “Camp Democracy” violence broke out at the Malik run housing project know as Woodland Apartments.
http://www.nola.com/printer/pr.....199050.xml
Shortly after this incident, the true owners of the Woodlands sold the troubled apartment complex. The new owners quickly evicted all residents and took out restraining orders against anyone connected to Common Grounds.
Nice friends you have there, Mikey.
March 5th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Euro–To answer your question, I have.
Privatestock–I’ve read Schweitzer’s book at least ten times.
JohnX–With friends like those, Michael Moore hardly needs enemies.
March 5th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
There a number of good rebutals out there of MMs ‘crockamentarys’ and lifestyle. I just find it rich when the ‘left’ gets the same treatment that conservatives get all the time (Melnyk and Caine). Doesn’t feel all that good, does it? Yes, it is nice to see ‘fans’ besmirched by MM, but in reality is it a surprise at all? Or should it be. The left is known for dishing it out but not taking it.
I’ve read ‘Michael Moore is a big fat stupid white man’ by David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke. It is good. [Always loved the assine title, since he IS a stupid white man] I just guess MM thought it was funny.
I have Farenhype 9/11, it is what began to change my teenage daughter’s mind about MM.
I read “Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy” by Peter Schweizer. (Just finished it).
As I keep saying with the left - if the basis of your story/idea/belief is a lie - it just makes the whole movie/crockumentary/news article suspect.
And thanks to our non-biased media - we don’t have a clue as to how all the lawsuits against Farenheit 9/11 and MM are doing (although I think Pete Damon’s (SGT, Ret) was settled or dropped. But I do know that the Marines (not the one he took around DC, but the recruiters?) tried to go after him and I know that Michael Pederson’s (Lila Lipscome’s son) wife went after him too. It would be nice to know what happened, but then it would make public that MM lied.
If a liar, lies calling and using made up ‘proof’ someone else a liar is that someone else a liar? I guess a lying liar would know lying liars. . . hee, hee, hee
March 5th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
What?!! Moore is liar who used creative film editing to forward his propaganda? No way! He sat next to Jimmy Carter at the Democratic convention! The Yerpons love him! He won an award from Hollywood! Dang!
This is the real danger of hero worship. What if he had returned calls to the filmmaker couple or shared a cup of solar heated, herbal tea with ‘em? I think they would have granted him a special license to continue lying for the greater good of the masses of unkempt, anti-establishment peoples everywhere.
March 5th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Boy, are you ever on the nose, Draco: If MM had been even civil to them, they would have given him a total pass. And eurocon also hits it: They don’t question the lies MM is pushing, they only object to his ‘less than pristine’ methods.
JohnX - What a hoot and a half that Malik is, eh? Somebody should do a follow-up article for Esquire (it was Esquire, wasn’t it? - where he was one of their Men who Made a Difference - or some such crapola) just to rub their noses in their own stupidity.
March 5th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Like the wife said after the spicy chili meal in the bed whipping the covers up and down. ” Payback is a female dog!”
March 5th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Couldn’t we just ship Mikie Shit-biscuit to a supermax and let bubba have his way with him.Would that be slick willie or the real bubba?
March 6th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
The only way the core left can obtain votes in this country is if they could hide their real agenda just long enough to gain control. Hell, it worked like a charm in the last election.
“Moore is reportedly editing his next film, Sicko, about the US healthcare system.” The poster boy for the obese, indulgent lifestyle is making a documentary blasting the US healthcare system?
“organised groups [are] going full blast trying to discredit me”. News flash, lardass, one needs to be credible before they can be “discredited.”
Moore is no documentarian. He is, and forever will be, just another propagandist.
Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, you unkempt slob.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Great Article- I have an idea for combating these phonies in the public arena- http://breathofthebeast.blogspot.com/
March 21st, 2007 at 7:05 am
Found this on page 318 of “Dusty Warriors”, Richard Holmes’ excellent book on the British Army in Iraq and thought it ought to go on record.
“However, many (British troops) in Iraq were intellectually and emotionally seized by what they were doing, and whatever their views on the wisdom of going to war in the first place….they genuinely hoped to make a difference. Captain Steve Brooks admitted:
One of the big mistakes I made was allowing the men to watch Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911″ on DVD in the middle of August while on QRF at CIMIC. I watched horrified as the anti-Telic propaganda poured across the screen, wondering whether I should make a stand and turn this possibly damaging docufilm off. I didn’t, and the room was silent as the credits rolled. I thought I might need to say something to reassure the men as to the justice of their plight, but was rendered impotent as the youngest member of the multiple (Pte Barclay of A Company) stood up and said simply ‘That was shit’. All the others nodded in agreemnet and went to discuss something more relevant over a fag”.
A fine film critic, that Pvt Barclay. Gets right to the point.