Michael Moore's 1989 debut documentary Roger & Me made him rich and famous and put him in the spotlight as a champion of the common folk against corporate greed. (The Roger of the title was Roger Smith, then the president of General Motors; the film examined GM's role in Moore's struggling hometown of Flint, Michigan.) Almost comically un-glamorous and notoriously liberal, Moore appears in his own films as narrator and interviewer and has made a career out of being funny and provocative in print as well as on screen. He has hosted television shows (TV Nation and The Awful Truth in the mid-1990s), worked on the staff of Mother Jones magazine, and authored the best-selling books Downsize This! (1996) and Stupid White Men...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation (2002). Bowling for Columbine (2002), his documentary about gun-related violence in the United States, won the 2003 Oscar for Best Documentary. In 2004 his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, a harsh analysis of the Saudi Arabian ties of George W. Bush, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Moore's acceptance speech at the 2003 Academy Awards included a now-famous tirade against George W. Bush, whom Moore called a "fictitious president"... The title Fahrenheit 9/11 is a play on Fahrenheit 451, the futuristic novel by Ray Bradbury in which books are burned at that temperature.
Career Highlights: Roger & Me, Canadian Bacon, Fahrenheit 9/11
First Major Screen Credit: Roger & Me (1989)
Biography
Author, filmmaker, and political activist Michael Moore has developed a trademark style of tackling major issues with a sharp sense of humor while maintaining a regular-guy attitude, an approach that has helped him secure a reputation as both a razor-sharp humorist and one of America's most fearless political commentators. Michael Moore was born in 1954 in Davison, MI, a suburb of Flint, then home to one of General Motors' biggest manufacturing plants, where Moore's father and grandfather both worked. Born to an Irish-Catholic family, Moore attended parochial school until he was 14, when he transferred to Davison High School. Moore soon developed an interest in student politics as well as larger issues; he won a merit badge as an Eagle Scout by creating a slide show exposing environmentally unfriendly businesses in Flint, and in 1972, when 18-year-olds were granted the right to vote, he ran for a seat on the Flint school board, soon becoming one of the youngest people in the United States to win an election for public office.
While Moore was briefly a student at University of Michigan-Flint, he dropped out to focus on activism, and began a career as a journalist by working for the Flint Voice, an alternative weekly newspaper. In time, Moore became the editor, and under his leadership the paper expanded into the Michigan Voice, one of the most respected alternative political publications in the Midwest. Moore's success at the Michigan Voice eventually led to a job offer from Mother Jones magazine, where he became editor in 1986. Moore believed that Mother Jones, a leftist political journal based in San Francisco, had lost its bite, and it was his goal to give the magazine an edgy, populist voice. He often butted heads, however, with Mother Jones' publishers and management, and after less than a year he was fired, reportedly for refusing to run an article critical of the Sandanista rebels in Nicaragua that Moore believed was both inflammatory and inaccurate.
After a brief spell working with a Ralph Nader organization, Moore got the idea to make a film about his old hometown of Flint and how the local economy had collapsed in the wake of the closure of General Motors' Flint plants despite their continued profitability. Moore used his settlement fee from Mother Jones as seed money for the film, but eventually sold his home and even held bingo games to raise the money to finish it. Finally, in 1989, the completed film Roger & Me -- in which, among other things, Moore and his crew repeatedly fail to get General Motors chairman Roger Smith to agree to an interview -- became a major critical success, was honored at a number of film festivals, and went on to become one of the most financially successful documentary features ever made.
