“Planet of the Humans” - Jeff Gibbs (2019)

Planet of the Humans (2019) is an environmental documentary film that takes an aggressively contrarian stance towards “green energy”, and for this reason it is likely to generate considerable controversy.  And since the film was recently (for Earth Day, 2020) made temporarily freely available on YouTube [1], it will probably draw a large viewing audience.  

Many viewers might find the film’s negative stance towards green energy to be surprising, since its executive producer was well-known and customarily progressive/leftist documentary filmmaker Michael Moore.  But we should probably keep in mind that this is not solely Moore’s film – it was written, directed, and edited by Jeff Gibbs and co-produced by Gibbs and Ozzie Zehner.  Indeed, based on a subsequent YouTube-available self-serving discussion on the part of the filmmakers [2], I get the feeling that this movie is mostly a product of Gibbs and Zehner.

In general, I felt that the film was relatively disorganized, but it did feature three main themes:

• Criticism of green energy in general.  This is mostly in opposition to Wind, Water, and Solar (WWS) power (where the water power is primarily via hydroelectricity generation).
    
• Criticism of biofuels (produced from biomass).  These are mostly plant-based products that are used to produce fuels in the form of woodchips, pellets, etc.
   
• Criticism of technology in general. 

1.  Criticism of Green Energy
The film begins with its scathing criticisms of renewable energy practices, particularly with respect to two of the most popular forms of renewable energy – wind and solar power.  The arguments seem to follow those of producer Ozzie Zehner, who some time ago published a book Green Illusions (2012) that denounced the practices and prospects of green energy [3].  Zehner and this film complain that green energy is (a) inefficient, (b) requires the pollution-inducing mining of rare materials, and (c) is inextricably dependent on fossil fuels anyway. 

However, Zehner’s and this film’s arguments on this score are largely outdated and false.  I won’t go into the details here, but I refer you to these references for more specific information [4,5,6,7].  I think the critical responses in these references should be convincing enough for you to reject the main arguments on this subject made by Gibbs and Zehner in this film.  There is a further issue in this regard, which I will discuss below.

2.  Criticism of biofuels
The second half of the film constitutes an attack on biofuels and on some environmentalists who have endorsed the development of biofuels.  Biofuels, such as woodchips, wood pellets, and palm oil, are carbon-burning fuels that are harvested from plants that have been specifically sequestered and harvested for fuel purposes.  Biofuel proponents have argued that they are a form of renewable energy, because the carbon in the CO2 that is created when they are burned can later be reabsorbed from the atmosphere by new growing plants.  This reabsorption process could take decades, even centuries, and so this is hardly a pathway for sustainable energy resourcing.  And of course there are other concerns, too: 

• the production of biofuels uses up land that could be devoted to food production, and 
• the burning of biofuels contributes to air pollution and global-warming processes.

Most environmentalists therefore renounce the use of biofuels as a suitable option for future energy development, and I am in general agreement with this film’s critical stance towards biofuels.  But I still have two issues with the way thing are presented concerning biofuels in Planet of the Humans.  For one thing, the filmmakers spend a lot of muckracking effort criticizing environmentalist figures like Bill McKibben, Al Gore, and the Sierra Club for endorsing and profiting from biofuel production organizations.  To me the venomous tone in this connection just distracts one from the larger issues, and anyway, I don’t believe these targeted environmentalist figures now endorse biofuels [4].  Another problem here is that Planet of the Humans conflates biofuels with WWS in order to condemn all renewable energy.  The reality is that indeed biofuels are harmful, while WWS energy sources are hugely beneficial.  The film misleads the viewer here.

3.  Criticism of technology in general
The third theme, which underlies much of the film’s presentation, concerns the anti-technology stance on the part of the filmmakers.  There is a wide spectrum of views concerning the ultimate effects of technology on humanity.  At one end of the spectrum are those who see technology as the ultimate benefactor and savior of mankind.  People at this end, when asked how to address our future energy needs, advocate a massive effort to construct and install a fleet of huge solar-power-collecting satellites that would orbit the earth [8].  But we need to be aware that caution is needed in connection with technology’s sometimes blind interference with complex natural processes, which some scientists speculate has brought about problems like the coronavirus pandemic [9].  So there are people at the other end of the technology-supporting spectrum, i.e. the anti-technology end, who are fearful of all forms of technology.  Some of them even want to reduce the world’s population to a tenth of its current size and have people live locally off the land.  Gibbs and Zehner seem to be near that extreme anti-technology end of the spectrum, and this colors their very pessimistic expectations about human prospects and the predations of modern capitalism.  For them, current efforts in renewable and green energy are inevitably doomed, and our future is dim. 

So all three of these themes in the film contain elements that can mislead the viewer.  But there is another matter in connection with the first theme (criticism of green energy) that deserves further mention.  If one is going to discuss the feasibility of widespread green energy, then he or she must address the work of Professor Mark Jacobson and his research team at Stanford University.  Jacobson and his coworkers have made studies detailing how WWS green energy can be used to economically and safely satisfy 100% of our energy needs [10,11,12,13,14].  These studies take account of electric grid stability, pollution, and safety, and they have detailed how each of the 50 states in the United States as well as more than 140 countries can individually and profitably adopt WWS energy to supply all their energy needs.  Although, of course, there would be initial construction costs, Jacobson’s schemes, if implemented, would lead to vast savings of resources, money, and human lives.  And I believe Jacobson’s plans to deploy WWS green energy would even entail less land usage than is currently used by the fossil fuel industry.

Professor Jacobson has supplied detailed responses to questions concerning his proposed schemes for 100% green energy, and I am sure he would have responded to questions that Gibbs and Zehner may have had, too.  In fact any film that discusses green energy in the context of Jacobson’s work would be interesting to see.  But Planet of the Humans makes no mention of Jacobson’s work, and for this reason alone, it disqualifies the film from serious consideration.  Although Planet of the Humans has managed tp receive some positive reviews in the mainstream media [15], I don’t recommend the film to you, and, for me, the film will not do anything for Michael Moore’s reputation.

