THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW MICHAEL MOORE
Dikkers, Scott
THE PROGRESSIVE INTERVIEW Michael Moore 'I purposely set out to reach people who would rent a John Candy movie.' BY SCOTT DIKKERS Michael Moore is a smart ass. The award-winning filmmaker of...
...Q: You heard his story, right...
...Do not look at this as any kind of career move...
...I like movies...
...The award-winning filmmaker of Roger & Me, Moore hasn't lost his sense of humor or his political edge, which he honed while editing The Michigan Voice for a decade...
...They hate Rhea Perlman...
...It didn't seem like a fringe thing...
...You know, to go on and do my Roger & Me schtick and endorse their product...
...Just the idea of having crowds in the street of people supporting you...
...It may not be critic-friendly, but as of last weekend, eight million people have seen Canadian Bacon on videotape...
...They love talking to themselves and they love having a lot of meetings...
...I offered them the film for $10,000...
...The country got behind Bush without questioning what was going on...
...Suddenly they're going to be listening to things that might make some sense...
...Q: There was one segment you did where you bought lobbyists to get a resolution introduced in Congress...
...tube socks, Conan O'Brien tickets...
...Well, you gotta see it...
...The country was not going to be with it...
...Our voice is never heard on television...
...Where did you hear bad things...
...Q: How do you sit in meetings with these executives...
...Not having a college education, sort of being the recipient of the behavior of this large corporation...
...Q: And suddenly you had your choice of deals...
...Why did I settle for $3 million...
...Then we went to the Toronto Film Festival the next week, then the week after that we were in the New York Film Festival...
...I caught up with Moore recently as he was swinging through Madison...
...Q: You know, I rented Canadian Bacon the other day and watched it...
...Moore: Right...
...When really, when the cameras go off you put on your suit and go to these big Hollywood parties because you're a player now...
...Because most people would take the $10 million...
...Take their classic rock and shove it up their ass...
...I'm really a nice guy...
...Where's the humor...
...Q: Would you do it for the right product...
...And if we stop behaving like that, if we start worrying about income or whatever, we're dead...
...they want to see it treated very high-mindedly...
...And they were all, "Well, what's so funny about that...
...Q: They try to keep you in the dark as much as possible...
...And I gave them something different...
...So we went over there, big deal, right'1 Then we went to the Toronto Film Festival...
...Q: Did that help you raise the money or help you get the access to the people that you got access to...
...I consider myself part of that...
...It's so rare that an hour of prime-time television is turned over to a group of people from Flint, Michigan...
...I don't tell people that the $3 million deal I took for Roger & Me was $7 million less than what another studio offered...
...But no, this is a documentary...
...Moore: No sense of humor...
...And we formed the core of TV Nation...
...Q: The saying is that they have no sense of humor...
...We should be doing stuff that is going to get us kicked off the air...
...Why wouldn't I take $10 million...
...Scott Dikkers is the editor-in-chief of The Onion, a weekly humor magazine based in Madison, Wisconsin, which ran a version of this interview...
...Moore: No, let me hear his story...
...But I have to be realistic, too...
...Bite me, man, Bob Seger...
...That's really how I am...
...Like maybe we should question the President next time he says, "Let's go to war...
...Is he like the Skipper on Gilligan's Island...
...Q: They wanted to change everything...
...So, I guess what I can say for sure is that sometime this year we'll be back on the air somewhere with something that's either TV Nation or something similar to it...
...And they looked at it and said, "Where's the humor...
...I guess I don't talk about it a whole lot because people think you're kind of weird if you're not motivated by money...
...We don't know...
...You know...
...Moore: Basically, yeah...
...It's really "we...
...My politics were formed not by going to Berkeley or Madison or Ann Arbor, but from living in Flint, Michigan, growing up in the shadow of General Motors.' Q: Are you always going to be doing political stuff, or do you want to do a James Bond movie or something...
...Moore: Fuck him for doing those ads...
...That's what I'd do...
...I mean, Jesus Christ...
...I go to all kinds of movies...
...Q: Well, two thumbs down...
...Q: Tell me more about that...
...The film was not well-received by critics...
...You know, we don't hear much...
...Great responses at all the screenings...
...I guess the things I do have this political overtone to them because I'm concerned about what's going on...
...They already know that I don't like them very much...
...That's how I talk...
...And then some of the critics were like [whining], "We want more Roger & Me...
...And I watch TV...
...But these guys have got to sit here and wonder if I'm going to, like, end up doing something on them...
...You know, he can't do narrative...
...The left has isolated itself over the years...
...And then the Gulf War happened and I thought, "Geez...
...That's not an actor...
