Cinema Hype

A friend of mine said recently of Michael Moore, “He’s one of those guys that you wish you disagreed with.”

It’s true. In Sicko, Moore’s reputation precedes him (one person in the film, when denied coverage by Cigna HMO, mentioned his name in a letter and mysteriously received treatment shortly afterwards). Ironically, Sicko is probably his least intrusive movie so far. Moore has done his homework and offers plenty of film and textual evidence to make his points, but stays away from the hounding and ambush tactics we’ve seen from him before. On the other hand, maybe he didn’t need to follow anybody around: plenty of people approached him with their stories.

That’s the thing about Michael Moore: he’s annoying personally, but like Moore himself, his movies don’t take no for an answer. The barrage of examples in Sicko, both of the failure of American health care and of the successes of national health care abroad, is constant, fascinating, and heartbreaking. Like any sensible and determined documentarian, Moore clearly edits footage to suit his own message, but what makes it into the movie (people whose children died after being refused care at an HMO emergency room; Ground Zero volunteers with respiratory problems who can’t get proper treatment; the elderly and indigent removed from Los Angeles hospitals and dumped on Skid Row wearing only hospital robes; the list goes on and on) is impossible to ignore, and it’s right there on film, as plain as day. It’s the audience’s job to be savvy and to make a decision: How much salt needs to go down with this movie?

Moore’s sensibility helps and hurts Sicko in equal-ish measure. His reputation for rousing rabbles certainly helped the movie at the box office, which is what Moore wants—increased attendance means increased money for him and an increased awareness of his message. In a sense, people are heading to the theater to see Moore himself, and he knows it, which is why his movies tend to be so determinedly first-person. On the other hand, watching Moore almost requires listening separately with each ear: one ear for the message of the film and one ear for Moore himself, his tactics and his (fairly shameless) editing tricks. The two cross paths in a sliver of combined sensitivity and common sense. That’s where, with any luck, the audience will end up as well.

It’s hard to say whether Sicko could have existed outside the realm of Moore’s body of work. Plenty of filmmakers could have taken an interest in the health-care industry; most probably couldn’t have made as a big a splash as he did. And for somebody who likes the splash, who thrives on the splash as much as he does, that’s what counts.

Sicko, Michael Moore, documentary