★½

Notes:

1.  “Michael Moore Presents: Planet of the Humans | Full Documentary | Directed by Jeff Gibbs”, YouTube, (21 April 2020).   
2. “‘Planet of the Humans’ Earth Day Live Stream w/ Michael Moore, Jeff Gibbs & Ozzie Zehner”, YouTube, (22 April 2020). 
3. Ozzie Zehner, Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism, (ISBN 978-0-8032-3775-9), The University of Nebraska Press, (2012).
4. Timothy Wallis, "Skepticism Is Healthy, but Planet of the Humans Is Toxic - A Critical Review", Films For Action, (23 April 2020).     (see also: https://votetosurvive.org/skepticism-is-healthy-but-planet-of-the-humans-is-toxic/)
5. Tom Zeller Jr., “Ozzie Zehner’s ‘Green Illusions’ Ruffles Feathers”, HuffPost, (27 July 2012, 6 December 2017).  
6. Josh Fox, “Meet the New Flack for Oil and Gas: Michael Moore”, The Nation, (30 April 2020).  
7. Oliver Milman, “Climate experts call for 'dangerous' Michael Moore film to be taken down”, The Guardian, (28 April 2020).   
8. “Space-based solar power”, Wikipedia, (24 April 2020).   
9. Damian Carrington, “Halt destruction of nature or suffer even worse pandemics, say world’s top scientists”, The Guardian, (27 Apr 2020).  
10. Mark Z. Jacobson, Mark A. Delucchi, Mary A. Cameron, Indu Priya Manogaran, Yanbo Shu, and Anna-Katharina von Krauland, “Impacts of Green New Deal Energy Plans on Grid Stability, Costs, Jobs, Health, and Climate in 143 Countries”, One Earth, (2019).   
11. Kashyap Vyas, “Is Mark Jacobson’s Plan to Use 100% Renewable Energy Feasible?”, Interesting Engineering, (22 January 2019).   
12. Michael Barnard, “100% WWS Part 1: Jacobson’s New Study Displaces 99.7% Fossil Energy With Massive Savings”, CleanTechnica, (20 December 2019).   
13. Mark Z. Jacobson, Mark A. Delucchi, Zack A.F. Bauer, Savannah C. Goodman, William E. Chapman, Mary A. Cameron, Cedric Bozonnat, Liat Chobadi, Hailey A. Clonts, Peter Enevoldsen, Jenny R. Erwin, Simone N. Fobi, Owen K. Goldstrom, Eleanor M. Hennessy, Jingyi Liu, Jonathan Lo, Clayton B. Meyer, Sean B. Morris, Kevin R. Moy, Patrick L. O’Neill, Ivalin Petkov, Stephanie Redfern, Robin Schucker, Michael A. Sontag, Jingfan Wang, Eric Weiner, and Alexander S. Yachanin, “100% Clean and Renewable Wind, Water, and Sunlight All-Sector Energy Roadmaps for 139 Countries of the World”, Joule 1, Elsevier Inc., pp. 108–121, (6 September 2017).   
14. Mark Ruffalo, Marco Krapels, and Mark Jacobson, “Our 100% Clean Energy Vision”, The Solutions Project, (2020).   
15. Peter Bradshaw, “Planet of the Humans review – contrarian eco-doc from the Michael Moore stable”, The Guardian, (22 April 2020).   

“Where to Invade Next” - Michael Moore (2015)

Michael Moore’s Where to Invade Next (2015) is another one of his personal cinematic essays about American society, but it has some distinguishing features that make it stand out among his oeuvre.  First of all, despite the acclaim that a number of his earlier films have received (Bowling for Columbine (2002) was a US Oscar winner and Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) was a Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner and is the highest-grossing documentary film of all time), I would say that Where to Invade Next is perhaps Moore’s most polished and well-crafted film.  A second distinguishing feature is the relentlessly upbeat nature of the film.  Although Moore’s narrative tone has always been mostly soft-spoken and congenial, he has nevertheless generally made films that have been critical of perceived flaws of US society.  On this occasion in Where to Invade Next, though, he is purposefully positive throughout.

Even so, there are a number of critics (and also people at large) who always defensively hate Michael Moore for his presumed unfair and “incorrect” depictions of the US, and accordingly, they hate Where to Invade Next, as well [1,2].  To get a clearer view of where some of this hatred comes from, it is perhaps best for me to quote some material from my review of Moore’s earlier and superb documentary SiCKO (2007) [3]:

Documentary films are supposed to expose the “truth” about some subject. Inspired by the demonstrated success of Western empirical science, a good documentary film is supposed to lay bare the objective facts of a situation, so that a judicious and unprejudiced viewer can see objective reality and arrive at the truth. This is in direct contrast with propaganda films, a label that Moore's rabid critics attach to his films, which display a willingness to distort the facts in an effort to persuade the viewer on some point. In ever-more-strenuous efforts to get at the underlying truth of a subject, documentary filmmakers have always continually striven to efface the subjectivity of their own point of view by attempting to expose “the truth” in ever-more objective detail. An idealistic extreme of these efforts has been cinema vérité. I commented about cinema vérité in connection with my review of Kiarostami’s Close-Up (1999):   

The notions of cinema vérité, which actually go back to the work of Dziga Vertov and his Russian colleagues in the 1920s, became popular in France during the 1960s. The goal was to capture objective reality, “the truth”, with the camera. When the popularity of cinema vérité spread to the US, it became known as “direct cinema”, but there was an often-overlooked difference. The American filmmakers adopted a “fly-on-the-wall” approach: they wanted to make the camera so inconspicuous, so “invisible”, that the subjects being filmed were not consciously aware of its presence. The camera was to be an objective record of reality. But of course this is a fiction: the camera always has its presence and its point of view in any filmmaking activity. The French cinema vérité documentarians tended to acknowledge explicitly this presence of the observer, and they incorporated their own observations into their recordings.

The fundamental distinction between French cinema vérité and American direct cinema relates to a fundamental philosophical divide separating two ways of looking at the world, which I call “Objectivism” and “Interactionism”.

• Objectivism is the naive objective reality stance, which most of us adopt most of the time in our everyday activities. The objective world is assumed to be scientifically knowable and reducible to elementary entities that operate according to laws that can, in principle, be discovered by an “objective” observer. This objective world is “out there” – independent of any observer. To know about this world, one’s act of scientific observation must avoid any interference with that which is being inspected. Isaac Newton’s Laws of Physics are representative examples of Objectivism’s achievements.
   
