I think people are expecting Edward Snowden to walk out on stage right now, Michael Moore joked from the stage at the Toronto International Film Festival, in an introduction that doubled as a public apology. He understood that, when you name your latest project Where to Invade Next and slap a kitschy picture of the Joint Chiefs of Staff above your fests catalog blurb, its bound to suggest any number of things: a take-no-prisoners takedown of Americas military-industrial complex; a scathing indictment of our nations perpetual-war fetish; how the government sends its soldiers into war and then ignores them once they come back home. (These were simply the three most popular rumors about the movie leading up to its premiere; there were dozens of others.) The fact that virtually no one knew the 61-year-old cinematic muckraker was even making a movie until it was announced as one of the events opening night selections attests to how under-the-radar the project has been since hed started on it last year.
As Moore sheepishly admitted to the audience, however, Invade is none of these things. Im not exposing NSA secrets, he declared. I have to say that out loud. Rather, what the Fahrenheit 9/11 director presented was his own socially conscious variation on Mark Twains The Innocents Abroad. After a bit of misdirection involving the filmmaker being summoned by the Pentagon (sayeth the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the subject of occupying foreign countries: We dont know what the fuck were doing), he tells the assembled brass that from now on, Ill do the invading. So off Moore goes to numerous pictureseque places, examining things that our European neighbors do right: worker-friendly factories in Italy, a humane prison system in Norway, healthy school lunches in France, a different attitude towards the war on drugs in Portugal, tuition-free college in Finland and so on. He then plants an American flag in these countries, claiming these ideas for the good ol U.S. of A. a satirical imperialism dedicated to pilfering progressive ideologies for the common good.
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Despite the fact that Where to Invade Next has all the hallmarks of a typical Moore movie (rhetorical flourishes that lean to the far-left, ironic narration, a wicked sense of humor), his first new film since 2009s Capitalism: A Love Story displays a kinder, somewhat gentler version of his usual gonzo style, one laced with a sense of uncharacteristic optimism instead of boiling-over outrage. The morning after the films premiere, the filmmaker bleary-eyed and checking his BlackBerry as distributors circled to buy his self-produced movie talked about why Americans should be open to better ways of doing things, why the dinosaurs and performance artists of the political right are courting extinction and
Was there a particular call-to-action moment that inspired this?
How about its just enough that itd been a long while since Id made a movie and I felt like making one? Why did the guy who made Birdman want to make a movie?
Okay, sure, itd been six years but let me rephrase this: You could have made a movie about anything
And I made a film about virtually everything. It was an attempt to make a film about the United States without actually going to the U.S. How do you show us without actually showing us? To quote a famous Canadian rock band: Why are we here? Because were here. [Pause] Roll the bones.
I genuinely thought you were going to say Fight the good fight, everybody.
[Laughs] The reviews have been nice so far, but Ive noticed people have been focusing on the fact that it doesnt focus on one theme or a central subject matter. You know, at the end of every year, they put out that Best American Short Stories anthology and I love those. I buy them every year. Theres no thread there, except good writing. You could say there were nine short films in one feature-film format.
Except theres a bit more of a connection here.
As in Im a humorist invading all these countries, yeah. I mean, when the Pentagon decides theyre going occupy these places, do they consult a travel agent? Why go to Iraq when theres the South of France and the fjords of Norway? If were going to send our troops somewhere, lets send them somewhere nice! Lets invade Europe.
When we invade a country, why do we do it? These days, its because we want something from that country. Now, rather than go back to being the complete isolationists we were before Pearl Harbor, we said to ourselves: What if there were other good things beside oil that we need, and what if we approached the countries that seem to be doing these things right and get some for ourselves, without killing anyone in the process? The great thing about the National Health Service in Britain or Finlands education system is that theyve been doing this for decades. Theyve done the trial-and-error phases for us. We dont have to be guinea pigs.
Youre talking about a species thats dying. The angry white men whove run things for so longthey know their days are numbered.
And many of these concepts were taken from our own ideas, as you point out in the movie, right?
If not directly from specific ideas, like the progressive education idea that one of the Finnish teachers brings up, then certainly from the philosophies espoused by the founding fathers of this country. How about starting with the very first American word the one that kicks off our Constitution? Its we. In that one sentence we call the preamble, it has we, welfare, union, the common good
Throw in socialism and youd have a far-rightwingers nightmare.
I guarantee you, if socialism had been a word then, it would have been in there! Its all we, the people, not go out and make a killing. These other countries now believe more in our original ideology more than we do. Thats depressing.
