spoot wrote:alex wrote:What would people say is a documentary that achieves the perfect "balance" that eludes Michael Moore?
It's easy to imagine: take the narration, and Michael Moore himself, out of Bowling for Columbine, so all we're left with are the interview subjects. I'd love to see that scene, but it wouldn't be in a Michael Moore film. It almost would be; but if the person were successful in talking around the statistics - and I'm sure there are people who could be - it wouldn't make it in. I can understand that, but it shows bias.
But of course he's biased! He doesn't want to further a right-wing agenda, in any way! He clearly wants to further a left-wing agenda! How could you say he's not biased? Sheesh. He's not a news reporter, he's a guy who's pissed off & wants to change the world. Of course he's biased. Geez.
I think the facts speak for themselves, though - maybe that's the problem, is there are all these indisputable horrific statistics, but they're being presented by this guy who's clearly pissed off about the whole thing.
The power of statistics is in their unemotional quality (alex's emphasis); Moore's emotion diminishes their impact, rather than heightening it.
The crux of our disagreement lies at this very point, famously explicated as the modern / postmodern divide. A movie that did what you spell out here might please those traditionalists who bemoan the bastardization of the documentary form engendered by the Cannes amendment. But this “hiding the narrator” idea is an archaic mannerism that is supposed to signify impartiality. At best it breeds a population of chin stroking armchair philosophers and stifles the act-ers and at worst it poses as “objectivism” when in fact it merely “cloaks its proclivities” more carefully.
Which method is more “managed”, the one that has the raving fat guy quite clearly going off on subjective tangents that unapologetically complicate or contradict his central thesis or the collection of dispassionate interviews sans explicit narration whose motives are put forth more subliminally. There is always a motive, there is always a subject. It is the utmost responsibility of the filmmaker not to hide it. When asking for instances of bias my intention wasn't to disclaim them as bias, rather I wanted to use them to render absurd the whole “biased / objective” duality. You hold up “news reporters” as the paragon of impartiality but this is a myth. The very choice of what gets put forth as impartial “news” is itself motivated by bias.
jupiter:I would sooner have a million people in my country asking this truly subjective and arguably annoying question, than even one who finds it a "tough one" to answer.
Touche. Michael Moore’s movies might fail at meeting the criteria of “documentary” but he’s the only person out there who, arguably by employing bald-faced propaganda, just might coalesce and galvanize the disparate groups that comprise the counter - hegemonic dissent in American. He could have abided by the traditions of the documentary form and made a film that would have the academics cream all over themselves, but as you've already said it would have been a much smaller less impactful film. Again I’ll suggest Manufacturing Consent for whoever seeks the latter. There is very persuasive dissent in the Chomsky film. Although it addresses his highly dubious linguistic principles and not his politics, Foucault’s little shpiel in that movie is the pithiest, most delightful summary of the Problem With Chomsky I have ever seen. I wish he was still around in the Michael Moore era, then we’d have a posse, boy.
I personally won’t mourn the passing of the documentary form if it refuses to recognize Moore and the power of praxis. I'm excited about MM because he makes class war seem plausible. Perhaps he goes about it simplistically and sometimes uses deceptive means to convince people, but, and here's where you'll cry foul, the ends so overwhelmingly justify the means that he'd be a fool to try to seek out
an eloquent gun rights lobbyist who can express him or herself clearly, and confront them with the horrific statistics & see how they talk around it.
The whole concept of “gun rights lobbyist” is corrupt and what passes for eloquence among “guns for guns’ sake” people is in fact jingoism of the tallest order. A “hunting rights lobbyist” would have some valor but the pathos so deeply ingrained in the US variant of gun owners is that so many of them celebrate guns
in and of themselves. There is no justification for this, no possibility of talking around how fucked up it is.
That one of Moore's primary interview subjects is the shut-in brother of a convicted white supremacist/terrorist, and another is a clearly eccentric and fading Hollywood star is an indication to me of an interest in making sure the story comes across in a managed way that will only serve to prove his point.
You could also ask yourself: who would suffer if the movie DID include only the Nichols guy and Heston? Worst case scenario, the plebs simplistically latch onto these guys as representative of all gun owners. Should we even care if this fallacy took hold? Who suffers from the villainization of gun owners besides those who propound guns per se?. Maybe you know a lot of cool gun culture enthusiasts--I assume that's who makes up a lot of the opposition to MM. I don't know any. The only gun owners I wouldn’t want to alienate are hunters or anyone who owns guns for their usefulness, not simply to be a part of some fucking “gun culture” like the NRA. What better method is there than the propagation of this highly skewed portrayal of gun owners to smoke the sensible ones out of the woodwork?
What ill effects versus positive effects would this bias have on our culture as a whole? This question, more than “how can I put forth a balanced view” is a more honest and downright nobler method of deciding what belongs and doesn’t belong in a documentary. Not to mention it makes for a much more entertaining film. One could describe this method as a sort of affirmative action of filmmaking. Since the field of discourse regarding violence and guns is not level to begin with then we're justified in privileging certain more partisan viewpoints.
But we're starting to treat Bowling for Columbine as a movie simply about guns. Maybe I’m responsible because I quoted those gun death numbers.
Another poster pointed out the actual percentages involved in Canadian vs. US gun deaths. If numbers, rather than percentages, was the statistic used in Bowling for Columbine, that is an indication of bias. People always massage statistics when they want to prove a point, even though they may be misrepresenting the facts.
I know the criticism I’ll get if I make any defense of his using numbers instead of percentages but aside from the ends justifying the means argument I made above (i.e. his "editing" numbers to produce the "ooh ahh" effect will only spur people into seeking out the nuances of the issue) as stackmatic conceded, the extent of his massages is, in the end, trivial and has no bearing on the legitimacy of his general cultural critique. (I know some people will argue this point, and I'd be eager to hear those arguments articulated
with evidence) The most salient criticism of this “statistic massaging” is indeed that it allows people to get hung up on stylistic devices and gives the anti-Moore lobby an excuse to not address the more profound questions he raises in the movie. So for that reason I wish he would have used percentages. But that Moore “misrepresents the facts” is itself a highly subjective accusation, though I’m sure none of us wants the kind of tit for tat exchange that would ensue if we tried to prove who is right.