• Interactionism (which could also be called the “the Phenomenological”) recognizes that the observer invariably and essentially has an effect on whatever may be observed (as attested to by physicist Werner Heisenberg with his Principle of Uncertainty). For Interactionism, every human activity invariably involves an embodied interaction with something else (even, as Heisenberg noted, when interacting with a scientific instrument). In this respect, rather than Cartesian dualism and Newtonian analysis, one should associate Interactionism with Buddhism, Sufism, and the work of Merleau-Ponty. From the Interactionist perspective, Objectivism is only an abstract ideal that has pragmatic application in many domains, but not all. But real experience, which is inescapably interactive, can only be approximated by Objectivism -- and only approximated accurately some of the time, such as when observing more remote physical objects, like the stars. In other spheres of activity, where account of human interaction cannot be minimized, such as the sphere of human social activity, Objectivist approximations are particularly weak and inaccurate.

“Direct Cinema”, which has dominated the American imagination when it comes to documentary filmmaking (even though it is only one style and not even the most common practice), exemplifies Objectivism, or claims to, anyway. Note that in fact, direct cinema documentary filmmakers have shooting ratios as high as 100 to 1, which means that out of all that “fly on the wall” material that has been collected, only a small amount of footage is actually used. This means that the film editor has been highly selective in terms of what makes the final cut, and this selectivity almost invariably reflects a personal point of view. In contrast with Objectivist-influenced American direct cinema documentarians, outstanding European documentary filmmakers, such as Werner Herzog and Louis Malle, have been Interactionists. They recognize that every documentary film presentation necessarily involves interactions on the part of the filmmaker with his subject material, and they explicitly acknowledge that interaction by supplying their own personal commentary. Michael Moore belongs to the same camp and is an Interactionist, too, but he is operating in a popular society that clings stubbornly to the belief that Objectivism is the only option.

So what we have here in Where to Invade Next is the idea that Moore takes the viewer along with him on his own personal, Interactionist journey.  It is not the US military that will be invading a foreign country on this occasion, but, instead, it is Michael Moore (and we viewers vicariously along with him) who will be doing the invading.  This sarcastically intended ruse means that, unfortunately, some people may be misled by the film’s suggestive title and stay away, thinking that the film is just a followup to Fahrenheit 9/11 and is concerned with future misguided American military misadventures and atrocities.  They will then miss out on this film’s wider philosophical compass and interesting virtues, which are more concerned with just what kind of world you want to live in.

The film does begin in conformance with its sardonic title, showing Moore having an imaginary meeting with the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.  These military leaders tell him that they have lost all wars since World War II and are now at a loss as to what to do.  Moore tells them that, in keeping with the military’s presumed temper of intrusive exploitation, he intends to stage one-man invasions into some civilized countries and “steal” from them some successful ideas for running a society that those countries have implemented.  He admits that he will not be making overall comparisons  of those societies with the U.S. – he will just be picking the flowers and not the weeds.  Moore then launches his series of invasions into nine countries to steal their good ideas.

1.  Italy
Moore first interviews an Italian working-class couple and learns about their customary work conditions.  He learns that it is common for Italian workers to have

• 30-35 paid working-days of annual vacation (i.e. 6-7 paid weeks of vacation),
• 15 paid days for a honeymoon,
• 5 months of paid maternity leave, 
• a “13th month” salary bonus paid to them at the end of the year.

Moore then visits some executives (from a clothing manufacturer and Ducati motorcycles) who express their firm support for these employee benefits.  They say they want to have happy, healthy employees, and they are happy to give their workers 2-hour lunch breaks.  Perhaps this is connected with the fact that life expectancy in Italy is four years greater than in the U.S.

2.  France
In France Moore learns that elementary school children are given a full one hour for lunch and are given nutritious food, unlike U.S. school cafeterias.  In addition, sex is not a taboo subject in French schools, and all students are given basic instruction about sex.  In particular, sex is not treated as a naughty activity, but is instead cast as a beautiful opportunity for the expression of  love.  It is suggested that perhaps the omission of sex education in US schools is connected with the high teen pregnancy rate in the U.S.

Incidentally, with regard to France and Italy, it may be worth noting that although national healthcare systems are not really a theme in this film (this is covered in Moore’s 2007 film SiCKO), the French and Italian healthcare systems were ranked numbers one and two in the world, respectively, by the World Health Organization [4].

3.  Finland
In Finland Moore learns about the renowned Finnish education system.  There are a number of contrasts between the U.S. and Finnish systems.  The Finnish system gives no homework, and it does not use multiple-choice exams in its teaching.  Nor does it teach to standardized tests.  They are more interested in developing well-rounded, cultured young people, and are not just focused on low-level skills.  They want their students to engage in the world at large.  Partly for that reason Finland has the shortest schooldays and school years in the Western world.  In addition Finland has no private schools – even the richest kids have to attend the public schools. Nevertheless, Finland has the highest performing educational system in the world.

Another possible reason for Finland’s high performance in education that I have heard about and one that Moore doesn’t mention explicitly in this film is that teaching is apparently a highly respected occupation in Finland and therefore tends to attract talented people who want to make a contribution to society.

4.  Slovenia
Moore next travels to Slovenia, where he learns that college education is completely free of charge for all students, even for foreign students.  In fact Moore interviews several American students who have come to the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia to study because they can’t afford the college fees in the U.S.  Notably in this connection, the University of Ljubljana offers one hundred courses taught in English.  These American students also say that the educations they are receiving there are of a higher standard than those they received back in the U.S.

Clearly the Slovenian government believes, like current US Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, that a well-educated and debt-free younger generation will be beneficial for the whole country’s welfare and that the investment for such is worth it.

5.  Germany
Then Moore shifts to Germany, where he discovers that companies are required to have 50% of their boards of directors staffed by workers in the company.  This ensures that the company boards will have longer-term, workplace-aware perspectives and not just concentrate on short-term windfalls.

Moore also notices that Germany does not shun teaching about disturbing aspects of its own history.  All school students are taught about Nazi-era atrocities to heighten awareness and ensure that such violations of basic human rights are never repeated.  This contrasts with the U.S., where, although the abolition of slavery is usually covered in schools, the subsequent continued discrimination against people of color and the earlier genocide of native American Indians is neglected. 

6.  Portugal
In Portugal Moore is astonished to learn from law-enforcement workers there that they have had no laws prohibiting drug use for the last fifteen years.  He is even further astounded that when laws decriminalizing drug usage were enacted in Portugal, the use of addictive drugs went down!  For example, Portugal’s rate of opiate usage is now about half that of the United State [5].  When  Moore asks how this is possible, one official suggests to him that free, universal healthcare is more effective in reducing addictive drug usage than punishing offenders with incarceration.

