I barely know these people, and I hate them. Sentiment I suspect Michael Moore would encourage.
courtesy Warner Bros.
"So this was GM Chairman Roger Smith. He appeared to have a brilliant plan. First, close 11 factories in the U.S., then open 11 in Mexico, where you pay the workers 70 cents an hour. Then, use the money you saved by building cars in Mexico to take over other companies, preferably high tech firms and weapons manufacturers. Next, tell the union you're broke and they happily agree to give back a couple billion dollars in wage cuts. You then take that money from the workers and eliminate their jobs, by building more foreign factories. Roger Smith was a true genius."
Roger & Me, written, produced, directed and hosted by Michael Moore, did not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. Shortly after its release, the movie was criticized for the license Moore took with the timeline of events in and affecting Flint, Michigan, as well as how he presented individuals and Flint itself.
A documentary became a docudrama for some people. I'll say this: if Roger & Me had been 100 percent fiction, I think it would have easily won any Best Original Screenplay award. Moore would also have been acclaimed for capturing the callous language of the ill-informed.
"So, what advice do you have for those who are having a rough go of it?"
"Get up in the morning and go do something."
Earlier this month, I listened to Ben Winchester, a rural sociologist from the University of Minnesota. He's opposed to "anecdata," or information supposedly based on serious research but is based on what someone thinks is true. One example, he said, is when people say a community died because a business closed its doors. Then again, it's not really fair to attempt an apples to apples comparison between Winchester's point of view and Moore's arguments in Roger & Me. Flint wasn't dying from the wounds it received when all those plants closed. It was dying from economic malpractice.
I promise I'll stop talking about myself after this paragraph ... I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Flint was a place near enough to my grandma's house in the Detroit suburbs, but not somewhere I spent much time thinking about. I'm actually giving Flint's woes more thought in regards to my career as a community reporter. Watching the tourism failure sequence, detailing the ill-fated Hyatt Regency Hotel, Water Street Pavilion and AutoWorld, I began imagining the gushing, slightly desperate articles written about these would-be landmarks.
"... only six months after opening, AutoWorld closed due to a lack of visitors. I guess it was like expecting a million people to go to New Jersey to 'ChemicalWorld,' or a million people going to Valdez, Alaska to 'ExxonWorld.' Some people just don't like to celebrate human tragedy while on vacation."
Roger Smith was appointed chairman and chief executive of GM on Jan. 1, 1981. He retired on July 31, 1990, and died Nov. 29, 2007. Kept at an arm's length from the audience, he quickly becomes the most fascinating "character" in Roger & Me. Close behind is Moore, who has many roles. He observes the oddity, like Rhonda Britton's "pets or meat" rabbit business. He participates in it, like when he's getting his colors analyzed. He's the love child of David Letterman and Mike Wallace, conducting interviews that are masterpieces of discomfort comedy. He's Javert, pursuing Smith for the crime of not giving enough of a damn about Flint. There were several accomplices, it seems.
"I don't understand your connection, by saying that because General Motors was born here, it owes more to this community. I don't agree with that."
"Why not?"
"Cause I just don't agree with it. I believe it's a corporation that's in business to make a profit. And it does what it has to do to make a profit. That's the nature of corporations or companies. It's why people take their own money and invest them in a business, so they can make money. It isn't to honor their hometown."
Tom Kay, the GM lobbyist, is one of the more interesting members of the ensemble. Assuming I found the right obituary*, he's the same Thomas Kay who died in April 2004 and previously served as Flint's city manager. That information isn't mentioned in the movie (then again, Kay's obit doesn't mention Roger & Me or GM), but I find it especially fascinating in light of Kay's compartmentalizing comments. Next to Moore, Kay seems to be the only person who we can imagine existing outside Flint.
(the unkempt eyebrow seems to be a dead giveaway)
"You know why Jewish women don't get AIDS? 'Cause they marry assholes, they don't screw 'em."
A lot's changed in 30-plus years, and a lot hasn't. When Moore was interviewing the likes of Bob Eubanks, Michigan Gov. James Blanchard, UAW President Owen Bieber, and eventual Miss America Kaye Lani Rae Rafko, I began getting tense. I was waiting for someone to say how "concerned" they are about Flint and how it's in their "thoughts and prayers." At the risk of damning him with faint praise, I'll say Pat Boone came across as the most likable and genuine of the bunch.
The comparative glitterati are in contrast with the likes of Kay (who says Smith "has as much concern about these people as you or I do"), Britton, Genesee County Sheriff's Deputy Fred Ross, former auto worker and then-mental patient Ben Hamper ... the list goes on. I think their stories were presented with as much respect as Moore could give. I shudder to think how he'd make the movie in 2020. Anyway, Moore's respect, a whole lot of black comedy, a whole lot of righteous anger and a whole lot of tragedy, is presented in such a matter-of-fact style you could cry.
"I failed to bring Roger to Flint. As we neared the end of the twentieth century, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and people everywhere now had a lot less lint, thanks to the lint rollers made in my hometown. It was truly the dawn of a new era."
Thoughts:
-- Box Office: Grossing $6.7 million on a $140,000 budget, this had a wide-ish release (up to 265 theaters total, according to Box Office Mojo) in early 1990 and came in at No. 103 for 1989.
-- According to Moore, Warner Bros had planned for a release in 1,300 total theaters. The studio allegedly secured showings at theaters where Lethal Weapon 2 and Tango & Cash had been booked. Who knows? Maybe the deal fell through when there was no Oscar nomination.
-- Awards Watch: This won Best Documentary honors from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle. For the record, Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt won Best Documentary Feature at the 62nd Academy Awards.
-- Critics Corner: "Parts of Roger & Me are factual," Ebert wrote. "Parts are not. All of the movie is true." Moore's liberties didn't invalidate the movie for Hal Hinson, but he did say they kept it from being truly great. "The movie stands as a brilliant portrait of corporate heartlessness and urban folly," David Denby wrote. Noel Murray: "A funny, angry inquiry into what the hell happened to the American dream."
-- Critics Corner, Britton: Her feelings toward Moore are less than friendly, the Flint Journal reported in 2009. Moore seemed to deride her, Hinson wrote. Stephen Marche, writing about the movie for Esquire in 2014, said he couldn't see mockery, "only a kind of melancholy tenderness. A collapsing economy makes people do ridiculous things. It sometimes turns them into ridiculous people. Moore is just showing it."
-- The Journal published an oral history on the movie in 2014. The most interesting fact is that apparently Roger Smith was interviewed. It's not clear if it was before or after the shareholders meeting or Smith delivering his Christmas message. Anyway, read for yourself. It's interesting to see which people seem to have a sense of the big picture and which have at least a little resentment:
-- Like I mentioned, I'm from Grand Rapids, not too far from Ada, which is indeed still the home of Amway. On behalf of my home, I apologize for Betsy DeVos.
-- Next: Always. On deck: Tango & Cash.
No comments:
Post a Comment