...Because I'm thinking, this has got to be a lot harder on them than it is on me...
...He can only do those documentary things...
...And I want to see change in my lifetime...
...I'm in the same relationship I was in then...
...Is it coming back...
...They always seem to be very nervous around me...
...And I always want to tell them, "Please don't be nervous...
...After Roger & Me, I'm sitting around thinking...
...Q: What's going on with TV Nation...
...I just did it because I was unemployed and didn't have anything else to do...
...And I'm really proud of the film...
...No matter what the money was...
...I tell you, if I was your age or younger, I'd be so angry at these boomers...
...What's the left doing...
...It just made you question everything about this country when you were watching it...
...I doit to help out, because I know how hard it is to raise money and not get anywhere...
...So it's like, thank god they didn't have a sense of humor...
...And I'm starting to get embarrassed because I'm thinking people are saying, "God, what does this guy do, walk around in his costume all the time...
...Moore: I tell the people who work here, you have to work here as if this is the end of your career...
...Moore then took his talents to the small screen, writing and directing the weekly show TV Nation, whose future is now in doubt...
...So he decided to do those ads...
...They wanted us to come back...
...Well, because the other studio wanted me to do three slaphappy comedy-type films that I had no interest in doing...
...Q: Back in those days of Roger & Me, you were somewhat of a local celebrity when you were making the movie, right...
...Moore: And three weeks later I sold it for $3 million...
...There's been a lot of interest in the show...
...When you make a film like Roger & Me, executives don't really call you up wanting you to be their friend...
...Did he always wear that hat...
...And I don't see a lot of other filmmakers or TV people dealing with these issues...
...Q: I would have thought it would be the exact opposite...
...Moore: No, because nobody would give me any money...
...Q: A lot of people probably figure you wear that cap and the parka because you're playing this character...
...Moore: In the dark, yeah...
...Was it ratings...
...Even with that film's celebrated success, Moore did not have an easy go of it in Hollywood...
...Don't do fiction...
...Moore: Yeah, I set up a foundation with the money I made from Roger & Me...
...I mean, come on...
...I will have reached a lot more people and been a lot more effective than had I made something else...
...Because I don't really give a damn...
...We're waiting to hear...
...You don't know how many businesses or companies have asked me to do TV commercials for them...
...Some of those speeches those Congressmen gave on the floor of Congress . . . Moore: They actually—we wrote the speeches...
...These are people you tear down on your show...
...Bunch of losers...
...You know, sell most of the things I had, or whatever...
...I left home when I was in high school and went to the seminary to be a priest...
...I basically had to put it all up myself...
...I've always lived a different kind of life...
...You don't really read about it...
...Moore: Yeah...
...There are six or seven people from Flint who worked on the show...
...But fortunately it's out on tape, and now people will be able to judge for themselves...
...Q: He was talking to some laid-off autoworkers, and they said, "Hey, why don't you do something to help us out...
...Moore: No, no...
...Q: It was an incredible piece of work...
...Q: Yeah, I think so...
...Q: So you're talking to Fox...
...And it's just something I do...
...The Michigan militia has a message and an agenda and a program, and they know how to manipulate people who are out of work and who are afraid...
...You know, I just had this thing about General Motors...
...I'd tell people, "It's about a dying auto town, but it's really funny...
...Moore: We don't know...
...Maybe mv expectations were low, but I really liked it...
...I have nothing against the movies...
...Moore: Well, they wanted Roger & Me again...
...Q: After you made that deal, did people try to lock you into doing more stuff just like Roger & Mel Moore: Well, no, you know, it's a funny thing...
...Boy this would be really funny if it was real, like in Roger & Me, but these people are acting, so it's not funny...
...And I've been very concerned that life is the same now as it was then, as much as I can possibly make it...
...People were saying...
...It comes off as very populist...
...Moore: No...
...So the privacy's gone, but basically, I have the same friends I had ten years ago...
...Q: I read that you help out young filmmakers...
...And the same thing with Canadian Bacon...
...And how people try to survive each week...
...Moore: It's funny, I'm more concerned about how they're feeling...
...And thev read them...
...So over three weeks we were winning all the awards at all the festivals, and that sort of turned the whole thing around...
...Well, what should I do...
...Coming from Michigan, it's like Seger and Nugent...
...I don't want you holding back as if you're going to please somebody...
...If more people did that, it wouldn't seem so weird...
...We thought we'd have a better chance of going beyond the summer...
...We went to the film festival in Tel-luride, Colorado, and became the huge hit there...
...Q: What happened with your first run on NBC...
...Q: He did some Chevy ads...
...And that's why a lot of highbrows don't want to see a John Candy film...
