Grove’s Goldmine – Writer-Director Michael Moore

Writer-director Michael Moore’s new documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story” from Overture Films and Paramount Vantage opens Sept. 23 in New York and Los Angeles and goes wide Oct. 2.

In “Capitalism”, Moore explores the root causes of the global financial meltdown and takes a comic look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what he calls “the biggest robbery in the history of the country” — the massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.

When Moore’s hit documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” was being talked about in 2004 as a possible Oscar best picture contender, he spoke to Martin Grove about the film. Although it didn’t wind up in the Academy’s best picture race — it would have been the first documentary ever nominated for best picture — “Fahrenheit 9/11” brought Moore a wide range of other awards, including the Critics Choice Award for best documentary feature and the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. Moore’s documentary “Bowling for Columbine” won the best documentary Oscar in 2003 and his documentary “Sicko” was a best documentary Oscar nominee in 2008.

Here’s a look back at Martin Grove’s column with Michael Moore from December 2004.

In an awards season without an 800-pound gorilla contender to match last year’s final episode of “Lord of the Rings” there are high hopes wherever you turn.

With so many contenders but no real front runner yet, anything’s still possible. Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” is an interesting possibility since its political point of view is widely believed to mirror that of many Academy members. Released last summer through Lions Gate Films, IFC Films and Harvey and Bob Weinstein’s specially formed Fellowship Adventure Group, “Fahrenheit” is the first documentary in Hollywood history to have the potential to land a best picture nomination.

In a highly fragmented best picture race with 10 or 12 films competing for nominations, a movie with its own passionate group of supporters stands a good chance of being nominated. If you do the math, it appears that “Fahrenheit” could land a nom with as little as 600 first-choice votes from the Academy’s nearly 6,000 members.

Given the general makeup of the Academy, it’s hard to believe there aren’t at least 600 members — and, more likely, several thousand members — whose politics are in line with Moore’s. This mathematical theory doesn’t take into consideration those Academy members who happen to think “Fahrenheit’s” a great film. We’re only talking right now about those members who would vote for it for political reasons. Given Harvey Weinstein’s longstanding credentials as a master at playing the Oscar Game, you’ve got to figure that Harvey’s analyzed the situation completely and must see this logical outcome, too. In fact, the more fragmented the best picture marketplace becomes the better it should be for Moore and his “Fahrenheit” team because their supporters will remain as one large voting block while the voting blocks for other possible nominees will shrink as the number of titles up for consideration increases.

An indication of just how broad “Fahrenheit’s” appeal is came Monday (6) when it scored a best picture nomination in the People’s Choice Awards. The nominations were made by a group of 6,000 readers of Entertainment Weekly, which is managing the PCA polling this year. Also nominated were DreamWorks’ animated blockbuster “Shrek 2”, Disney and Pixar’s animated blockbuster “The Incredibles”, Sony’s blockbuster fantasy adventure “Spider-Man 2” and Focus Features’ Jim Carrey comedy fantasy drama “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. Considering that the people’s choice for president wasn’t the candidate Moore supported, the PCA’s selection of “Fahrenheit” is surprising, to say the least.

Talking to Moore Monday, he told me, “This is the most amazing thing that I never expected. I was really blown away to hear the news that ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ has become the first documentary ever nominated for best picture by the People’s Choice Awards. It goes to show that the film has reached a wide mainstream audience throughout red state and blue state America. And clearly the other popcorn movies and the Jim Carrey movie that have been chosen show that the American people consider this to be the kind of movie that they enjoyed going to see on a Friday or Saturday night.

“I think it sends a good message to people here in Hollywood that the American public even though it may have voted for Mr. Bush has very strong and very fond feelings toward this film. You know the Harris Poll did a poll of people who had seen the movie and even though the vast majority of people who saw the film call themselves Democrats or Independents, over 10 percent of the people who saw the movie in the theaters were Republicans. The Harris Poll showed that of those Republicans who saw ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ 44 percent of those Republicans said they would recommend the film to other people. And a third of the Republicans said they felt the movie treated President Bush fairly.”

Clearly, energized by “Fahrenheit’s” PCA recognition, Moore observed, “Best picture now. Not documentary. And this poll was taken after the election. ‘Passion of the Christ’, which did three times the boxoffice, didn’t end up on the People’s Choice list. When the pollsters call you, they don’t read you the list of 200 films that were released. You have to remember. You have to say five films.”

