Michael Moore Documentaries

Notes:

• Often open with humour
  
• Often use wacky music


• Uses his voice to narrate
  
• Confliction of narrative views


• Archive footage


• CCTV footage


• Emergancy calls


• Mainly his beliefs and opinions focused on

Essay Question:

'Michael Moore documentaries have brought the genre into the mainstream and are inavative in their style. Discuss.'

The genre of Michael Moore’s documentaries is most often investigative and follows the same kind of format. He is always the narrator and the films rely on his voice over for additional information, he asks the audience questions followed up with his own opinions. The use of archive footage is always prominent in his documentaries and they are often heavily discussion based using interviews to portray two sides of an argument.

The investigative documentary is a genre that illustrates and investigates a real life subject using facts and archive footage to show the audience ‘first hand’ the point they are trying to make. Michael Moore’s investigative documentaries, like many others, attempt to discover the truth regarding political, medical and media issues.

I have seen three of Michael Moore’s documentaries; the first was Bowling for Columbine, a film about a school massacre and other acts of violence with guns. The film title comes from the story of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold – two students responsible for the Columbine High School massacre who attended a school bowling class before they committed a shooting attack at school.

In Moore’s documentary he engages in discussions with various people such as South Park creator Matt Stone, National Rifle Associations then-president Charlton Heston and musician Marilyn Manson as well as members of the school. He tries to find the truth behind why the Columbine massacre occurred and why the United States has such a high violent crime rate.

The second documentary I watch was Fahrenheit 9/11. The film takes a critical look at George Bush and the war on terrorism, and in particularly the coverage on American news.

This documentary again has a discussion-based theme with several conspiracy theories being argued. The documentary speaks to those who believe the American Government allowed or helped the attacks on the world trade centre and the pentagon. Michael Moore travels across the United States to investigate, speaking eye to eye with witnesses and tries to establish the truth.

The third and final documentary I watched was called Sicko. This documentary investigates the American heath care system, focusing on its health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. The investigation compares American to other countries who have non-profit universal health care systems such as the United Kingdom, Canada and France.

Bowling for columbine won numerous awards, including Academy Award for best documentary feature, the independent spirit award for best documentary feature and a special 55th anniversary prize at the Cannes film festival. Fahrenheit 9/11 was controversial but debuted at the 2004 Cannes film festival and received a 20-minute standing ovation (the longest in the festivals history). The film was also awarded with the Golden Palm, the festivals highest award. Sicko opened to positive reviews but also generated criticisms and controversy. Sicko made $24.5 million theatrically in the United States.

The fact that Michael Moore’s documentaries have done so well brings them into the mainstream. They have been acknowledging by many and so they become more popular. Documentary is not a popular genre but Michaels Moore’s have become an exception, as they are innovative in their style.

The documentaries are styled differently to many investigative types. Michael Moore uses humour to prove his point or opinion on subjects or people he does this using editing and manipulation of footage to work in favour of his opinion. Moore has often been criticised for appearing too much in his documentaries making the focus on him rather than the subject to be investigated. Although there are always two sides to each discussion he brings up, the editing of each discussion is quite biased, as it seems to always work in his favour. His use of archive footage is really effective. Many scenes of archive footage go on for quite a while, for instance the blank screen and the 911 calls in Fahrenheit 9/11 and the cctv footage and emergency calls played over the top in bowling for columbine. These scenes where unusually long but worked really effectively as they allowed emotional interaction between the situation and the audience. These scenes really prolonged the agony, helping us to engaged with the people who this affected. Michael Moore’s style is very innovative and this has made him more successful and more money, as innovation is the fundamental source of increasing wealth.