...Because there's only me and maybe two or three others doing things with political messages or whatever in them...
...Q: So no check will ever be big enough to make you step away from all that...
...Moore: Well, it was fun with the actors...
...John Belushi...
...And I'm just constantly trying to relax them and assure them, "Don't worry, it's OK...
...I know I look like the devil to you, but I'm not...
...Moore: Right, and I think that's great...
...Moore: No...
...Q: How was it to make...
...It was not fun with the studio...
...Q: And after you finished it, didn't PBS look at it and say, "What's so funny about this...
...Moore: Nah...
...I don't agree with it, but I understand it...
...Moore: Yeah...
...Or it might go to another network...
...That means it's really me...
...They were like the two guys, and now look at them...
...His first project was Roger & Me, the hilarious send-up of GM for its callousness toward the workers and residents of Flint, Michigan...
...And this parka...
...I heard so many bad things about it...
...Moore: Well, I think that's right...
...But, you see, my politics were formed not by going to Berkeley or Madison or Ann Arbor, but from living in Flint, Michigan, growing up in the shadow of General Motors...
...They want something more highbrow...
...Never...
...I also have an idea, though, for a half-hour fictional comedy based on growing up in Flint, Michigan...
...I put a million dollars in there to distribute to filmmakers and other social-action groups, people I want to help out...
...One's a hack for General Motors...
...I mean, I'm on TV and 20 million people know what I look like now...
...Q: So you bet the farm and it paid off...
...Fuck that, man...
...Moore: Did Siskel and Ebert say that...
...I purposely set out to try to reach people who would rent a John Candy video...
...The thing is renting really well because of word of mouth...
...Q: Is moving to narrative something you always wanted to do...
...Moore: When I walk down the street here today, you know I'm wearing this baseball cap right now...
...They could have owned all the rights to it...
...And so I kind of stick out...
...Just because we had a lobbyist give it to them...
...And so that has shaped a lot of how I see things...
...I got some of my friends to move from Flint here to New York...
...Moore: No...
...I've always been motivated by things different than probably what most people are...
...Let's track your history with it...
...Those things are free...
...And I can do that...
...It's like when I was trying to raise money for Roger & Me...
...Mike, stay with nonfiction...
...We decided to move to Fox...
...And the film didn't get distributed...
...Too leftwing...
...I might actually proceed with that, too...
...You should see the mail I'm getting...
...Moore: You know, it's your basic half-hour comedy, except something that deals with the political and social situation of a town that's dying...
...And I just look at it as a failure of the left...
...Q: They don't want to see it dumbed down...
...And I don't mean to say "they...
...Moore: Yeah...
...They want Bob Roberts...
...You know, I had a pretty good life in Flint, and I was very happy there, and I like shopping at Kmart...
...He made a broad political satire, Canadian Bacon, starring Alan Alda and John Candy—the operating premise being that the President of the United States needs to concoct an enemy, now that the Cold War is over, and Canada becomes the target...
...so why spend the money on it...
...They hate John Candy...
...We're dead at that moment...
...And they never offer less than a million dollars...
...Q: The thing about TV Nation is that the mass audience doesn't see it as political...
...Q: That's amazing...
...I do it quietly...
...I think progressive politics would be a lot further along if people had any clue of how the other 99 percent is really living...
...And then they didn't distribute it...
...Moore: Maybe...
...From there, Moore went on to edit Mother Jones before capping his editor's pen and uncapping his movie camera...
...We should be reaching those people...
...So, I guess we were wrong...
...Q: Because you know, Bob Seger— Moore: Oh, fuck him...
...Moore: People knew me because I had my own newspaper there for ten years...
...And it was very disappointing to me because here we were accepted to the Cannes Film Festival, where we had the premiere...
...Q: Your friends on TV Nation have a different ethic...
...So I probably funded three or four dozen filmmakers and other groups in the last four or five years...
...They just took the position that the film was too political, when they saw the final cut...
...But I have to say, I don't think life is really that long...
...It's a weird thing...
...Moore: Well, look at the gifts we were handing out...
...Imagine the people who are going to go into the video store and see John Candy on the cover of this box and then pick it up and take it home...
...And have done that...
...And the failure of the left has been the inability to reach people...
...Am 1 nuts'.' Moore: No, you're not nuts...
...Moore: I like James Bond movies...
...could they just invent any enemy here, you know, to get us to go fight...
...Dan Aykroyd...
...I could go back to that any day...
...It should have played in Madison, Wisconsin...
...I didn't want to make a documentary, either...
...I mean, I understand why people join the Wisconsin militia...
...the other is running around with the Michigan militia...
...We set the attendance record there...
Vol. 60 • June 1996 • No. 6