While it’s tempting to dismiss the PCA nom because it’s not given by critics or filmmakers, there’s an importance to it that in the case of “Fahrenheit” has value beyond the nomination, itself. Insiders have speculated that some Academy members might think twice about voting for “Fahrenheit” because they believe the American public, having voted for George Bush despite Moore’s campaign against him, would slam Hollywood for honoring Moore’s movie. But seeing now that the PCA, reflecting a cross-section of the American voting public, has nominated “Fahrenheit”, Academy members can, presumably, vote for it, themselves, without worrying about angering red state voters who kept Bush in office.

This, too, is likely to help the math when it comes to a “Fahrenheit” Oscar nomination for best picture. If you assume that there’s a core group of liberal Academy members who would vote for Moore’s movie no matter what, you can then assume there’s a second group of moderate Academy members who had reservations about voting for the film but now have the PCA nomination to make them feel more comfortable about supporting Moore.

Focusing on “Fahrenheit’s” appeal — it’s grossed over $220 million worldwide — Moore explained, “The film is not what the Fox News Channel has been railing against. First of all, I’m hardly in it. If you were to watch Fox News you’d get the sense that I’m running around for two hours with a club in my hand. I’m hardly in the movie. The strong voices in the movie are not Michael Moore’s, but the mother from Flynt, who lost her son in the war, or the soldier from South Central Los Angeles he says that he cannot go back to Iraq and kill poor people. Those are the voices that resonate from the movie. That’s what you remember after you see it. And Republicans of good heart and conscience were visibly moved by the movie and especially that part of the movie. Republican pollsters said that actually the movie depressed the Republican vote. If Republicans saw the movie, they were not inclined after the movie to go out and get 10 other people to vote for Bush. They may still have voted for Bush, themselves, but they were suddenly no longer an excited Bush voter.

“I think the movie, along with what Move On did, along with what (Bruce) Springsteen and (other recording) artists did (and) all these things that we all did actually helped to prevent a Bush landslide. Because, let’s be honest, a year and a half ago Bush had a 70 percent approval rating. He was supposed to win this thing in a landslide. We’re at war. Americans do not change presidents during wartime. The fact that it ended up being this close (means), I think (that) the film and the musicians and Move On and all the people who did their work to get out the vote helped to prevent what would have been a Bush landslide. You know, I took the film to 63 campuses, myself. The youth vote was the only vote Kerry won, the only age group that he won. Bush won 30-39, 40-49, 50-59. 18-29 was the only age group that Kerry won the majority of. I think all of the popular culture things helped bring out the youth vote. Those four and a half million young people who didn’t vote in 2000, but voted in this election, the new voters, all helped to prevent a landslide.”

Coming back to the film’s prospects with Oscar voters, I asked Moore if he felt the fact that many Academy members are thought to share his political views would be helpful to “Fahrenheit” in terms of nominations? “It may be,” he replied, “but I think that ultimately most people mark their ballots based on what five films they believe moved them in a profound way — through laughter, through tragedy. You vote for the film that sticks with you. I think if people just judge it as a movie it has as good a chance as any of them because I think when people think back to (how they felt) the night they saw the film that’s really all (it will take to get their support). I told Harvey, ’If you’re doing a campaign, that’s all it should be really. Just ask people to remember the night that they saw it (and) what they felt when they saw it. Did the movie do what we hope any good movie does? Did it move them in a profound way? Was it the kind of movie that stuck with them long after they saw it?”

Moore is understandably proud of the fact that this is the first time any documentary has ever been regarded as having a serious chance of landing a best picture Oscar nomination. “It’s been like that since Cannes,” he said, “when there was ’no way’ a documentary was going to win the top film (prize). And there was ’no way’ a documentary could ever open at number one on a weekend — and not just (in terms of) a straight documentary, but a musical documentary or a stand-up comedy documentary. Nothing, nothing (ever got close to getting a best picture nom). None of us, including me, believed that that was ever in the cards. So we’ve reached the point now when it comes to the possibility of it being the first documentary to be nominated for an Oscar that this is the little film that could. It’s possible now.

