Date: 10/30/2009 TO 11/5/2009
Time:

Salina Art Center & Cinema
150 S. Santa Fe
Salina, KS 67402

---

Event Description: Some call him a smug, condescending, ivory tower liberal. Some call him a phony, a baseball cap-wearing attention hog feigning empathy with the working class just to make himself rich. And some call him a traitorous, lying rabble-rouser, whose films encourage no positive action, and accomplish nothing but make Americans feel depressed and angry. Gonzo documentarian Michael Moore has been called a lot of things—many can’t be printed in family-friendly publications—but there’s one thing he’s never been called: safe. Furious, inflammatory, in-your-face, and laugh-out-loud funny, Michael Moore doesn’t back off. He’s a pit bull, but at least he’s selective: what gives his “ambush” interviews and pranks a cathartic energy is the fact that he picks on those whose wealth and power have traditionally protected them from criticism, moral responsibility, and prosecution. When Moore angrily wraps crime scene tape around the offices of AIG or grills a Harvard economist on the definition of a “derivative” (it has something to do with corporations actually making money when homeowners default on their mortgages), audiences enjoy at least a little payback. It’s nothing compared to the crimes committed against powerless, working class families—but at least it’s a start. With a title like Capitalism: A Love Story, viewers might expect a socialist denunciation of the evils of the American economic system. Yes, Moore delivers the righteous anger, especially powerful in scenes where he illustrates how some corporations actually take out life insurance on their own employees, reaping massive benefits from so-called “dead peasants insurance” when their loyal workers die (often from accumulation of stress and poor working conditions). And despite accusations to the contrary, Moore does sympathize with the “common man.” Watch his gut-wrenching interviews with people who have lost their jobs and their homes: this isn’t exploitation, and it’s not fake anger. Like the best cinematic clowns, Moore knows when to be funny and when not to be funny. And it’s the genuine concern with ordinary people—those on the outside of the American dream, looking in—that makes the humor more pointed, more resonant. When Moore includes rare archival footage of President Franklin D. Roosevelt describing his proposed “Second Bill of Rights,” which states that all Americans have a right to homes, jobs, education, and health care, it’s shocking to learn that these concerns have been around so long—and saddening to realize that this Second Bill of Rights is just as much a dream today as it was back in Roosevelt’s time. Although “capitalism” is a big subject, Moore has a specific thesis: capitalism in theory is good, rewarding virtues such as honest competition, drive, ambition, talent, imagination, and creativity; but capitalism in practice has diverged from these American ideals, with a lot of wealth now built upon greed, theft, deceit, criminal negligence, and callous disregard of workers’ rights. And what makes such a flawed system so resistant to change is that it plays upon a common fantasy: those at the lowest rung of the ladder still dream of making it to the top, despite overwhelming evidence that the “game” is rigged. So the subtitle “A Love Story” is not entirely Moore being cheeky—there is a love-hate affair with capitalism in our country. We despise the 1% of the American population who holds 95% of the country’s wealth… and we also fantasize about getting to that exalted place ourselves someday. What Moore wants more than an overthrow of Wall Street is for viewers to take an honest look at the “American Dream,” learn what many of our banks, mortgage lending companies, brokerage firms, and corporations do to “earn” their wealth, and then ask ourselves a tough question: is this a game we want the country to keep playing? It’s not an easy question, but with his inimitable combination of gallows humor, technical virtuosity, tough love, and inspired sight gags, Michael Moore helps make the question easier to contemplate. Although it may or may not win converts, Capitalism: A Love Story does something that few films do: it makes us remember our sense of outrage. And as Moore knows very well, outrage is a guilty pleasure that can sometimes make even the toughest times tolerable—Moore tells us it’s OK to be mad as Hell, especially when there’s a good reason.


Directions:

---