There will still be people who watch this film and go, Well, hes just peddling his America sucks ideology, and
Really? Who are these people? Tell me their names. I want a list.
We could start with Roger Ailes and work our way down, I guess.
Youre talking about a species thats dying. Roger Ailes is the biggest dinosaur of that bunch, and they are on their way out. They know it, too. The angry white men whove run things for so longthey know their days are numbered. They know you cant win a national election without appealing to women, people of color and young people three constituencies that the Republican party have completely lost.
Except there are over a dozen candidates vying for the GOP slot for the presidency, and the majority of them fit that angry-white-man description to a tee, Michael.
I dont consider them candidates. I consider them performance artists; the reason Donald Trump is leading in the polls is that his shtick is the best.
Still, some people will have a knee-jerk reaction to this sight unseen, dont you think?
Of course, but hopefully enough people will pick up on the fact that Im not saying these countries Im traveling to are perfect. Im very deliberately cherry-picking things that they are doing right and saying, lets take a look at how theyre handling this and learn from it. I cherry-pick stuff all day, whether Im buying a pair of shorts or, you know, I dont want to sit with those people at work, theyre mean. Ill sit over here. [Laughs] You do the same thing. So do most folks. There was a line I said at the films premiere that I should add into the film I went to pick the flowers and not the weeds.
So how do you decide how selective youre going to be when you present your cherry-picked results? You talk about Italys worker-friendly environment but dont mention the economy or Berlusconis legacy.
Yeah. Right.
You briefly mention Irans stem-cell research which, honestly, is not the first thing you think of when you think of Iran.
But thats why Im mentioning it. The country clearly has more going on than that, but how many people here even knew they were also doing pioneering research in this field? If we didnt have a President for eight years Im talking 2000-2008 who wasnt opposed to science and wasnt just plain dumb, think of how far wed be in our own research. Think of how many people would not have died. We lost eight years and a lot of lives because of this. So Im not saying we should model ourselves on Iran, but we could pay attention to what they are doing in that particular field, for sure.
Look, one of my jobs, as far as I see it, is pointing out things the mainstream media may not get around to or wont look into. You could have also brought up that I namechecked Rwanda at one point, which also has a rough past. Well, sorry theyre a democracy now, and half of their parliament is made up of women. Why is that not the case with the U.S. as well? It boggles my mind that women are not angrier about the lack of power they have.
When people like Jon Stewart and John Oliver [use] humor to expose whats going on I feel honored to be in that company.
That discussion seems to be changing for us, hopefully especially as we enter an election with a female candidate who has a viable shot at becoming the President of the United States.
Its changed radically and for the better. There still lots to be done, but you can see things getting better. Look at whats happened with gay marriage, parents organizing against standardized testing in schools, Obama finally starting to release prisoners who were incarcerated for nonviolent crimes, the slow legalization of marijuana. Social media has played a huge role in these discussions, because it really dispels ignorance.
Speaking of social media, how did you manage to keep the fact you were making this documentary a secret in the Twitter age?
We simply disconnected ourselves from it in terms of the film. I love social media; I was on Twitter the entire time we were filming. I just didnt mention it once. We didnt think we could pull it off, because I was out there filming it wasnt like I had a fake nose and beard! But by the third country we realized that the American news agencies had shut down most of their foreign bureaus, so we werent encountering American reporters. If Im filming in Slovenia, no one is going to say, Hey, lets get a reporter over to Slovenia, or lets hire a translator to see what the Slovenian media says Michael Moore is doing. Its not going to happen.
Youve been doing this for over a quarter of a century. Do you feel that its harder to do what you do the gonzo political documentarian thing now than it used to be? Youre a known commodity.
Wow, Ive never thought of myself as a commodity.
Lets say celebrity then.
Yeah, I see what youre saying. People know its me when I walk into a room. Though given how I look, maybe people usually think Im just a roadie for a band. [Laughs] Its about the same, I guess. Whats changed is that there are more people out there doing it now than there was back in the late Eighties. Political satire is nothing new; just ask anyone whos read Jonathan Swift. But when I see people like Jon Stewart and John Oliver doing what they do, going after institutions and corporations, asking for accountability, using humor to expose whats going on I feel honored to be in that company. When someone likes Jon Stewart hires folks who used to work on my movies or TV shows, that feels incredible to me.
Those Daily Show field reports always felt like they could have been TV Nation or Awful Truth segments.
An improved-upon imitation is the sincerest form of flattery [laughs].
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