It's called Capitalism: A Love Story. And it's ostensibly Michael Moore's magnum opus.
Under the shadow of the global recession, it ties together his fury over downsizing (Roger & Me), the cabal of CEOs that was the Bush administration (Fahrenheit 9/11) and the profiteers that run the U.S. medical system (Sicko).
As is Moore's wont, there are sad first-hand stories -- including people in the Rust Belt being foreclosed on after decades in their own homes. There are stunts (running "Crime Scene" tape down Wall Street) and stuff that's been written about but bears repeating, including the downward push of wages, such that airline pilots can make under $20,000 a year.
There's a call to action based on FDR's call for a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing work for decent wages, adequate pensions, education and health care.
And there are things most of us may have never heard of -- such as the "Dead Peasants" scheme that sees U.S. employers buy life-insurance policies on their employees and cash in when they die, even as their families are impoverished.
In the movie, Moore claims ignorance of the origin of the phrase. In a "roundtable" interview, we thought we'd put our Russian Literature 101 memory to good use:
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Regarding dead peasants, has anybody mentioned Nicolai Gogol's book Dead Souls to you yet?
Go-go?
Gogol. A Czarist bureaucrat figures out that when serfs die, they're still considered valid property until the next census. So he goes around buying the dead peasants and leveraging the 'property' for loans.
Really? I did a similar story 15 years ago on TV Nation at a time when you had HIV or AIDS you automatically died. So people with life insurance would sell their life policies to people who would give them cash for their final months or years. People who bought the policy were guaranteed these persons were going to die. It was win-win. That carries us all the way to last Sunday's New York Times piece about how the derivatives market is going to invest in life insurance -- they've invented a new casino, a new version of the Dead Peasants thing.
Your movies are often called polemics. Is this the next step up, a manifesto?
First of all 'polemic' is not a bad word. I wish that we actually had more real discourse in this country. I've said for a long time that these are cinematic op-ed pieces. They're my take on things, the facts in them are 100% correct. The opinions are mine, so I may be right or I may be wrong. I think I'm right.
What about the word 'sensationalism?'
So we're going to throw words at me? Let's go back to manifesto. It's funny you mention that word, because there was a point when Manifesto was the potential title for that film. I really set out to make this film with the attitude that if I weren't able to make another film after this, what would that film say?
It really is an extension of a lot of things I've been saying for 20 years.
The frustration of trying to warn people what was happening to a company like GM, or to my hometown, or standing on the Oscar stage and saying, "There aren't any weapons of mass destruction over there." Taking these positions has not made life easy for me, and I've had to take a lot of abuse as a result of that.
But I realize I'm just me and I have to say what I think is true, even if it's a bit ahead of where other people are at.
Certainly if we were to have had this conversation over Fahrenheit 9/11 and this was 2004, I was in the minority in terms of being against the (Iraq) War and being against Bush. The country clearly wanted Bush for another four years. And if I said, "Don't worry, guys, Americans are good people, we get it sooner or later, and four years from now, we'll elect a black guy for president," I'd look like a crazy guy. So that's why I actually am not a cynic. I have a lot of optimism in me.
(As for sensationalism), look, I'm asking a studio for money, saying I think people will come on a Friday night to see a movie that's a critical examination of the economic system. So right there I have a huge challenge. How can I make this a piece of cinema and entertaining, but hopefully thought-provoking at the same time?
I'm putting myself in this invisible theatre seat, asking, "How am I enjoying this? How would the popcorn be going down at this moment?"
In the Q&A in the press notes, it says, "What do you hope audiences take out of this film?" And you say, "Popcorn and pitchforks." We recently saw how opponents of health-care reform manipulated angry mobs into interrupting the discourse. Do you think the American people will get into a discourse by being angry, or will we end up with more shouting?
If I said something like that, I'm just trying to be a weisenheimer. My position is the anger's already there, and they're upset and confused over what's happening, especially over the last year. I guess I'm trying to hopefully channel it toward something positive. Being citizens in a democracy, what can we do to make things better?
As far as crazy, angry people at town hall meetings, it's true that was well organized and financed by the industry. You should have no misconceptions about that. Just get a transcript of the Bill Moyers show from July where the vice president of Cigna went public and told the story of how the health-insurance industry put up money to have a campaign to smear me and tell lies about Sicko. His name is Wendell Potter. It was a stunning admission.