7.  Norway
This contrast between hate-inspired punishment and rehabilitation is continued in connection with the next country Moore invades – Norway.  There the prison system is based on rehabilitation, and the prisoners are treated humanely.  Even the father of one of mass murderer Anders Breivik’s 55 victims in 2011 is not consumed with revenge, only with regret.

And the Norwegian penal system seems to work well, too, even in connection with the main concerns of those who advocate severe punishment.  In the U.S. the recidivist rate of released prisoners is much higher than that of Norway – 80% of released prisoners in the U.S. are rearrested within five years, while in Norway only 20% of released prisoners are rearrested over that time. 

8.  Tunisia
In Tunisia, Moore takes note of the progressive developments of the revolution that took place there and which culminated on 14 January 2011 [6].  In particular, this predominantly Islamic country installed a new constitution that guaranteed the rights of women.  In fact the clauses associated with the rights of women in the new Tunisian constitution are very similar to those of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the US Constitution, which failed to secure passage in the U.S. back in 1979.

Moore also has an interesting interview with Tunisian woman journalist Amel Smaoui, who at one point directly addresses the camera and reminds Americans that they can learn some things even from a small country like Tunisia.

9.  Iceland
The theme of women is continued in Moore’s visit to Iceland, where women now play important roles across society. In fact in 1980 Iceland became the first country in the world to directly elect a woman president, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir (female prime ministers chosen by indirect means had appeared elsewhere earlier). 

Moore also interviews three female CEOs and comes to the conclusion that their more holistic perspectives (than those of men) are beneficial to their work environments.  As Moore observes,

 “We [men] structure ourselves with me in mind, and you structure yourselves
   with we in mind.”

He is also told that Icelandic law now stipulates that all corporate boards of directors must consist of at least 40% women.  In fact there is gender equality here – all company boards must have a membership that is at least 40% men, too.  

Further commentary from single-mom Vigdís Finnbogadóttir tells us that the characteristic holistic attitude of women (what’s in it for all of us, rather than just what’s in it for me) make going to war a less likely option.

Moore concludes his zigzag tour by visiting the remnants of the Berlin Wall, which he had visited back in 1989 when it was being dismantled.  This serves as a reminder for him that even seemingly impossible blockages can be overcome if one just keeps chipping away.

 

Overall, Where to Invade Next is Michael Moore’s most upbeat film and is thoroughly entertaining to watch.  Its production values are excellent and the interviewees are spontaneous and engaging.  Critics of Moore, however, seem to be put off by his shlumpy onscreen appearance and demeanor, which though it presumably is done to affect a sympathetic working-class perspective, makes his detractors feel that Moore is just a wise-cracking shoot-from-the-hip bellyacher.  But in fact Moore’s commentary is thoughtful and cogent. 

Moore’s critics resent him, because they feel he is attacking American society, and they feel defensive about this.  So they accuse him of cherry-picking items from foreign societies and not engaging in fair comparisons.  They forget that Moore explicitly admitted at the outset of Where to Invade Next that he was not going to be engaged in overall societal comparisons and that he actually was going to be cherry-picking – just picking the flowers and not the weeds from those societies.  What he is doing here is offering constructive suggestions, not damning criticisms. 

In fact many of these constructive policy ideas that he has picked up from other countries reflect the progressive and widely praised social proposals of the world’s top economists, most of whom are based in the U.S. – Nobel Laureates Paul Krugman [7], Amartya Sen [8], and Joseph Stiglitz [9], as well as Thomas Piketty [10].  These ideas are also aligned with those of Senator and progressive US Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.

As Moore reminds us at the close of Where to Invade Next, most of the ideas that he has “stolen” from invaded countries appeared earlier in the U.S. and inspired many of those other countries to adopt them.  But Americans got bogged down in narrow-scoped utilitarianism and lost the plot.  What we need to do now, he seems to be telling us, is just keep chipping away and learn from the experiences of others in order to get back on the track of serving the greater good. 
★★★★

Notes:

1. Kenji Fujishima, “Review: Where to Invade Next”, Slant, (30 September 2015).   
2. Armond White, “Michael Moore’s Chucklehead Itinerary”, National Review, (12 February 2016).   
3. The Film Sufi, “‘SiCKO’ - Michael Moore (2007)”, The Film Sufi, (10 February 2010).   
4. “World Health Organization’s Ranking of the World’s Health Systems”, The Patient Factor (2000).   
5. “List of countries by prevalence of opiates use”, Wikipedia, (27 July 2019).   
6. “Tunisian Revolution”, Wikipedia, (3 August 2019).      
7. Paul Krugman, “Paul Krugman: Macroeconomics, trade, health care, social policy and politics”, Opinion, The New York Times.   
8. Amartya Sen, Peace and Democratic Society, Open Book Publishers, (2011). 
9. Joseph E. Stiglitz, People, Power and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent,  W. W. Norton & Company, (2019).
10. Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, (trans. by Arthur Goldhammer), Belknap Press (2019).

“Michael Moore in TrumpLand” - Michael Moore (2016)

Michael Moore’s most recent documentary, Michael Moore in Trumpland (2016) [1], is something of a departure from what I am used to seeing from the celebrated filmmaker.  Moore’s past hits – these include Roger and Me (1989), the US Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine (2002), the Cannes Palme-d’Or-winning Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), SiCKO (2007), Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), and Where to Invade Next (2015) – have not only won prestigious critics’ awards, but have also done very well at the box office: Fahrenheit 9/11 is the highest grossing documentary film of all time, and SiCKO is the 4th highest grossing documentary film of all time.  And for the most part these films have been carefully structured social polemics fashioned out of a vast compilation of stock footage.  But here in Michael Moore in Trumpland, Moore has gone in a different direction and presented a one-man stage show to argue his point.  Presumably Moore had to do it this way, because he doesn’t have much time: his film concerns the contentious and pivotal US Presidential Election that will take place on November 8th.  He presented his one-man stage show on October 7th and then hastily put the film together so that it could be released to the wider public on October 18th [2].

The election pits two contestants at opposite ends of the political spectrum: Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton against Republican candidate Donald Trump.  And the campaign between the left-wing Clinton and the right-wing Trump has so far been filled with enmity and vituperative personal attacks.  To the average voter, there doesn’t seem to be any common ground where a possible rational discussion could be staged. So it seems that at this point most voters have mindlessly committed themselves to either Clinton or Trump.  How would you then convince any of these voters to change their minds?  This is where Moore enters the picture.

