CS Weekly Archive > From the Trenches > 10/2/09

Not Your Ordinary Love Story:
Capitalism: A Love Story's Michael Moore

BY ADAM STOVALL

A few weeks ago Michael Moore screened his new film Capitalism: A Love Story for audiences, followed by a Q+A. CS Weekly's Adam Stovall was on hand to cover the event and give us a look at one of the most controversial filmmakers of our time.

On Wednesday, September 16th, Overture Films hosted an early screening of Capitalism: A Love Story at the Mann Bruin Theatre in Westwood. After the screening, there was to be a Q&A with Michael Moore, moderated by Arianna Huffington—but before the movie even began to unspool, there was the matter of introducing Michael Moore, who would then introduce the film. Unfortunately, the person who was scheduled to introduce Mr. Moore did not show up. Moore asked the audience if any of them would like to introduce him, and an excitable young man jumped at the opportunity. It is one of the unique pleasures of living in L.A. that so many people are perpetually camera-or-mic-ready. Clearly excited to be introducing Moore, the young man took a moment to get his emotions in check, then began his spiel. He pointed out that a lot of people take issue with Moore's films and just how factual they actually are. He, however, had always seen Moore as a comedian, shedding light on matters that heretofore had existed largely in the dark. This did not sit well with Moore.

There's no telling what remarks Moore had prepared specifically for the screening, as he took the mic back and spoke about hiring the New Yorker fact-checkers for Fahrenheit 9/11 and offering a $10,000 reward for anyone who can point out a factual inaccuracy in his work. He talked about the whistleblower who, upon seeing Sicko, decided enough was enough. He spoke about the power of cinema, and the power of the people who make it and react to it. And then the film began.

This is not a review, so suffice to say that Capitalism is among his most incendiary pieces. Not as complete as Sicko or Bowling for Columbine, but as naked a call to arms as Fahrenheit 9/11, if not moreso.

The film ended, and Arianna Huffington took the stage. She spoke of growing up in Greece and learning about the Gods, especially Cassandra. She liked Cassandra, because she always spoke the truth, which people did not always appreciate. She sees a similar spirit in Moore, who she then invited to join her on stage.

So much of the footage in the film is shocking. What shocked you the most in the course of making this film?
"At this point, I'm not shocked by much. Geitner, Sommers, Rubin, that's all very troubling. I mean, to take the guys who all had large roles in the economic collapse, and then hire them to unfuck it up? I interviewed a bank robber who was hired by some banks to prevent robberies. I found that Obama didn't understand derivatives, either. It's all troubling and disheartening, but I'm not sure how shocking it really is anymore."

You've said before that this film was made for an audience of one. What do you mean by that?
"I wanted to scare Obama. I didn't make this for the general audience, I made it for him. I want him to know that we know, and that he is on notice. If he ultimately sides with Wall Street in all of this, my next film will make Fahrenheit look like a Disney movie."

People often say that the government and the economy are like ships, that it takes a long time to turn them around. However, there's another similarity that has long struck me, that while the captain might steer the ship, the real power is in the boiler room. Yet, for so long the people in the boiler room have been on auto pilot because they were manipulated by fear.
"That's a theme I've been exploring since Columbine. In that film, it was how 80 percent of the 220 million guns in this country are found in the suburbs or largely white areas, which can't be entirely due to pheasant hunting. It is due to fear that has been instilled in them that someone, namely the Black Man, is going to come and take what is yours. Of course, one of the sad parts of that is that we found ourselves talking about how the Black Man was too scared or too defeated to actually exercise the power we were all afraid he had. In Fahrenheit, it's how the administration was gifted this nameless, faceless, completely generic fear with which it could do anything and everything it wanted. Sicko showed an industry afraid to actually deliver on what they were selling, for fear it would cost them money—and people too afraid to call the company on it, afraid it would cost them, what? Money, I guess? Time? Dignity? And now, people are still afraid. When the collapse began, people everywhere were thinking, 'Shit! If this is true, I'd better get my money out of the bank now!' I've never owned stock, because I don't really understand it. I don't understand gambling of this kind.