It's been 20 years since Roger & Me, so it's kind of a nostalgic moment when you go to GM and demand to see the chairman. And the security guy gets on the blower and says, "It's Michael Moore."
I hesitated to put the GM scene in because it looks like we cast that guy. But me going there is not for nostalgia. I'm sad and angry, and not just at GM. I'm angry at myself because I feel like, "What didn't I do right in terms of my own ability to communicate, in terms of waking people up about what was eventually going to happen? I get introspective about that -- and Catholic in terms of beating myself up."
Several of the banks have repaid their loans. Goldman Sachs has posted record profits, albeit after eliminating most of their competition. Are you worried Middle Class America will say, "Capitalism's back on track, thank God that's over"?
The Dow Jones is not how (Middle Americans) measure their life. The unemployment rate went up again this month, the foreclosure rate continues to be extremely high. These are the real things that affect real people, not that the stock market is back up over 9000 and Goldman Sachs is now posting record profits.
As you said, they brilliantly helped to eliminate the competition. They now essentially have a Soviet style investment firm. It's always got me how those who call themselves capitalists actually admire the Soviet system of no competition, no choice, and eliminate everything in your path.
How do you invest your own money?
How much have I made?
Millions, I'm guessing.
I don't invest my money. I don't own any stock.
It's partly because I don't believe in supporting a system I don't agree with, but mainly because we come from the working class and it feels like a casino to me. It's in a savings account where the interest has varied between 1.5% and .5%. Part of this too is I believe I should make my money on hard work and ideas, not sitting around and making money off money. I think this has been really bad for society. I don't think we advance ourselves if we have a lot of people sitting around looking at the stock ticker on CNBC, hour by hour.
I'm not against business. I'm not against somebody starting a company and working hard and doing well for themselves. I don't want to be pigeonholed into that sort of definition of capitalism. And frankly I'm not against anybody wanting to invest in the stock market for the purpose for which it was invented.
So what is this 'Love Story' in the new movie's title?
The love story is that the rich love their money, and they love our money and they can never get enough. The dirtiest word in capitalism is 'enough.'
When we have a society where the top 1% have more money than the bottom 95, when anthropologists dig us up, what are they going to call that? Seriously, what do you think they are gonna call that? And what are they gonna call us? There's a name for us and I don't think we'd like it.
I'm calling for a democratic economic system where you and I have a say in how our economy is run. That's all I'm asking for, that we just apply the principles of the democracy that we love to our economy.
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Hot docs: Michael Moore's films took the documentary genre mainstream. Here's what we said at the time
Roger & Me
1989
"Flint, Mich., is the birthplace of General Motors. When GM recently closed its plants there and moved shop to Mexico for cheaper labour, Flint became an economic ghost town. Like some modern-day David, Moore sets out on a bizarre odyssey to find GM goliath Roger Smith, the chairman. He also turns the camera on the people of Flint, the heart and soul of the film." -- Liz Braun
Bowling for Columbine
2002
"Michael Moore's latest documentary is about America's gun culture and insane murder rate. Although he still leans heavily on his trademark ambush interviews, which are beginning to wear thin, this doc is more a series of questions that knock down easy answers. If the old saying goes, the role of the journalist is to 'comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,' then Moore fulfils the requirements beyond all previous measure." **** -- Jim Slotek
Fahrenheit 9/11
2004
"You could argue to doomsday whether Michael Moore's latest documentary should have won the Palme d'Or as best film at Cannes. Truth is, Fahrenheit 9/11 works as an entertainment and as an agitprop document designed to savage George W. Bush and his cronies. While Moore's critics seize upon his gung-ho excesses (like editing to make Bush look like an idiot), he often asks the right questions. And demands answers." **** -- Bruce Kirkland
Sicko
2007
"Moore pokes a sharp stick in the jaundiced eye of the U.S. health-care system which, Moore claims, puts even those who are fully insured at the whims of private insurance companies, whose doctors and managers routinely refuse care so to maximize profits. The U.S. system is unfavourably compared to the government-run systems in Canada, Britain, France and even Cuba. Thanks to Moore's PT Barnum circus skills, Sicko is fabulous entertainment." **** -- Bruce Kirkland