Moore, a Clinton supporter, feels (as I do) that it would be catastrophic for both the US and the world if Trump were to be elected.  But Moore did not try to put together an argument against Trump – that has already been done many times.  Nor did he spend too much time discussing proposed policies.  Instead, he tried to reach out to a critical sector of the voting public that has traditionally been aligned with the Democratic party but which has now become so disaffected with the “establishment” that they may cast their vote for the anti-establishment Trump as a protest vote.  This is the  less-educated, white, working-class sector that has traditionally worked in factories that are now being closed down because of competition from lower-cost overseas manufacturing centers, such as in China.

These white working-class people, who were often members of labor unions that in the past were able to look after their job security, are increasingly losing their jobs, and they feel they have no future.  So they see themselves as victims of globalization, and they blame the establishment for allowing this to happen.  Moore, who grew up in Flint, Michigan, a factory town for General Motors, comes from this same social sector, and he feels that he can speak their language.  So Michael Moore in TrumpLand is Moore’s attempt to spell out what this election means to these people in terms that they can understand..

Actually, the question of how to convey effectively the political values of the progressive left is a worldwide issue, not just one in the US.  By “progressive left” I mean those who align themselves with the political principles that emerged in the 18th century Age of Enlightenment and which was the intellectual basis for the US Founding Fathers. This line of thinking, which has since come to dominate our modernist culture, asserts that the world’s problems can be solved by human reason building on a foundation of human compassion.  However, all over the world the progressive left has been recently losing political ground, because they have not been able to articulate their principles in a simple way to ordinary people.  Thus the majority of people in the UK voted for Brexit, without understanding the advantages of remaining in the European Union, which was established on progressive-left principles.  What is needed is a simple formulation of such principles that can be quickly understood and referenced.  One such formulation is represented by the acronym: RMDL.

RMDL identifies the four Enlightenment-based pillars that are essential for a successful modern society and which I have discussed previously in my reviews of Mohammad Rasoulof’s Head Wind (2008) and Manuscripts Don’t Burn (2013), and also Alison Klayman’s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012).  The four pillars are

• (Human) Rights.  These include freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom to watch and listen, freedom from torture, etc. They all relate to fundamental forms of interaction that must be guaranteed and allowed to flourish.
• Markets.  There needs to be regulated markets that allow for the open exchange of goods and services across society.  This includes necessarily ensuring there is sufficient wealth equity across society so that there can be widespread, fair exchange.
• Democracy.  Some form of democracy involving universally inclusive enfranchisement needs to be in place.
• Rule of Law.  There needs to be a written set of laws that are made known to everyone and that can be changed by actions of the democratically-elected government. Such laws provide for regulation of the various interactions in the interests of the public good.

Some political movements may support just one or two of these directions, but the point here is that all four elements of RMDL are necessary and must flourish in order for a society to be successful.  Thus invading Iraq with the intention of installing a democracy but without ensuring human rights and the rule of law will not bring about a satisfactory outcome.  The four RMDL dimensions are relatively general and provide a wide compass for comparative discussion concerning the details.  Thus even a conservative libertarian could subscribe to the basic RMDL platform, although he or she might insist on the right to carry a concealed weapon and that government regulation of markets to reduce wealth disparity should be prohibited.

Overall, if Americans are presented with the RMDL principles, most of them would subscribe to them. And surely Hillary Clinton is staunchly in favor of all four of the RMDL principles, and they undoubtedly represent a foundation of her political approach.  As I said, though, there are some people who might only subscribe to a subset of RMDL.  More interestingly, Donald Trump is rather unique in opposing all four of the RMDL principles:

• Rights.  Human rights are founded on the notion that they apply to all human beings.  But Trump is opposed to these rights being extended to Mexicans, Muslims, and other people he doesn’t like.
• Markets.  Trump is openly against free trade, which he thinks is stealing jobs from working-class Americans.
• Democracy. Trump has expressed his doubts about the institution of American democracy, and he has suggested that if he is not elected, his followers should stage a rebellion.
• Rule of Law.  Trump has announced that if elected he will issue autocratic decrees to get what he wants.  In this way, he presents himself as a tin-pot populist dictator, like Vladimir Putin, who ignores the rule of law.

Looking at matters, then, from the perspective of RMDL, the election outcome should be straightforward:

1. most Americans presumably support the RMDL principles, 
2. Trump clearly rejects all of them, 
3. so most Americans should not support Trump.  

But it is not working out so simply.  There still seem to be many in-principle RMDL-sympathetic people who are intending to vote for Trump, as a protest against the establishment.  These people are, as Michael Moore has emphasized, the American “Brexit” voters, and Moore has identified four US states – Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – as “Brexit states”, where they are concentrated. So Moore decided to reach out to them and see if could appeal to them in their terms. His one-man stage show was presented at a theater in Wilmington, Ohio, a working-class area that overwhelmingly supports Trump.  At the event, at least half of those present were Clinton supporters, but there was still a substantial number of Trump supporters who had the curiosity to attend.

Moore, of course, doesn’t talk about anything like RMDL to his audience; he’s much more down-to-earth.  After all, Moore is not a college graduate, himself, and he wants to speak to these Brexit people as someone who is one of them.  He appeared on stage in his customary sweatshirt, sneakers, and trucker hat, and he spent much of his time telling profanity-laden jokes to ingratiate himself into these people’s confidence. To make his Trump-supporting guests feel more "comfortable", he even jocularly had sections of the theater balcony cordoned off for the confinement of Muslims and Mexicans. Certainly his performance was calculated, but he does come across with moments of true sincerity, and this seemed to ring true with his audience.

In particular, Moore identifies himself with the 19% of the US population who are white males over the age of 35.  It is these people, Moore acknowledges, who are an endangered species and are filled with resentment and hate because of it.  He is not so much worried about the younger voting sector comprising people between 18 and 35 and known as millennials.  Millennials have their problems, but, he reminds his audience, they have a precious virtue: they are non-haters.  It is his older age group that are the haters, and because of them hate has become the dominant rhetoric on the US political stage – (for useful additional discussion of how the feeling of resentment and hate has more influence than commonsense reasoning among white US conservatives, see [3]). Even Bernie Sanders, whom Moore supported in the primaries against Hillary and who has made a number of interesting proposals, is primarily supported by hatred.  Many people supported Sanders simply because of his anger-filled visage and his supposed rejection of free trade.