“I think, just in talking to voters — not the people from other studios who try to put their spin on who’s in the race and who’s not in the race, but to the people who actually vote, the people who live in this town and work in this town — (that) the movie, the issues in the movie and the way the movie affected them, none of that has gone away.”

Of course, balancing the fact that many Academy members probably share Moore’s political views is the fact that most of them don’t work on documentaries. That’s the same sort of potentially negative factor that it is for animated features since most Oscar voters work on live action movies. Does Moore think that matters?

“No, not at all,” he answered. “It’s a complete misreading of it. I have the empirical evidence of two years ago when we won the Writers Guild Award for best original screenplay (for ‘Bowling For Columbine’). Now, there are 12,000 members of the Writers Guild, 11,500 of whom — I’m just picking a number, but it’s the vast majority — who make their living writing fiction. It was not in their best interest, not in their self-interest, to vote for a film that was non-fiction. Ask the TV writers how they feel about non-fiction. It’s decimated them. And yet in spite of that, they made their decision based on what they felt was the best film, not on their own self-interest.”

That experience, Moore added, “completely turned my mind around. Whenever I now hear anybody put down Hollywood or people tell me back in the mid-West how (in) Hollywood it’s all about me-me-me, I tell them this story of the selfless act of the Writers Guild and how they voted for ‘Bowling For Columbine’ when non-fiction was something that hardly any of them did for a living. That was an amazing moment for my wife and I sitting in the Beverly Hilton that night. There were four other films (competing) that were fiction films and they voted our film over those. I’ve come to believe through my own experience that people will make up their minds based on what they believe is the best film and that can be fiction or non-fiction.

“I believe that (will also be the case) with the editors and with every other (category) that ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ is eligible for. The editors branch, in fact, nominated (the 1994 documentary) ‘Hoop Dreams’ for best editing for the Oscars. So there’s another piece of empirical evidence where the editors out here in Hollywood, who do not make their living editing documentaries, voted for ‘Hoop Dreams’ and made it one of the five nominees that year.”

Of course, with “Columbine”, Moore went on to win the best documentary feature Oscar on what was a memorable night not only for winning, but also for his controversial “Shame on you, Mr. Bush” acceptance speech. Laughing at the thought, Moore said, “Note to self — lead with the humor next time.”

I told Moore I saw him quoted earlier this year as saying that if he were to win an Oscar for “Fahrenheit” he’d be a lot better behaved on stage. “Well, my wife (Kathleen Glynn) produced the film (with Moore and Jim Czarnecki),” he pointed out. “I said, if we win my wife will give the speech.” I told him a promise like that might well win him some votes — the thought of which gave us both a good laugh.

“Plus,” he then observed laughing, “because the Disney-owned ABC carries the show, and because Disney refused to release ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ I have no personal interest in helping their ratings that night.”

It’s interesting, I noted, to consider the impact “Fahrenheit” wound up having on Miramax. Moore probably never dreamed that as a result of Miramax planning to release the film the Weinstein Brothers would wind up being essentially thrown out of Disney, as recent reports suggest may be the case when the dust ultimately settles. “Harvey reminds me of that every day,” Moore laughed, using his very good Harvey voice to say, "’I lost my company for you.’ Again, to go back to my belief of this town being full of generous people who commit selfless acts, things that don’t benefit themselves, Bob and Harvey did what they thought was best in terms of the film and in terms of what they believe in and not what was necessarily best for their relationship with their corporate parent.”

He also applauds Ari Emanuel, his agent at Endeavor, for speaking candidly early on to the press about conversations Emanuel said he had with Disney CEO Michael Eisner when Miramax hoped to distribute “Fahrenheit”. “These are discussions that are held privately in this town,” he said. “You do not pull back the curtain and show the public how these decisions get made. So, again, you have examples with Miramax and with Endeavor where they were willing to take these risks for the greater good of protecting my right to have my voice be heard through my film and the American people’s right to see a movie that they would like to see. At every step along the way, (there were groups that) tried to stop us. There was the Republican group that tried to get the FEC (Federal Elections Committee) to take our ads off TV, calling them political ads.

“There was the attempt with limited success to get theater chains to boycott the movie. There were at least three chains in the mid-West and the South that refused to carry the film. Then the Republicans and (Bush chief political strategist) Karl Rove (sent) out numerous surrogates on television shows to attack me and the film. And none of it worked. Bob and Harvey stuck by the film. Lions Gate did an excellent job releasing it. The people went to see it. They wound up (going) in numbers that no one had ever seen. We broke opening weekend records in theaters all over the country. Sometimes the will of the people wins out.”

