CINEMA-USA: The United States – ‘The Big One’

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, May 5 1998 (IPS) - Why call it the United States of America when you could use a more evocative name – like “The Big One”? Why should patriotic Americans stand for the the “Star-Spangled Banner” when the national anthem could be that catchy little number by Queen – “We Will Rock You”? ‘ These are just some of the questions asked by writer-director- author Michael Moore in a scrappy, affably populist way in his new quasi-documentary movie – called “The Big One” (distributed by Miramax).

Moore, famous for his mocking view of then General Motors Chief Executive Officer Roger Smith in the documentary ‘Roger and Me’, offers the same biting, yet affectionate, view of the modern-day United States. His new film is partly a series of comedy sketches, and partly a peek at U.S. class conflict.

It also, somewhat annoyingly, is a belated advertisement for Moore’s 1996 Random House-published book ‘Downsize This!’ The documentary was shot during Moore’s book tour across the United States, and therefore it combines a deft tour of Middle America – places like Chicago, Des Moines and Moore’s hometown of Flint, Michigan – with seemingly endless shots of the author signing his book.

The movie similarly is both a sometimes scabrous depiction of a United States which is increasingly divided between profit-hungry corporations and workers worried about losing their jobs, and a fawning look at the pudgy, gregarious Moore himself. At times, it becomes difficult to determine whether the United States or Moore is the “big one” of the film.

Since ‘Roger and Me’ came out in 1989, Moore has been berated as much by the left for his populist style as he has by the right for his gibes about everything from Nike’s treatment of Indonesian workers to the hefty amounts of money involved in political campaigns.

Conservatives may hate Moore’s worldview, but leftist writers like Alexander Cockburn have accused him of hypocrisy, idealising the amiable clutter of the blue-collar American heartland while himself becoming a wealthy New Yorker. Moore in fact has some fun in ‘The Big One’ at his own expense, showing himself chortling about flying first-class on an airplane and telling an interviewer that he is having second thoughts about the tax system now that he is best-selling author.

In many other ways, ‘The Big One’ is Moore’s best defense. He shows genuine fondness for the working-class Americans he meets on his book tour – bookstore workers meeting secretly in parking lots to plan forming a union, welfare recipients who come to Wisconsin’s state house equipped to clean the building if officials can’t find them work, and local heroes like Chicago’s legendary radio host Studs Terkel.

Also, Moore’s skeptical worldview is genuinely amusing, and in the film’s (and the book’s) best bits, he succeeds at pulling pranks that reveal a lot about the corrupted way ‘The Big One’ works. One successful prank that upset the White House is shown early on, when Moore writes cheques from such self-created groups as ‘Hemp Growers for Bill Clinton’ and ‘Abortionists for Pat Buchanan’ which were promptly cashed by the politicians – despite their professed abhorrence for the causes involved.

In another scene, he offers to issue a cheque worth 65 cents to one company which has just closed down a U.S.-based factory, so that it can afford to pay one hour of wages for the first Mexican worker it hires in its new location.

Behind the jokes – some of which work, and some of which simply fall flat – is a look at a working-class America that is more anxious about job loss, more alienated from government and more depressed about the future. Corporate executives – several of whom are seen shutting Moore out of their offices or responding to his questions with stilted bromides about staying “competitive” in a globalised world – seem part of an entirely different world.

In the movie’s high point, Nike Chief Executive Officer Phil Knight explains that his shoe firm doesn’t own U.S. factories because Americans “don’t really want to make shoes.”

When confronted with a video of Michigan workers asserting that they would gladly work for Nike jobs, Knight cynically counters that workers may say that, but don’t actually want to face the same task of making shoes that foreign workers perform – an implicit admission that they simply don’t want to work for wages below the U.S. minimum and poor conditions.

Knight, by the way, shows similar tactlessness when Moore asks him whether he would feel bad about 14-year-olds working to make Nike shoes, as happens in Indonesia. “No,” the cheerful Nike boss responds.

At such times, ‘The Big One’ – the film and the nation – can be darkly amusing, but not really funny at all.

CINEMA-USA: The United States – ‘The Big One’

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, May 4 1998 (IPS) - Why call it the United States of America when you could use a more evocative name – like “The Big One”? Why should patriotic Americans stand for the the “Star-Spangled Banner” when the national anthem could be that catchy little number by Queen – “We Will Rock You”? ‘ These are just some of the questions asked by writer-director- author Michael Moore in a scrappy, affably populist way in his new quasi-documentary movie – called “The Big One” (distributed by Miramax).
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