Following the success of Roger & Me, Moore participated as an interviewer in the production of Blood in the Face, a documentary about extremist White Power groups (co-directed by Roger & Me's cameraman, Kevin Rafferty), and then directed a short follow-up to Roger & Me, Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint (1992), which followed what had happened there since the previous film's conclusion. Next, Moore began work on his first fictional feature, Canadian Bacon, a satiric comedy (1994) in which an ineffectual United States president fabricates a "Cold War" against Canada. Unfortunately, John Candy, who played the lead, died shortly after filming was wrapped, which, in part, led to conflicts with the film's producers that prevented it from receiving a wide release. In 1994, Moore took his first stab at television with the satiric news and commentary program TV Nation, which aired on NBC. While TV Nation won rave reviews and a loyal following, the show's ratings were not what NBC was hoping for (it was also uncomfortable with some of the show's satire), and the network canceled the show after only one season. FOX stepped forward to air a second season of TV Nation, but the show fared no better on FOX and soon went off the air for good.
In 1996, Moore returned to the written word, publishing a book of political commentary, Downsize This!: Random Threats From an Unarmed American. The book proved to be a surprise bestseller, and as Moore took to the road to promote it, he brought a camera crew along to make a documentary exploring the economic inequality in America as he dashed from city to city; the resultant film, The Big One, was released in 1998. In 1999, Moore returned to television with The Awful Truth, a blend of comedy and pointed political commentary similar to TV Nation. Rather than deal with U.S. network interference again, Moore got financial backing from the British network Channel Four, with the cable outlet Bravo airing the show in the United States; the show lasted two seasons.
In the fall of 2001, Moore's next book, Stupid White Men, was scheduled for publication when its release was postponed by its publisher, Random House; Moore was openly critical of George W. Bush in the book, and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Random House felt that the book's satiric tone would be considered inappropriate. According to Moore, Random House was considering canceling the book and destroying its initial print run (which was completed prior to 9/11) when he was asked about the book at a convention of library administrators. After telling the audience that the book was in all likelihood never coming out, an e-mail campaign was launched by librarians, and in the spring of 2002, Stupid White Men was finally released, quickly becoming a major bestseller.
In the fall of 2002, Moore released his fourth feature film, Bowling for Columbine, an examination of America's obsession with guns and violence. It was the first documentary to be shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 46 years, and was honored with the festival's Jury Award. Subsequently becoming the most financially successful documentary in the history of film, Bowling for Columbine recieved a Best Documentary nomination when the 2002 Academy Award nominees were announced in February of 2003. The film subsequently won the Oscar, and true to form, Moore used his acceptance speech as an opportunity to launch a broadside against President George W. Bush and his participation in the war against Iraq, which had been launched only a few days before. Moore's statement drew strong reaction on both sides of the political fence, though Moore himself appeared to take the controversey in stride. In fact, the speech would prove to be only the tip of the iceberg as far as Moore's indictment of the Bush administration.
A little over a year after taking home his Academy Award, Moore accomplished the seemingly impossible task of topping Bowling for Columbine with his fifth feature, Fahrenheit 9/11. A scathing indictment of the rush to war by the Bush administration in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the film had its first success at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where it became the first documentary to ever win the Palm d'Or. Despite the honor bestowed upon the film, it was nearly kept out of theaters when Disney chose not to allow subsidiary Miramax to distribute it. Then-Miramax heads Bob and Harvey Weinstein were allowed to purchase the film back from Disney and a distribution deal was made with IFC and Lionsgate. In June 2004, amid intense controversy, Fahrenheit 9/11 surpassed the total gross of Bowling for Columbine in its first weekend, as it went on to become the most successful documentary of all time.
Moore spent the rest of the year on a soapbox in an attempt to derail Bush's eventual reelection, after which he lay low and began work on another ambitious project called Sicko. This time taking on the American healthcare industry, Moore found it harder than ever to infiltrate his chosen subject, as the major HMOs and drug companies organized Moore-avoidance seminars and kept their employees sworn to silence with any camera crews. The filmmaker was once again able to drum up a significant body of disgruntled former employees and current victims of HMO malfeasance, enough to make Sicko's debut at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival a heartrending popular favorite. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
American filmmaker Michael Moore (born 1954) introduced his confrontational style of documentary - making with the 1989 film "Roger & Me".Moore's goal with the film, which chronicles the devastating effects of auto plant closures in Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan, was to prove that documentaries can simultaneously inform and entertain. Moore spent the entire film attempting to interview General Motors Corporation president Roger Smith, and his antics often provoked laughter. Moore applied the same ethos to his subsequent films, generating controversy and major box office success with "The Big One, Bowling for Columbine",and "Farenheit 9/11. Bowling for Columbine"earned Moore best documentary honors at the 2002 Academy Awards. Moore also wrote three books of political commentary: "Downsize This!: Random Threats from an Unarmed American; Stupid White Men;"and "Dude, Where's My Country?".