To further ingratiate himself with his audience of Hillary-doubters, Moore confesses that he has had his own doubts about Hillary.  She did, after all, vote for the Iraq War invasion (a vote which she later conceded was wrong), and she seems to be too close to “Wall Street” (a bogeyman for Brexiters).  And Moore admits that he has never before voted for a Clinton.  But Moore gradually turns his discussion to a more sympathetic and supportive look at Hillary Clinton.

Moore reminds his audience how smart Hillary is and how idealistic she has always been.  He even includes a recorded quotation from Hillary’s inspirational graduation speech at Wellesley College when she was 22 years old [4].  And he further surveys some of Hillary’s other noble endeavors, such as her efforts some twenty years ago in support of a proposed US law that would have established universal healthcare insurance. She had diligently researched this issue by traveling to places like Estonia, where the maternal death rate at childbirth is one-third that in the US.  But Hillary’s efforts were derided as “none of her business”, and the universal healthcare bill was blocked in Congress.  As Moore had emphasized in his earlier film about US healthcare, SiCKO, the US is alone among leading developed nations in not providing its citizens with universal guaranteed healthcare.  It has been estimated that there are an extra 50,000 deaths each year in the US due to people having no or inadequate health insurance.  So over the past twenty years since Hillary Clinton’s universal healthcare efforts were stymied in Congress, there have been more than one million people who have died needlessly, because universal healthcare was not available.

Ultimately, Moore’s film is not against Trump; it’s in favor of women.  Women don’t engage in mass killings and hate-filled violence.  They are generally filled with empathy and concern.  And so, too, he tells his audience, is Hillary Clinton.  It is time for the American people to elect a woman as its president, and Hillary Clinton is the ideal choice for that.  If you have a friend or relative who is thinking of voting for Trump, you would do well to get them to see this film [1].
★★★

Notes:

1. Michael Moore, Michael Moore in TrumpLand, YouTube.com, (Dog Eat Dog Films,  IMG Films), (27 October 2016). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iCUI-k723A 
2. Steven Zeitchik, “Michael Moore Made 'TrumpLand' in 11 Days to Rally 'Depressed Hillary Voters'”, PopMatters, (21 October 2016).   
3. Nathaniel Rich, “Inside the Sacrifice Zone”, The New York Review of Books, (10 November 2016).  
4. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Hillary Rodham Clinton's Student Speech”, Wellesley College, (June 1969). 

“SiCKO” - Michael Moore (2007)

Michael Moore’s documentary film SiCKO (2007) raises such fundamental and interlocking issues about modern society and culture that it is difficult to know where to start the discussion. With documentary films, of course, there are always two basic threads that one can usually consider separately: (a) the external issue under discussion and (b) the nature of the documentary expression undertaken by the filmmaker. But with Moore’s film, everything is connected and overlapping.

The subject matter of SiCKO, the external issue under discussion, is the American healthcare system and what can be done to address the fundamental concerns that have been raised by its critics. Certainly this is a subject that stands at the top of peoples’ concerns worldwide: the quality of healthcare, which is fundamental to basic quality of life. Of course there are some people who stubbornly insist that the American medical system is the best and most efficient in the world, but most people today recognize that there are deep flaws with the way medical care is delivered in the United States. There are many different measures that testify to this, but consider just these two:

• According to the UN’s World Health Organization report in 2000, the United States ranked 37th in overall world healthcare (France ranked 1st overall).
• According to the CIA’s World FactBook, the US ranks 49th in life expectancy (France ranks 8th).

One of the basic problems with the US system is that it, alone among leading developed nations, does not provide its citizens with universal guaranteed healthcare, leaving about fifty million people without any health insurance at all. One could spend weeks, even years, examining the specifics of this vast, complicated, and important subject, and a two-hour movie is not going to do that. In fact SiCKO doesn’t introduce much information that most people don’t already know, but it does go on to raise an even larger issue – and in this connection it rhetorically asks a disturbing question: what kind of society does America have that it can treat its own fellow citizens as objects that have a price, i.e. virtually as “pieces of meat”?

Let us put the disturbing nature of that question aside for the moment and consider the other main topic of discussion here, which is the nature of the documentary film expression employed by Michael Moore. I am always amazed by the animosity and contempt that so many people seem to feel for Moore. Right-wing and politically conservative people, of course, are inevitably offended by his positions, and they might be expected to dismiss his films. But there are also many political independents, even a great many people on the political left, who dismiss Moore as a liar, a “sleaze bag”, a slovenly showman, someone who is out to distort the truth and manipulate the audience. Why do they hate him so much? For one thing, they seem to despise him for appearing personally in his films and confronting some of his subjects on camera with troubling questions, which Moore’s critics often consider to be self-serving. But there is a deeper American cultural theme that underlies this animosity towards Moore, and it has its connections with the history of documentary films.

Documentary films are supposed to expose the “truth” about some subject. Inspired by the demonstrated success of Western empirical science, a good documentary film is supposed to lay bare the objective facts of a situation, so that a judicious and unprejudiced viewer can see objective reality and arrive at the truth. This is in direct contrast with propaganda films, a label that Moore's rabid critics attach to his films, which display a willingness to distort the facts in an effort to persuade the viewer on some point. In ever-more-strenuous efforts to get at the underlying truth of a subject, documentary filmmakers have always continually striven to efface the subjectivity of their own point of view by attempting to expose “the truth” in ever-more objective detail. An idealistic extreme of these efforts has been cinema vérité. I commented about cinema vérité in connection with my review of Kiarostami’s Close-Up (1999):

The notions of cinema vérité, which actually go back to the work of Dziga Vertov and his Russian colleagues in the 1920s, became popular in France during the 1960s. The goal was to capture objective reality, “the truth”, with the camera. When the popularity of cinema vérité spread to the US, it became known as “direct cinema”, but there was an often-overlooked difference. The American filmmakers adopted a “fly-on-the-wall” approach: they wanted to make the camera so inconspicuous, so “invisible”, that the subjects being filmed were not consciously aware of its presence. The camera was to be an objective record of reality. But of course this is a fiction: the camera always has its presence and its point of view in any filmmaking activity. The French cinema vérité documentarians tended to acknowledge explicitly this presence of the observer, and they incorporated their own observations into their recordings.

