Midway through filming his first documentary, ”Roger and Me,”
journalist-turned neophyte filmmaker Michael Moore commented to his crew, ”I really think we`re filming the end of Western civilization.”
His blisteringly political and hilarious $168,000, 16-mm. account of the actions of General Motors Corp. in Flint, Mich., was the recent popular hit of the Telluride and Toronto film festivals, and has made Moore the latest hot commodity in Hollywood, wooed by Universal and Disney at the highest levels.
Moore flew to Los Angeles from Toronto to spend two hours with Disney chairman Michael Eisner. ”I got eight calls from William Morris today,”
Moore confesseed on the phone from New York, where he and producer`s representative John Pierson were fielding distribution offers.
Humor played no small part in Moore`s success. Born and reared in Flint to a family of GM auto workers, Moore chose an another path: journalism. After being voted class clown by his high school colleagues, he was one of the first 18-year-olds elected to public office (as a member of the school board) after enactment of the 26th amendment.
He edited an alternative weekly in Flint before moving to San Francisco for a short-lived stint as editor of the countercultural monthly magazine Mother Jones. When he returned, he found his once-prosperous hometown in dire straits, the result of 30,000 GM layoffs.
Moore decided to make a film about GM and Flint, sold his house for $27,000, held two yard sales and began a weekly bingo game that raised another $50,000 for the film. He also won various grants and received private donations.
Rather than straightforwardly document the grim realities of unemployment/welfare in Flint, Moore chose to use his own wry humor in showing the hows and whys of the case. For one thing, he focuses his cameras on his attempts to persuade GM chairman Roger Smith to visit Flint to see for himself the effects of pulling out of flint to serve GM`s bottom line. Moore doesn`t cloak his leftist politics: This straggly-haired narrator is seriously anti-establishment. But the film`s many laughs render it a rabble-rousing crowd-pleaser and thus is Moore perceived as an entertaining filmmaker with a Hollywood future.
”I didn`t want the film to be a self-indulgent experience,” Moore explains. ”I wanted people to watch this movie. If you allow people to relax instead of being paralyzed, maybe they`ll be a little angry thinking about it and hoping to do something. I made a conscious decision never to go to the unemployment line in the unemployment capital of the country. Money magazine voted Flint `the worst city in the U.S. to live.` You find out why there are homeless by going into the enclaves of the wealthy-the boardroom,
shareholders` meeting, golf club-and seeing what makes them tick.”
Moore`s strategy is effective. As the events of the movie (which took three years to film) unfold, they become more and more outrageous and unbelievable. A lavish Hyatt Regency hotel complex built to lure
conventioneers instead lures a Scrabble league and folds after six months. An expensive downtown Auto World and tourist park also dies.
Moore hardly expected a down-on-her-luck amateur rabbit breeder to respond to a query about her brother`s recent layoff by clubbing an unfortunate bunny to death, which he decided to include in the film.
”We were freaking out,” he admits. ”She`s a real survivor, supplementing her Social Security with $15 extra bucks a week. Living in Flint is tough. It was just another step culminating in the jail party.”
That bizarre sequence shows the beautiful people of Flint celebrating the opening of an urgently-needed city prison by spending $100 a couple to party and stay overnight in a private jail cell.
Moore grabs interviews with ex-GM spokesman Pat Boone and with Anita Bryant and Flint homeboy Bob Eubanks during their trips to entertain the depressed citizens of Flint. While Boone and Bryant spout off the expected
”help yourself” homilies, Moore and his crew were taken aback when, just after clapping the slate, Eubanks cracked an off-color joke before Moore had time to ask his first question.
”When we started, we didn`t know an F-stop from F-troop,” says Moore.
GM`s Roger Smith managed to duck Moore at every turn, including a stockholders` meeting that hurriedly adjourned just as Moore stepped up to the mike. Smith was finally captured by Moore-briefly-at GM`s annual Christmas party. Although Moore seems to harbor some fear about what ”the world`s largest corporation” might do to try and stop his film from being seen, his legal advisors tell him he`s on solid ground.
”If GM is smart,” Moore says, ”they`ll ignore the movie as much as they can.”
But the news media are on the case.
Stories already have appeared in major newspapers across North America.
Distribution is a sure thing, according to Moore, who says offers are heading toward the $1-million mark.
And judging from the universal festival reaction, this tiny independent documentary may wind up being seen by a few more people than Bob Eubanks may have had in mind.