Moore was born in 1954, in Davison, Michigan, a suburb of Flint, a working - class city. His father, Frank, worked on a General Motors (GM) automobile assembly line and his mother, Veronica, was a secretary. While Moore graduated from Davison High School, he attended Catholic schools until age 14 and enrolled in the seminary in Saginaw, Michigan, for a time. His interest in priesthood evolved from the same concern for social justice that his films reflected, Moore told People magazine in 2002. "I guess in my head I never left the seminary," he said. "I still have the belief that I should be doing something with my life that benefits society." Moore also revealed his political leanings at an early age. As an Eagle Scout, he won a merit badge for a slide show exposing corporate polluters, and in 1972, when 18 - year - olds were first granted the right to vote, he successfully ran for the Davison County school board, becoming one of the youngest elected officials in the United States.
Took on General Motors
Following his high school graduation, Moore briefly attended the University of Michigan - Flint, but soon dropped out. He then founded a crisis - intervention hotline and began writing for an alternative newspaper, the Flint Voice. The paper later became the Michigan Voice, and Moore its editor, leading to a job in San Francisco as editor at the left - wing Mother Jones magazine. Moore remained at Mother Jones for only a few months, and later recalled in a 1998 interview in Tikkun that his publisher and staff had disagreed with Moore's proposed affirmative - action policy, which sought to bring more working - class writers to the publication. "I said that I actually thought that making class a priority addresses the root of the issues of feminism and race that we're all concerned about," he said. "That ultimately we have to see this as a society that's setup between the haves and the have - nots. Where the few that are the rich set up situations in which the races are at each other's throats. Where women are kept in a place where their labor can be used for less money. All of this comes back to the issue of class. And if we address class, then we'll take care of a lot of other problems." Moore added: "I lasted there about four months."
Moore briefly worked for consumer activist Ralph Nader, whom he later endorsed in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, and then returned to Flint, where auto - plant cut backs and closures amid a nationwide recession had crippled the economy. Soon after Moore's homecoming, GM, the city's largest employer, announced plans for additional layoffs. Using money from a wrongful termination lawsuit against Mother Jones as well as funds from the sale of his house and regular bingo games he organized, he began laying the groundwork for a film that would explore the effect of the layoffs. Consulting with respected documentarians Kevin Rafferty and Anne Bohlen, Moore received a crash course in filmmaking and set about attempting to secure an on - camera interview with GM CEO Smith in a manner that elicited both shock and laughter. The result was Roger & Me, a critically lauded film released in 1989 that established Moore's now - trademark confrontational and entertaining approach. "With Roger & Me, I made a conscious decision that I wanted to make a documentary that people who don't go to documentaries would watch, and I don't know if that had been done before," Moore told Entertainment Weekly in 2002. Moore told the magazine he believed his point would come across better if the film as a whole was compelling. "I think that if you make the art or the music or the film engaging, entertaining, the message comes through much stronger than if the message is primary and entertainment is secondary," he said. The formula worked: Warner Brothers bought the film, which Moore made for $250,000, for $3 million and it made $7 million at the box office. As part of his deal with Warner Brothers, the studio paid for new homes for four unemployed autoworkers featured in the film who had been evicted from their homes. Roger & Me also netted Moore a slew of awards, including Best of Show awards at the Telluride, NewYork, Chicago, Vancouver, and Toronto film festivals; and the National Society of Film Critics, the Los Angeles Society of Film Critics, and the New York Film Critics Circle awards for best documentary.
