The film explores Michael Moore's background and incendiary nature (being fired from Mother Jones after working as Editor for only five months, for instance). And of course, there is the dull irony that the pair (represented onscreen by Debbie Melnyk) was never able to land Moore for an interview (not unlike Michael Moore's ill-fated pursuit of Roger in his first film debut Roger & Me). More ironic, perhaps, is that a film team attempting to defame Moore usurped his premise as well as some of his techniques.
Though I appreciate Moore's films, I went to Manufacturing Dissent because I thought it might have decent style and content (two requisite traits of film) and because it had been given a good review by London's Time Out (though The Guardian only gave it two stars). But, to start, the film was technically poor with horrible camera work and irrelevant clips (if you've seen the film, recall the teenage girls as the county fair). Worst of all, the film told me things about Michael Moore but rarely showed me they were true. And it left interesting bits hanging.
For instance, the film team discovered that Michael Moore's media foundation owned shares of Haliburton stock. But the argument was left as superficial as that and was then snuffed out like a candle flame.
I concur with one reviewer at Rotten Tomatoes who wrote, "Manufacturing Dissent seems disingenuous at times and just plain stupid at others."
Ultimately, the most disparaging character traits one could gauge from Manufacturing Dissent are that Michael Moore has a propensity for weight gain and, on occassion, be an ass. The rest of the film only confirmed Michael Moore's high energy and his astute business sense. In the end, Debbie Melnyk and her film's arguments embodied all the things Michael Moore and his films aren't: insecure, waffling, passive, and thin. The film made it to the cinema due to Moore's mass appeal, not hers.
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It's not like Michael Moore doesn't deserve plenty of scrutiny. And the scrutinizing can be, and has been done, much better (as you suggest) than with this film -- i.e. the 2004 film, "Michael Moore Hates America," ended up with 75% good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and got two thumbs up from Ebert and Roeper.
The question is why both Moore and Al Gore have felt the need to take the 80% of what they have to say which is rock solid and honest, and then add on another 20% of bullshit. Gore's message in his movie would have been just as good without mentioning the snows of Kilimanjaro (which are swirling with debate on why they are vanishing, with a lot of top scientists saying it has nothing to do with global warming but rather from local environmental mismanagement) and stretching to the nightmare scenarios of the extreme predictions of sea level rise. And Michael Moore makes good points, but then goes and ruins a movie like "Bowling for Columbine," with the embarrassingly rude and amateurish treatment of Charleton Heston (I'm no fan of Heston but I won't ever get over the shameful and inept way Moore treated him).
Basically everyone needs people keeping them in check. And this whole idea of using film as a way to sandbag people is something that began with Moore with "Roger and Me," and is still evolving as people try to figure it out. It's a sad, gradual process of smashing public trust as people like P.Z. Myers and Genie Scott get lied to by filmmakers for Ben Stein's upcoming movie.
When I made "Flock of Dodos" I found myself sitting in the editing suite thinking, "wow, I could really make some of these people look soooo bad." In fact I added a segment of outtakes on the home DVD that include the clip of Michael Behe saying, "why should I care what gets taught in public schools -- my kids don't go to public schools." Which was prime material for ridiculing him, if I had chosen that style.
It's very strange how much power (at the moment) can be placed in the hands of filmmakers, which is why so many people are now becoming filmmakers. Which is a good thing. But in the meanwhile, "documentary" filmmaking is still the wild west of today's media world.
A public figure today would have to be crazy to agree to an interview in a movie without having a clear knowledge of who the filmmaker is and what agenda is at work. In the same way its hard to trust your doctor any more (and possible to check up on your doctor using the internet), it's also hard to trust your filmmaker.