"But you know, there's another slow change that's happened over the last 30 years. One day I was looking back on my childhood, as many people my age do, and I realized something: no one had credit cards. Maybe a gas card, or a department-store card, but nothing like what we have today. You didn't have a 401k, you had a defined pension. If you needed help with school, you went into the work-study program and maybe got one or two percent from the college. But then the idea of 'privatizing' was introduced, and it's just been fucking us since!"

I noticed you include Elizabeth Warren (Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel in charge of the bailout). What was her involvement, and was there more footage with her you weren't able to include?
"Oh man, she's great, isn't she? We actually filmed her for Sicko, but ultimately couldn't use it. But yeah, she's very open. She spoke with us for an hour, and you really feel for her, because she can't get any info either! I mean, have you ever applied for a loan? All the paperwork they make you fill out, they really put you through the ringer! But the Bailout Money Request is a two-page form! That's our money, and we don't get to know where it's going? We can't ask what they're going to do with it? I mean, what the fuck?

"Recently they did a study at Harvard to determine what is the number-one reason for all the bankruptcy and foreclosures in recent years, and you know what they found? Medical bills. But has this been discussed? We live in this blame-the-victim society where the people with the money say that the people without the money are that way because they're too stupid and petty to have any money. And we just go along with it. We allow the one percent to have control, and then we delude ourselves that we're free! We're idiots! Did you know that if you make over $110,000 a year, you don't pay FICA? Under $110,000, you pay between 6.7 and 7.2 percent. If that were equal, we'd have enough money in Social Security to last until 2087. Years from now, people are going to look back on us and laugh like we laugh at the people who used leeches in medicine. We go along with it, because they're rich, and if they're rich then they must be right. We need to get back to root values. I was initially hesitant to include the Catholic Church, because I haven't been very happy with them lately either, but I was taught some really great core values in the church, and I believe in sharing them.

"And speaking of Social Security, there's a story I really like about FDR. This woman came up to him at an event and asked him if he was going to get her the Social Security money she'd earned. He said, 'No, ma'am, I am not. You're going to have to make me. I have banks and companies trying to get me to not give you that money, so you're going to have to exercise your power and make me give you that money.' That's precisely what we need to do! Rise up! Get busy! We're the 99 percent, we can take back the power legally. We just need to be active. Look at those town hall meetings. Why didn't we go? Say what you will about the Right Wing, they're committed, and I think that's admirable. We're just so used to being the minority, we don't know how to act like a majority.

"There are signs of hope, though. The AFL-CIO just passed a resolution for a single-payer system. I like to think I'm pretty aware of what's happening in Congress, but I'd never heard of Marcy Kaptur. There are 10 other great minds in Congress, and the people in the world who should be in office. We must be visible! There are good stories and resources online, but they can only inform. It's not enough to tweet and blog—we must act!

"Here in Hollywood there are a few big questions, one of which is: what are we going to do without Bush? Art and culture will thrive in the Obama era. FDR's message was that of power to the people, and that produced Sturges, Ford, Steinbeck, Will Rogers, because they knew that one way to restore power to the working people was to show their stories."


