Michael Moore has never been afraid to tackle big issues, from the struggles of American workers (Roger & Me) to health care (Sicko) to the war in Iraq (Fahrenheit 9/11). His latest, Capitalism: A Love Story, is no exception. Moore feels that capitalism is incompatible with democracy, and finds much evidence in the recent financial crisis that banks and corporations are responsible for the suffering of average Americans. Moore’s lefty politics have made him a pariah of the right, but that hasn’t necessarily been bad for his career; after a limited run last week, Capitalism goes wide on Friday, which is exceedingly rare for a documentary.
Moore spoke to RT while taking a train to the Washington, DC premiere of Capitalism: A Love Story; he discussed the meaning of Barack Obama’s election, his detractors, and his latest project — a non-profit movie theater in Traverse City, MI.
RT: It seems that, as usual, you’re angry about what’s going on in the world, but you’re a bit more optimistic in this film. Did Obama’s election change your perspective on the direction the country is going?
Michael Moore: Oh yeah. I mean, five years ago, when Fahrenheit came out, I was in the minority. Bush had a higher approval rating, people supported the war. Now, my politics and the politics of the majority of Americans have aligned, as evidenced by the election of Barack Obama. I was overjoyed at his election last year and remain very optimistic. I’m generally an optimist. I’m not a cynic. I’ve seen too much now to know that the crazy and the impossible can happen. I remember a time when I — of course, like everyone else — believed the Berlin Wall would never come down, and it came down. Or that Mandela would ever get out of prison and become president. Or that an African-American would be elected president of the United States. [I’m] continually surprised by the ability of people to ultimately do the right thing.
Your film doesn’t necessarily present a solution for what you find to be the excesses of capitalism, but you do say that greater participation in democracy will allow for people to make money without leaving vast swaths of the populous behind. Do you think that’s ever going to happen?
MM: Yes, of course I do. Yeah. [laughs]
People obviously talk to you a lot about the political stuff, but what do you do when you’re not making movies?
MM: I spent the better part of the last year or two restoring a 100-year-old movie palace in the town where I live, and ended opening it up and operating it as a movie theater, and trying it as an experiment as to how to bring people back to the movies. Trying to show how a movie theater should be run. It has been an incredible experience. It’s called the State Theater, and it’s in Traverse City, Michigan. We’ve been open about 90 weeks, and of those 90 weeks, about a third of them, we’ve been the number one theater in the country, box office-wise, for the film that we’re showing that week. And nobody’s really written about this; it’s kind of a “best kept secret” sort of thing. If you look at the grosses of — like, when we had Lars and the Real Girl, we were the number one theater that week. We’ve been in the top 10 definitely more than half the weeks we’ve been open. We’ve been in the top 10 in the country, box office.
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So do you tend to screen specialty films?
MM: Well, it’s an independent movie theater, so, you know, we had Juno and Slumdog and (500) Days of Summer. You know, those were huge. I also show documentaries and foreign films, so my point is I’m gaining in a rural community where the last three elections went twice for Bush and once for McCain. I’ve been able to find a way to bring people to the movies who otherwise wouldn’t go to the movies, especially independent movies.
How have you been able to do that?
MM: Well, there are a number of ways. First of all, I’ve created a wonderful movie theater that’s comfortable to sit in. The projection and the sound is perfect. It’s a fun place to be. It’s a single-screen theater decorated in a 1940s motif; the ushers wear usher uniforms. It’s non-profit, it’s volunteer, pretty much volunteer-operated; the majority of the workers are ushers. The popcorn and pop is $2 each, and you can get candy for a dollar, so there’s no rip-off prices. There’s no commercials before the movies other than trailers, and cell phones are banned — if we catch you on a cell phone or a blackberry, you’re banned from the theater for life. You can never come back in.
Obviously, a lot of people have said, when you’re making your films, “Oh, the facts aren’t 100 percent,” and you’ve responded by saying, “I’m starting the discussion,”
or, “I want want to make the most entertaining movie I can with the information I have.”
MM: You know, my response to them saying that is, just try to find one fact in my films that is wrong, because they’re all correct. Anybody who says that, they’re putting out this information to distract people from having a discussion about the issues in the film. I’d like to hear one fact in this film, Sicko, Fahrenheit, any of them, where I’ve been wrong. In fact, I got so p—ed at listening to all of this on the last three films, I’ve offered $10,000 to anybody who can find a fact that’s wrong with the film. Not an opinion; the opinions are mine. You know, an opinion can be right or wrong. This is my opinion; I may not be right. If I say the sun rises in the East, it rises in the East. If I say [home] foreclosures are filed in this country every seven and a half seconds, you can trust that.
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Has the sometimes visceral reaction to your films bothered you, or do you think that shows you’re doing your job?
MM: It doesn’t bother me. Listen, the other side, they don’t want the status quo to change. They want to keep things just as they are. Health insurance companies all want to make sure that they run our health care system and make a profit off it. General Motors didn’t want to change, and we’re seeing what happened to them. The National Rifle Association wants anybody to have access to assault weapons. So that’s their position, so they naturally don’t want to change those positions, and I’m a bit of a threat because my films reach a wide audience.
It seems like a number of filmmakers over the last few years have sort of appropriated, or paid homage to, the kind of stuff that you did in Roger and Me and subsequently, like Morgan Spurlock or Kirby Dick or, to a different degree, Sacha Baron Cohen. How do you feel about those films?
MM: I watch them, I love them, and those guys have said publically how they were inspired by watching my work over the years. So I’m very honored by that.
There was some scuttlebutt up in Toronto that you might be done making documentaries.
MM: No, no, no. It was just what I said at the end of the film. I said, you know, I’m not going to keep doing this if you the people don’t [assert] yourselves politically. That’s all I meant, so I’m expecting people to get involved and be active.
Have you ever thought about making another fiction film?
MM: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, mm-hmm. I’ll do that.
What are you working on next?
MM: This is the first time in a number of films that I haven’t had the next film lined up. But that was on purpose, because, like I said at the end of the film, I’m going to wait and see what people are going to do.
Capitalism: A Love Story opens in wide release this weekend. Visit the film’s RT page here to read up on reviews thus far.
