Guest Review by Christiaan Harden

When Debbie Melnyk and Nick Caine, two self-proclaimed progressive liberal filmmakers, set out to make a biography celebrating Michael Moore, they began as admirers and fans. After discovering a number of otherwise unknown facts about his documentaries they ended up feeling, in their own words, ‘disappointed and disillusioned’. Provocative and thoughtful, Manufacturing Dissent provides a measured and welcomed alternative to the myriad of right-wing anti-Moore polemics, widely available on the other side of the Atlantic. It is an admirably honest and thoroughly rewarding piece of documentary filmmaking and a must not only for fans of Moore but for anybody interested in where the boundaries of documentary filmmaking ethics lie.

Despite attempts by the filmmakers to avoid a Roger and Me style contributor chase, Manufacturing Dissent bares more than a passing resemblance to Moore’s breakthrough 1989 documentary. Repeated attempts are made by Melnyk and Caine, who are also husband and wife, to secure a sit-down interview with the controversial filmmaker. However, for a man who has made a career out of making people look foolish on camera, he clearly doesn’t want to run the risk of having a camera that’s he not in control of turned in on himself. Moore, who is currently finishing his latest film Sicko – an indictment of the American health care system, failed to respond to voice-mails, e-mails and third-party requests for an interview, despite suggesting at an early meeting in Cannes that he would happy to sit for one. Undeterred, the directors follow Moore around the U.S. on his Slacker Uprising Tour in 2004 to promote Fahrenheit 9/11, but it becomes increasingly difficult to get close to the filmmaker as the smokescreen surrounding him becomes increasingly murky. They were prevented from plugging in to the soundboard at one event, kicked out of his film festival in Traverse City, Michigan, and things even turn a little ugly when the pair are forcibly ejected from a conference by Moore’s sister, who also knocks Caine’s camera to the ground. As they chase Moore around the country, they begin to learn more and more about the filmmakers dubious methodology, his questionable approach to journalistic and documentary ethics, and a little, but perhaps not enough, about the man himself, reluctantly developing a feeling of disenchantment with a filmmaker they had once greatly admired.

Interviews are successfully secured with supporters and critics alike. Close personal friends, acquaintances, former colleagues and long-time observers peel back the layers on the documentary maker’s holier-than-thou image. Ben Hamper and actress Janeane Garofalo act as flag-wavers, while others including acclaimed documentarians Errol Morris and Albert Maysles take Moore to task, along with writer Christopher Hitchens, over the ethics, tactics and accuracy of his output. The vast majority of the charges and critiques levelled at Moore’s work such as his wilful manipulation of chronology, his omission of highly pertinent facts and his deliberately misleading edits have dogged him for many years and are well documented elsewhere. However Manufacturing Dissent does contain a few genuine revelations. Moore’s secret meeting and undisclosed interview with Roger Smith, the head of GM Motors and the apparently unwilling subject of Roger and Me, is perhaps the biggest. According to Caine and Melnyk, Moore did indeed meet Smith, as evidenced by a leaked transcript and by testimony from a close friend who worked on the film, but the interview was conveniently left on the cutting room floor. Amazingly, Melnyk and Caine also reveal that Moore’s charitable foundation owned shares in industries that he has constantly railed against for their failure to put people before profits, including the filmmaker’s number one enemy – the U.S. energy giant Halliburton. Despite discovering such damning revelations Manufacturing Dissent refuses point-blank to sensationalise and remains even-handed throughout – something very much to the filmmakers’ credit, and perhaps something that Mr Moore could take on-board himself.

Moore’s personal character, as well as his methodology, is also called repeatedly into question. He is accused of being a sell-out and traitor for supporting John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election and for enjoying the luxury life-styles that he has made a career out of lampooning. His own bid for superstardom and celebrity status is charged with getting in the way of the causes he champions. A good friend even suggests that he only supported Nader in 2000 to ensure that Bush made it into the Whitehouse because a Democratic Administration would leave his muckraking career in tatters. Although I suspect (and hope) that this was said with tongue firmly in cheek. The filmmaker’s enormous ego, his ‘schizophrenic’ nature and his ‘pathological need to be right’ are brought firmly to light, whilst we are also treated, if that’s the right expression, to a side of Moore almost unrecognisable from his on-screen persona. He is deliberately evasive, patronising and in an interview for his only filmmaking flop – Canadian Bacon – he is clearly put out when the interviewer dares to criticise his film. The filmmaker momentarily drops his guard to reveal a rather unpleasant side that most, including myself, were totally unfamiliar with.

Although, Caine and Melnyk reveal a great deal about the filmmaker’s questionable methodology, rather disappointingly there is no cross-examination of The Big One or any of Moore’s early television work and very little of Fahrenheit 9/11. For some unknown reason, Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine receive the lion’s share of the directors’ attention. Much of Moore’s formative background, particularly his early influences and family upbringing, is also left relatively untouched. Where does he get his rebellious spirit from and how did a relatively affluent small town boy become a doyenne of liberal America? These are just some of the questions about the filmmaker’s background that sadly go unanswered. Manufacturing Dissent does however raise some very interesting questions not only about Moore, the man and his work, but also about the documentary form itself. The film has brought back to the table that age-old debate as to whether are all documentaries are essentially and unavoidably subjective and therefore manipulative by nature? It also asks the viewer to consider whether it is acceptable for a documentarian to employ dubious methods and tactics to achieve a particular goal, and if they do, should their work still be considered a documentary?

Manufacturing Dissent is, quite simply, a brave and challenging piece of filmmaking. The more you find out about their subject throughout the film, the more you want to know, and the more you realise there is to know. Beneath his folksy, down-to-earth, moralistic persona lies what appears to be a complex man, ridden with contradictions. His comments on Oscar night, just days after the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq, will never sound the same again. Fictitious times indeed. — Christiaan Harden