Manufacturing Dissent

Year: 2007

Grade: B

Country: Canada

Director: Caine/Melnyk

Review

canadian filmmaker basically does a hatchet job on michael moore, but by the end of the film you come out thinking he’s deserving of it. many of her indictments of moore are nit-picky to say the least. he grew up in davison, not flint like he always says. but i’m pretty sure his dad worked in flint and davison is like 10 minutes away and much smaller. it’s splitting hairs if you ask me. but the fact-checking gets deeper as the documentary goes on – chronological misrepresentations in roger and me and bowling for columbine, for example. apparently a staged scene in roger & me, the staged free gun scene in bowling for columbine, and others. in the end i had to admit that moore is an even worse preverter of truth than i thought. i knew that he took liberties with chronology and editing, while not outright lying, especially in bowling for columbine and fahrenheit 9/11, but i didn’t realize how bad it really was. even though this documentary employs a lot of the same b.s. tactics that moore does it doesn’t take away from the fact that moore basically lies in many of his films. what’s annoying is that he doesn’t really need to lie because the facts are generally on his side when bashing bush or corporations. oh well.