The fundamental distinction between French cinema vérité and American direct cinema relates to a fundamental philosophical divide separating two ways of looking at the world, which I call “Objectivism” and “Interactionism”.

• Objectivism is the naive objective reality stance, which most of us adopt most of the time in our everyday activities. The objective world is assumed to be scientifically knowable and reducible to elementary entities that operate according to laws that can, in principle, be discovered by an “objective” observer. This objective world is “out there” – independent of any observer. To know about this world, one’s act of scientific observation must avoid any interference with that which is being inspected. Isaac Newton’s Laws of Physics are representative examples of Objectivism’s achievements.
   
• Interactionism (which could also be called the “the Phenomenological”) recognizes that the observer invariably and essentially has an effect on whatever may be observed (as attested to by physicist Werner Heisenberg with his Principle of Uncertainty). For Interactionism, every human activity invariably involves an embodied interaction with something else (even, as Heisenberg noted, when interacting with a scientific instrument). In this respect, rather than Cartesian dualism and Newtonian analysis, one should associate Interactionism with Buddhism, Sufism, and the work of Merleau-Ponty. From the Interactionist perspective, Objectivism is only an abstract ideal that has pragmatic application in many domains, but not all. But real experience, which is inescapably interactive, can only be approximated by Objectivism -- and only approximated accurately some of the time, such as when observing more remote physical objects, like the stars. In other spheres of activity, where account of human interaction cannot be minimized, such as the sphere of human social activity, Objectivist approximations are particularly weak and inaccurate.

“Direct Cinema”, which has dominated the American imagination when it comes to documentary filmmaking (even though it is only one style and not even the most common practice), exemplifies Objectivism, or claims to, anyway. Note that in fact, direct cinema documentary filmmakers have shooting ratios as high as 100 to 1, which means that out of all that “fly on the wall” material that has been collected, only a small amount of footage is actually used. This means that the film editor has been highly selective in terms of what makes the final cut, and this selectivity almost invariably reflects a personal point of view. In contrast with Objectivist-influenced American direct cinema documentarians, outstanding European documentary filmmakers, such as Werner Herzog and Louis Malle, have been Interactionists. They recognize that every documentary film presentation necessarily involves interactions on the part of the filmmaker with his subject material, and they explicitly acknowledge that interaction by supplying their own personal commentary. Michael Moore belongs to the same camp and is an Interactionist, too, but he is operating in a popular society that clings stubbornly to the belief that Objectivism is the only option.

So in SiCKO Moore gives the viewer his personal narrative describing his investigation into a sick social patient, which in this case is the whole of American society. You may well not agree with his point of view, but this is his journey and his telling. This makes his film not a scientific investigation (in fact there is not much material here about the US healthcare system that you don’t already know, anyway), but a personal story, and so it makes the film that much more compelling (and correspondingly infuriating to his opponents).

Moore’s story has a well-coordinated argument that is structured almost like a medical diagnosis, with an increasing sense of irony as the film progresses:

• The unwanted symptoms are first examined (Section 1).
• Next the recent history of how things got this way are covered (Section 2).
• Then successive examples of successful “treatments” given to other “patients” (countries) are presented (Sections 3-6).
• The final diagnosis is an exercise left for the viewer. But Moore reminds his audience at the end that America has always opportunistically borrowed good ideas from abroad and adopted them without prejudice. It is time, he says, for America to do that again.

Supplementing the main sections are also some brief entr'acte pieces that are used for maintaining the mood and tempo of Moore’s presentation.

1. The Difficulty of Getting Medical Coverage (30 minutes). The first section of the film documents an extended series of outrageous personal tales describing ordinary people who have been denied medical insurance and therefore have not been able to obtain critical medical treatment that they could not afford. Of course one could complain that these are only selected cases taken from a large society, but the cases appear to reflect not just individual mistakes, but systematic policies that are unjustly applied on a wide scale. There are several types of problems described:

• Many people cannot obtain health insurance, even if they have the money to pay for it. The insurance companies reject applicants if they are too thin, too fat, or otherwise considered to be risky investments.
• Insurance companies deny claims and cancel policies if they can find some unreported pre-existing condition, even when it is as trivial as a past yeast infection.
• Insurance companies will not provide doctor-recommended and potentially life-saving treatment to a patient if it can be classified as “experimental” (and therefore not part of the standard practice).

This section also documents doctors and case workers in the industry who are explicitly rewarded and paid bonuses for rejecting patient claims. The goal of the insurance companies, and their allies, the health maintenance organizations (HMOs), is to deny treatment as much as possible in order to maximize profits.

Many of the cases presented portray people who died because they were denied treatment that could have saved their lives. This section has an emotive impact. The viewer meets these people; they speak to the camera; and then many of them die. Although critics might complain that these selected cases are grossly unrepresentative of US healthcare, one has to ask how even one of these tragic cases has to come to pass.

2. Recent US Healthcare History (12 minutes).

• This historical background begins about forty years ago when archived US Presidential recordings reveal that Richard Nixon was attracted to supporting the idea of establishing HMOs, because these new organisations would try to reduce medical treatments as much as possible in order to secure higher profits.
• The commentary then recounts Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated efforts to reform the US healthcare back in the early 1990s.
• It is argued that the reasons behind Hillary’s speicific failure and always behind the political difficulties of American healthcare reform are the entrenched interests of the insurance companies, the HMOs, and the pharmaceutical corporations. All of these organisations are enormous economic enterprises that can use their economic clout to influence the government by effectively making campaign contributions (i.e. offering bribes) to government officials. This has resulted in a convenient partnership – while each of the CEOs of the big healthcare organisations gets salaries and payouts amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars per year, US senators are also all getting hundreds of thousand of dollars per year in campaign contributions.
• A particularly egregious example (presented with a photoshopped image to dramatize the point) is that of Billy Tauzin, a former US Congressman who left Congress and went on to become the CEO (with a $2 million salary) of the principal drug lobby, PhRMA.

3. Canada (10 minutes). The scene shifts to Canada, which does indeed supply universal healthcare to its citizens. Although US conservatives issue dire warnings about lengthy patient waiting lists in Canada that would presumably make their system undesirable, Moore suggests that there are some Americans who would definitely prefer the Canadian system over their own. He documents an American woman who tries circuitous schemes to get medical coverage in Canada that is not available to her in the USA. He also reports that even the Canadian Conservative Party is staunchly committed to the Canadian universal healthcare coverage.