Of course, way back when the Weinsteins and Emanuel started going to bat for “Fahrenheit” no one expected it to become the blockbuster hit it ultimately did. “We hoped that if we did as well as ‘Bowling For Columbine’ (about $60 million worldwide) we’d be doing great,” Moore recalled. “And it may mean the end of Miramax, which I feel very bad about, because Eisner doesn’t want to work with them. But the Weinstein Brothers are always going to follow their conscience. We need more people like that.”

“Fahrenheit’s” Oscar prospects may have been enhanced this fall when Moore elected to take the film out of consideration in the Academy’s best documentary feature category, leaving it open for consideration in various other categories including best picture. By so doing, it removed the possibility that the Academy could recognize it with a nomination for best documentary feature and then feel it wasn’t necessary to give it additional recognition with a best picture nomination. Now, of course, a best picture nod is the only way Academy members can salute “Fahrenheit” in a major way.

Asked if he agrees with that theory, Moore told me, “I had not really thought of that, so it’s kind of an interesting (idea). I hadn’t really considered that because the whole consideration about not going for the documentary Oscar was the attempt to get it on television before the election, which then would automatically disqualify it (for documentary consideration). And (also) our personal desire to step aside and let five other films in this great year of non-fiction films have their moment in the spotlight. We already have a documentary Oscar and it’s something that we wanted somebody else to have and (therefore decided), ’Let’s remove the film that everyone’s saying is a sure bet and the front-runner or whatever.’

I pointed out, though, that the way “Fahrenheit” is now positioned forces Academy voters to address it in terms of a best picture nomination. “I see what you’re saying,” Moore replied. “If you do want to see ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ receive an Oscar, the only way you can do that is by voting for best picture."

Thinking about it, Moore recalled how in 1999 Miramax’s “Life Is Beautiful”, directed by and starring Roberto Benigni, was a nominee in various categories, including best foreign language film and best picture. Although “Life” won the foreign film Oscar, it lost for best picture. “The egalitarian nature of most people is such (that they think), ‘Let’s spread the awards around.’ But I want the film to be treated as a film. Even if the TV (broadcast) issue wasn’t an issue and even if we hadn’t won an Oscar before and decided not to go for a second documentary Oscar, I think that our sense would still be, ‘Let’s let this be the first documentary to sort of rise out of the ghetto of documentary films and be treated like a real film.’ You know, you don’t sit down at night and say, ‘Honey, let’s watch some non-fiction TV’ or ‘Let’s watch a fiction show.’ You don’t say, ‘Let’s go get a non-fiction book or a fiction book at the bookstore.’

“You don’t say that. You want to read a good book. You want to watch a good TV show. And you want to watch a good movie. And you can tell a story through fiction and you can tell it through non-fiction. It should only be about, ‘Was this a good movie? Was this a movie that made me laugh, made me cry, moved me in a profound way?’ If it did, then that’s how I define it. Those are the five films I’d pick. I think a lot of people will really vote that way. I realize there isn’t a documentary committee somewhere voting on this as a documentary. It’s not submitted. It cannot win. It cannot be nominated as a documentary. But it can become the first documentary nominated as best picture.”

One of the problems many films hopeful of landing a best picture nomination face that Moore doesn’t have to contend with is just getting Academy members to see them at screenings or at home with screeners. By the time voters get to some films it can be too late in the game to help them achieve recognition. In the case of “Fahrenheit”, however, the picture has in all likelihood been seen by most if not all Academy members because of its ultra-high profile. It’s also been available in DVD release via Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment since before the November elections.

“They are advantages,” Moore agreed. “I want to see good movies all year round. This whole thing of opening up the better movies in the last six weeks of the year (isn’t good). The public would like that (spreading out of good product throughout the year). There are numerous examples of films that opened earlier in the year now that have won. You don’t have to open at Christmastime. And now because of the shortened season of (Oscar) voting, it’s probably a detriment.”

