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 Director
Michael Moore stopped making documentaries years ago. Moore has
absconded with the title of documentarian and used it to make films that
are the equivalent of the Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park. His
movies are an opportunity to vent his spleen on all manner of subjects
from gun control, to healthcare and now, in his latest effort,
Capitalism: A Love Story, to the United States’ financial structure (-
and lack therof). Luckily, Moore is a canny enough filmmaker to
inject the right balance of entertainment and foursquare truths in his
cinematic screeds to keep the audience entertained and fascinated.
After
an opening montage of security-cam footage featuring some truly
desperate Darwin Award-worthy bank robbers, Moore begins his documentary
with 1950’s school films depicting the fall of ancient Rome, drawing
parallels to the United States today. He goes on to show happy home
movies and Baby Boom-era TV ads about how well the capitalist system
worked when he was a young boy growing up in Flint, Michigan, back when
the United States was the leader of industry with no serious competition
from other world powers as exists today. It’s only after the appearance
of Ronald Reagan and his “trickle-down” theory of economics as dictated
by his Secretary to the Treasury, former Merrill Lynch CEO, Don Regan,
that we see the Dark Side of where “Reaganomics” and by association,
capitalism, was headed. For the next two hours, Mr. Moore is going to
connect the dots and demonstrate why what started off as such a
bountiful proposition has festered and become the root of all America’s
financial ills.
Moore
visits with families from different parts of the country being evicted
from homes and farms sometimes in those family for generations, due to
bank failure and Alan Greenspan’s concept of using your own paid-up
property as collateral and borrowing against the roof over your head.
He interviews a shameless real estate carpetbagger in Miami, whose
greatest joy is discovering abandoned condos that he can then resell, or
“flip” for millions of dollars. He infiltrates a shut-in by a group of
factory workers all about to be let go, who refuse to leave their
workplace. Other examples of failures of the capitalist system are
Moore’s revelations about the salaries of airline pilots; some making an
average of nineteen thousand dollars a year and needing to take on
second and third jobs while attempting to keep planeloads of us safe
thirty thousand feet in the air. Moore discovers a whistle blower who
exposes the incentives and virtually free money handed to VIP’s and
politicians in banking and loan scandals. He also uncovers an actual
memo by one financial institution advising its highest seated members to
consider instituting a form of government where the wealthiest rule over
America’s poor and middle class. Moore shows us a privatised juvenile
penal system, where judges were given kickbacks to pad the jails with
scores of children, no matter how primary or minor the offense. Moore
exposes the truly heinous practise utilised by many major US companies;
holding secret life insurance policies on their employees, labeled “dead
peasant” policies. When an employees dies, their workplace benefits
financially with not a dime going to the devastated family.
In
rebuttal, we see Moore in full activist jester mode turning up in
downtown Manhattan, attempting to invade AIG headquarters to make a
citizen’s arrest on their CEO for the thefts of millions of taxpayer
dollars. Always prepared, Moore even thinks ahead to bring a money bag
to retrieve the stolen spoils. He stands outside the Stock Exchange
asking every one of its denizens to stop and explain some of the smoke
and mirrors policies currently governing what happens to our dollars and
wraps yellow police tape around both AIG and the SE declaring each a
crime scene. Moore takes the time to look heavenward for some guidance,
asking his priest and eventually the Bishop of Detroit what Jesus’
thoughts on capitalism would be. Unsurprisingly, both clergymen declare
it to be anti-Jesus and inherently evil. He balances the picture of the
evil that capitalism has become with the days when his father worked at
a Flint auto plant for more than 30 years in a time when the employer
actually looked out for his workers. Viewing capitalism as a failing
system, Moore focuses on the bank bailouts and why they were such a
mistake, and he elevates the politicians that stood against the
corporate handouts to hero status.
For
all his ranting about the American financial system and the displays of
the suffering by those directly affected by the heedless decisions of
the very wealthy, Moore never presents an alternative theory. Moore may
never speak it for fear of giving his detractors the biggest chew toy in
the world to play with, but the “S” word hovers over the film like a
supporting player, nonetheless. Just when you’ve seen enough of
capitalism’s failures and its utter indifference to the woes of the
country’s poorest, Moore surprises the audience with a mesmerising piece
of film. He reveals 1944 footage of Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposing
a second bill of rights that would have provided and ensured the rights
of all US citizens to healthcare (!), a decent job, a good education and
an affordable home, amongst other basic life provisions that would today
give the current Republican minority conniptions. Roosevelt died before
his plan could be made into reality, but the haunting knell of his words
really makes one hope the current president has seen this footage and
been inspired by the fading Roosevelt’s absolute conviction in his
courageous proposal.
Incendiary for its timing, subject matter and the totems he goes after,
Capitalism: A Love Story succeeds in being at the very least
thought-provoking. Moore is angry and he’s happy to encourage you to be
equally irate. The film itself veers dangerously into hammer over the
head mawkishness as unfortunate after unfortunate is wheeled before the
camera and Moore’s narration toward the end starts to sound like a
droning whine.
In earlier films, like Bowling for Columbine and
Fahrenheit 9/11 he managed to give the grimmest facts and revelations
with a modicum of charm that made the medicine go down a bit sweeter.
Here’s there’s not as much sugar to be had. Even a Terry Gilliam-style
animation of former President G.W. Bush terrifying the American people
with a speech predicting the end of the world as we know it if the bank
bailouts didn’t go through seemed forced. The lack of any opposing
viewpoint and no end of adherents (- Including one woman during the
factory sequence that seemed uncomfortably like a professional agitator)
to Moore’s views puts the kibosh on any hope of getting another side of
the issue. Then again, is that what anybody going to see this movie is
expecting? Make no mistake; this is a two-hour op-ed piece where Moore
rages against the hijacking of the American Dream by special, i.e., the
wealthiest, interests. While overlong and not the most inspired of his
films, his fight for the little guy message and genuine outrage of
Capitalism: A Love Story might be the one to spur more moviegoers into
action or activism than any of his previous works.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
Oct 1st,
2009
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