4. England (19 minutes). England is another country offering universal healthcare coverage to its citizens. Moore shows that England even offers (or has up to now) free coverage to tourists who injure themselves while doing foolish things during their visits to the country. This section also includes enlightening remarks from venerable British politician Tony Benn about the England’s sixty-plus-year experience of universal healthcare. To give up such a programme in England now, Benn says, would be as unthinkable as taking back the right of women to vote: universal healthcare is now an essential part of British civilization.

Entr’acte. This interlude covers the sad tale of a female HMO worker whose young daughter dies during an emergency illness, because the HMO would not authorize life-saving treatment at the nearest hospital.

5. France (15 minutes). France, number one on the WHO tables, is of course the best when it comes to healthcare. More examples of the superior French system are provided, and this is further attested to by some American expatriates living in France who swear by the French approach.

Entr’acte. Magnifying the contrast between the social inclusiveness of France and England and the divisive, profit-driven US system, this section shows how Los Angeles hospitals take indigent patients needing treatment and dump them off as if they were refuse at skid row shelters for the homeless.

6. Cuba, the Ultimate Irony (12 minutes). Taking note of the US Military’s claims that prisoners held in Guantanamo military facilities get comprehensive medical care, Moore decides to see if the US government is willing to offer the same kind of treatment to some real American heroes who have been neglected. These are three volunteer 9/11 rescue workers who are still suffering from debilitating conditions incurred as a result of their efforts, but who cannot obtain medical coverage, because they were acting as volunteers and not employees. Why is it that so-called “terrorists” get better medical care from the government than volunteer patriots? This entire section, of course, is a stunt, but Moore sets it up to dramatize the inequities of the American system. His “boat people” voyage, with his ill passengers in tow, doesn’t make it onto the Guantanamo Bay military base, but the whole trip was basically a ruse for him to convey his patients not to the base, but to Cuba proper. That impoverished country, as we should know, just happens to have universal health care, and, as a consequence, a higher life-expectancy and lower infant mortality rate than the US. His patients all get the treatment in Cuba that is not affordable to them in the US.

Moore’s thesis, of course, is not just that the US healthcare system is ill, but that entire US society is unwell. In France, England, Canada, and Cuba, they live in a world of “we”, not “me”. From a larger perspective this social/political problem is intimately associated with the rigidly Objectivist underpinnings of US popular culture that tries to comprehensively apply the idea that just about everything is property that can be rightfully exploited by its individual owner. A prime example of this reductionist mentality is the crippling insistence on the part of the US to impose worldwide “intellectual property” laws – the notion that an idea, an item of thought, can be a piece of property that is owned by an individual. In accordance with this line of thinking, US corporations have engaged in biopiracy by attempting to secure “intellectual property” ownership in foreign countries over essential food chains and traditional medicines, such as in India in connection with aubergines and basmati rice. I will cut short further discussion on the limitations of the notion of “intellectual property” here and simply refer the reader to the commentary in my review of Brett Gaylor’s RiP: A Remix Manifesto (2009). The main point to be drawn in this connection is that America's over-application of Objectivist-inspired “property thinking” has diminished its capacity to deliver healthcare properly. Pharmaceutical companies, HMOs, and health insurance companies are only interested in profitable returns on their investments, not on tending to the health needs of the citizenry. The real solution to this problem is to use an Interactionist-inspired approach, and that is just what Canada, England, France, and Cuba have done.

Traditional conservative commentators, however, try to cast this healthcare debate into the old and simplistic notion of Capitalism versus Socialism, but this is not the signal dichotomy for the issue at hand and only confuses the debate. For one thing, two of the major communist countries, China and Viet Nam, do not now offer universal healthcare for their citizens. Their own ruthless adoption of Objectivist principles has led them to partially abandon the community-oriented welfare of their citizenry. In fact the places were universal healthcare is primarily offered today are in European countries that are primarily capitalist. And the capitalist-socialist divide is further muddied by the practices of some so-called bastions of capitalism. For example the WTO purports to champion capitalism, but engages in practices that actually restrict free trade by pressing for the propagation of “intellectual property”, laws. So, too, the “privatized” (but property-obsessed) HMOs largely restrict free trade and the freedom of consumer choice of their customer-members.

In fact capitalism is not essentially Objectivist, and it can comfortably accommodate an inclusionist, Interactionist mode of operation, as is evidenced by France, England, and other European countries. (Note that Moore also had a considerable amount of film footage about Norway, but he didn't include it in the final edit, because it was redundant to his argument.) In those progressive European countries, there is a recognition that people are not pieces of property for which only a return on investment is expected. A point that Moore didn’t emphasize in SiCKO but that is germane to his thesis is that the reason why the Guantanamo Bay “detainees” were given proper medical care was that they were/are considered valuable pieces of “property”, not because they naturally deserve such treatment (as they should) by right of simply being human beings.

The bottom line on SiCKO, then, is that Michael Moore has told his tale and made his case very effectively. With the evidence of this film, he now has to be recognized, if he hadn't been already, as a filmmaker of the top rank. Although his appearance and verbal style is folksy, it is clear that his film has been meticulously crafted. I understand that he had over five hundred hours of film to edit – a shooting ratio of more than 250 to 1, which would exceed that of most of the direct cinema productions. He and his staff have diligently mined archival footage to support his argument, and they must have put in an enormous amount of hours putting it all together so that the exposition is brisk, clear, and hard-hitting.

Interestingly, Michael Moore’s work has been compared with that of direct cinema maestro documentarian Frederick Wiseman, because both have presented unflattering portraits of American institutions. But Wiseman is one of those sly selectors of recorded information who has managed to keep himself inconspicuous and still cunningly convey his own point of view. As much as I admire Wiseman’s work, I think Moore’s upfront approach is probably more straightforward (provided that accommodation is made for Moore’s heavy sense of irony).

Finally, in view of the evident excellence of this work and its likely positive social impact, I guess I must at last forgive Michael Moore for his wreckless public support of Ralph Nader in the critical 2000 US Presidential election. We all make mistakes, and Moore has confessed that he made the wrong move, big time, on that occasion. Since then, with Bowling for Columbine (2002), Fahrenheit 911 (2004), and SiCKO, Moore has emerged as an increasingly profound social commentator. In the end we could say that with Michael Moore's unshakable belief in, and prescriptions for, his unwell country's ability to make a recovery, he’s just what the doctor ordered.
★★★★