Looking ahead to future elections — for president not for best picture — Moore told me, “Democrats must not listen to Republican pundits who say that Democrats must run away from Hollywood. It’s just the opposite. Democrats must embrace Hollywood. Republicans learned the secret a long time ago that Americans not only love Hollywood, Americans like to vote for Hollywood. And that’s why Republicans run candidates from Hollywood (like) Ronald Reagan, Arnold (Schwarzenegger), Gopher from “The Love Boat” (Sandy Helberg), Fred Thompson, Sonny Bono — go down the list. They know that Americans when given a chance to vote for celebrities, for actors, they love to vote for them.

“And when Democrats have run ‘rock stars’ like Bill Clinton or ‘movie stars’ like John Kennedy, they win. When they run political wonks, they lose. The reason Republican pundits have been saying Democrats have got to stay away from Hollywood is that Republicans are deathly afraid that the Democrats will figure out what the Republicans have already figured out — that Americans love Hollywood and if given the chance they like to vote for people from Hollywood.”

Moore’s advice to the Democrats, he added, is, “’You need to run to Hollywood. You need to find candidates in this town who are beloved by the American people because who wouldn’t vote for Tom Hanks? Who wouldn’t vote for Paul Newman? Who wouldn’t vote for Martin Sheen? I could give you a list of (Hollywood) people who are beloved by the American people. We have to start running people like this. Most importantly, though, we have to develop a message, a well written story, a well written narrative. Bush had a compelling story to tell. It didn’t matter if the story was fiction. It was a good story. And his story was, ’Out of the ashes of Sept. 11 there was one man who stood upon the rubble of lower Manhattan with bullhorn in hand and he said, ’I will protect you. And you will never be attacked again.’ And the people were never attacked again and lived happily ever after. That was a good story.

“Tell me, what was Kerry’s story? Quickly. What was it?” Moore asked.

“It was muddled,” I replied.

“Yeah, try to keep it under 17 paragraphs,” he agreed. “Ultimately, all Kerry had was a tagline, ‘I’m not Bush.’ And on just a tagline we got 57 million votes. We came within three million votes. We came within one state (and) 130,000 votes of winning. On a tagline! What would happen if we had a compelling narrative and a compelling messenger with that narrative? And what better town to do that (than Hollywood)? This town is full of talented people. To cede this to the Republicans (is wrong), where their scriptwriters have the better lines and they’re able to put up an amateur actor who did very well with those lines they wrote for him.

“They ended up with the better art directors and set designers and went out with those great Bush rallies or the Crawford Ranch (about 1,600 acres that George W. and Laura Bush purchased in 1999 just outside Crawford, Texas), which was a Karl Rove invention years ago when they decided they wanted to run him for president. They said, ‘We’ve got to have this ranch’ and they sent him to wardrobe and they put a (cowboy) hat on him and boots on him. And then they brought in the dialogue coach. In ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ I have some old footage of Bush from the ’80s and the early ’90s. There’s no Texas accent there. When he’s talking about his Dad and his influence and (says) that’s why he does good in business because he has access to his Dad, listen to his voice. It doesn’t sound at all the way he sounds now. But, you know what, this is what we know how to do.”

It’s the Democrats, Moore continued, who have “the majority of the actors, the screenwriters, the set designers, the dialogue coaches. The answer for the Democrats is here in Hollywood. Instead of this town being ridiculed by the right wing — the only reason they’re ridiculing it is they’re hoping the Democrats don’t come here because they love Hollywood and they love to run people from Hollywood. They know that you can actually run someone for governor from Hollywood and it doesn’t matter what that governor has in his pants. It doesn’t matter how many naked pictures there are. It doesn’t matter. He’s in the movies! He’s on TV! And Americans love people in the movies and on TV. The (Democratic) party should not be in desperation right now. They should be going to the people on ‘Desperate Housewives’ — (because) those are people Americans love — and run them. That’s what the Republicans do and they win. And I think it’s time we started winning.”

So is Moore going to run for office, himself? “No,” he said, “but I am encouraging people here to think about this. I think that there are answers here and if we spend some time we know how to develop the message. We can give you a message in 30 seconds or in two hours. We know how to do it. Bob Dylan did it in a three minute song. When he started out, that was a three minute song and he moved a generation. We know how to do this. And they don’t know to do it, the other side. They really don’t know how to do it. We do. When I say they ’don’t know how to,’ I mean, they do know how to because they’ve done it with Bush. But what I’m saying is that we have more people on our side who know how to do this.”

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