Capitalism and democratic values

Michael Moore is an important American filmmaker, writer and social commentator. It is as a documentary filmmaker that he has gained great international critical acclaim. His works have won top awards at the Oscars, Cannes film festival and many others. Some of his documentaries are among the most popular ever made. He is a committed filmmaker who is unafraid of controversy. He is an inveterate champion of democratic values and social justice who is keen to map the paradoxes of capitalist societies.

Some adore him; others detest him. His latest documentary, 'Capitalism: A Love Story' was released in early October and is generating a great deal of passionate discussion. This film boldly deals with the ills of capitalism and the way capitalism has become a malignant force in society. He shows how Americans pay for their love of capitalism with their jobs and houses and savings. His primary object of attack is the world of corporations; how corporate greed has impinged adversely on the lives of ordinary people and how executives of corporations have forfeited the trust placed in them. The film records with mounting anxiety the ways in which the lives of ordinary people have been devastated by the greed of a few.

At the intellectual centre of the film is Michael Moore's argument that a perilous gulf has opened up between capitalism and democratic values. This troubles him deeply. Hence, this film, as indeed his earlier films, bristles with anger. In all his films, he has been an unrepentant promoter of social justice. His films constitute an exhortation, in the face of gathering misery, not to yield to defeatism.

In his first film, 'Roger and Me', he focused on the General Motors and how its policies of profit-making have had a devastating impact on workers. His film, 'Farenheit 9/11' explored the workings of the American military establishment and Gorge W. Bush and his administration - how they behaved after 9/11.His other highly influential film, 'Sicko', explored the ills of the American healthcare system by comparing it with other systems in the world. In all his films, a sense of moral outrage and critical humanism impel his imagination.

Moore is a hugely popular filmmaker; his signature gifts for entertainment and narrative power are in evidence in all his documentaries.

He makes use of combative wit and humour with remarkable effect to drive home his points. Some commentators have observed that he belongs to the line of artists represented by such luminaries as Mark Twain. Michael Moore's films are interesting in terms of the social content. But they also deserve study in terms of representational strategies and forms of narration. The transfigurative power of his camera and the emotional arc of the narratives invite closer analysis. The visual vocabulary of his documentaries dramatizes memorably the moral repugnance that animates his sensibility.

Not everyone, of course, is happy with Michael Moore's documentary films. Some find him deeply offensive and anti-American. They criticise him for allowing his enthusiasm and earnestness to get the better of him and to permit a protrusion of propaganda into his work. Others fault him for his simplifications, generalizations and a propensity to take liberties with the chronology of established events. I have watched him on numerous television talk shows vigorously defending himself against these charges.

We - students of cinema - are in the habit of discussing documentary films in terms of five main categories. They are expository documentaries, observational documentaries, interactive documentaries, introspective documentaries and dramatic documentaries. Expository documentaries seek to be objective and authoritative while the aim of observational documentaries is for the director to be invisible and allow the events to speak for themselves. In the interactive documentaries the filmmaker is clearly present and is often a conspicuous character in them.

The distinguishing mark of introspective documentaries is that they reveal their modes of representation and paths of filmic construction. In the dramatic documentaries the represented world becomes ancillary to the dramatic re-creation of it.

Clearly, Michael Moore's films fall into the Interactive category. His pugnacious presence is what attracts many to his impassioned journalism.