Outside of the Q&A, Moore told a story about what is arguably one of the real highlights in his film. On January 11th, 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his State of the Union address via radio, for he was in too poor health to convey it via TV as per usual. Once the address was over, however, he invited a small camera crew into his office to record a separate address—an address in which he proposed a Second Bill of Rights. Roosevelt died 16 months later, and the footage was lost. Some speculated that it never existed in the first place. However, in the course of making Capitalism, Moore tasked a few of his researchers to find it, to leave no stone unturned. And one day, in a basement at the University of South Carolina, in an unmarked box, they found it. Moore doesn't mention this in the film—presumably it would be in poor taste to upstage, or at least put yourself into the scene with, FDR in a moment so unique to him. But later, when you're thinking back on the film, arguing with friends about it, think about that small bit of trivia. The young man who introduced Moore at the beginning wasn't entirely wrong: he is a filmmaker singularly interested in showing us things we haven't seen before, be it a side of an unpopular argument, or footage whose very existence is debatable. One person who cites that scene as their favorite is Robin Williams, Goldthwait's close friend of 30 years. Williams had done a cameo in Shakes the Clown and thought he might do something similar to help his friend out when he asked to read the script for World's Greatest Dad. He ended up wanting to play the lead of Lance Clayton, a down-on-his-luck poetry teacher trying to raise an ungrateful 15-year-old son, Kyle (Daryl Sabara). Not unlike Sleeping Dogs, the film begins with some hilarious but offensive scenes as Kyle is caught choking himself while masturbating, before going on to spout lewd comments to girls at his high school and spy on the elderly neighbor undressing. Mostly, Kyle just crudely abuses his father, as a resigned Lance takes it. But when a sudden tragedy occurs, Lance finds he can exploit the opportunity to change his life.

Goldthwait admits he often finds himself in his characters. In the case of Ed in Sleeping Dogs Lie, he says, "I felt bad for the actor because about halfway through, I realized he was playing me. A better-looking version of me, mind you, but me. And the person playing you sort of gets micromanaged. About a day or two into World's Greatest Dad, Robin said, 'Oh, I get it. I'm you.' That's all these movies are—therapy."

When an idea strikes Goldthwait, he takes off for a chain motel and spends the next few days writing. Both Sleeping Dogs and Dad were written in under a week. Asked if he encounters writer's block, Goldthwait pauses. "I definitely do, but I think even when I'm not writing, I'm writing," he states. "I'm constantly thinking about ideas or working out scenes in my mind that later end up on the page. So I try not to beat myself up when I hit a wall." On the set, he is open to improvisation and making split-second decisions—a skill he says he picked up doing live TV. In a pivotal scene in Dad, Lance goes on a talk show to exploit a personal tragedy and breaks down, not only crying, but laughing uncontrollably. It was scripted with only the tears, but wasn't working on set. "I told Robin to go for the big lie and let the absurdity and the tragedy of the situation hit him at once," Goldthwait reveals. "After the scene, I realized I had never seen anything like that before. It was true and wonderful."

Goldthwait also creates a comfortable environment on set by working with good friends, such as Tom Kenny (the voice of "Spongebob Squarepants"), who has appeared in all his films. "Tom says I have a very juvenile approach where I'm like, 'I'm going to make a movie and you're all going to be in it!' Like a little kid," Goldthwait says with a laugh. "The difference is, I actually do it." And to keep levity on set, he always wears a silly hat while directing. "It's hard to yell at someone when you're in a coonskin cap," he reasons. "You just look like a douchebag."

Goldthwait has several ideas for future projects, including one about a serial killer. He isn't completely sure what his future entails, but he does know what he doesn't want. "I'm not interested in making studio movies," he says, simply. "I want to make small, personal films. That said; I do want to try other things. But mainly, I just hope to keep making movies and I hope to keep challenging myself."



Adam spends his time watching the movies that are in theaters, and writing the ones he wishes were.



Capitalism: A Love Story courtesy Overture Films

From the Trenches
Working screenwriters discuss in their own words a particular aspect of screenwriting, from the mechanics of writing to the personal and professional impact that writing has had on their lives. > VIEW ARCHIVE

The Big Picture

Features that cover all aspects of screenwriting, from our "Seven Best" lists to analysis of old favorites and new classics. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Weekend Read
Film, book, web site and technology reviews from a writer’s perspective. How can these items help a writer on his or her journey, or make that journey more enjoyable? > VIEW ARCHIVE

DVD Review of the Day
DVD reviews from a writer’s point of view. What aspects of this script and features of this DVD illuminate the writing, development, and storytelling process? > VIEW ARCHIVE