Moore next served as an interviewer in Rafferty's film Blood in the Face, a documentary about white power groups, and directed Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint, a short follow - up to Roger & Me. In 1991, Moore married his longtime girlfriend, Kathleen Glynn, a graphic designer who has produced several of Moore's films. In 1994, he directed a fictional feature film, Canadian Bacon, a satirical comedy about a president who stages a fake "Cold War" against Canada. The film's star, John Candy, died shortly after filming and the resulting contractual disputes prevented the film's widespread release. That year, Moore brought his renegade style to television with NBC's TV Nation, a show featuring many techniques Moore used in Roger & Me as it examined the high costs of the American healthcare system, the shipping of garbage to poor communities, and the exclusivity of gated subdivisions, among other topics. NBC dropped TV Nation after its first year, as did Fox after one season.
Published Books, Released Second Film
In 1996, Moore published Downsize This: Random Threats from an Unarmed American, a chronicle of various pranks aimed at corporations he deemed greedy and unethical. During his tour for the book, which became a surprise bestseller, Moore took a camera crew and visited numerous low - wage workers and their employers, most notably Phil Knight, chief executive of shoe manufacturer Nike Incorporated. The result was the film The Big One. Moore told Tikkun he believed his unassuming appearance - the heavy - set filmmaker typically sports jeans, a windbreaker, and a baseball cap - convinced corporate executives they could outsmart him. "I just don't look like the kind of filmmaker that's going to give them any trouble," he said. "And they operate with the assumption that I'm on the outside, because of my class, I don't have an uncle in the business who's going to help me through the door. I don't know an agent. I don't know anybody in Hollywood. So, without even thinking about it, they assume: whatever he shoots won't be shown because the system isn't set up to service him getting to the point where his film would actually be on the screen. So, they're completely relaxed."
Moore returned to television in 1999, with The Awful Truth, a TV Nation - styleshow that ran for two seasons on the cable network Bravo. His next book, Stupid White Men . . . And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation, a vehement criticism of President George W. Bush and his administration, was scheduled for publication in 2001. But after the September 11 terrorist attacks that year on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Moore's publisher, Random House, asked Moore to alter several passages and threatened to drop the book when Moore refused. The book was ultimately published, however, after several librarians supported Moore through an e - mail campaign. It quickly became a bestseller.
Received Academy Award
Moore released his third full - length documentary, Bowling for Columbine, in 2002. The film, which examines gun violence in America against the backdrop of a 1999 school shooting in Littleton, Colorado, that left 15 people dead, became the first documentary in 46 years to be shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and earned that institution's Jury Award. In February of 2003, Moore received an Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film. He sharply criticized Bush, who had just launched a war in Iraq, in his acceptance speech, saying, as quoted in a 2004 issue of Time, "We live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons . . . Shame on you, Mr. Bush. Shame on you." Some audience members derided Moore's speech and the press widely criticized him. The most angry comments came from passers - by, however. "For the next couple of months I could not walk down the street without some form of serious abuse," Moore, who now lives in New York, told Entertainment Weekly in 2004. "Threats of physical violence, people wanting to fight me, right in my face. . . . People pulling over in their cars screaming. People spitting on the sidewalk. I finally stopped going out."
Moore's rebuttal came in his next film, his most successful to date. Farenheit 9/11 criticizes Bush's responses to the terrorist attacks, especially his decision to launch a war in Iraq. The film received a 20 - minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, where it also became the first documentary to win the festival's top prize, the Palm D'or. The prospect of a major theatrical release appeared questionable for a time, after the Walt Disney Company refused to let the film's distributor, Miramax, release the film. Ultimately, Miramax heads Bob and Harvey Weinstein were permitted to purchase the film from Disney, and they in turn sold it to IFC Entertainment and Lion's Gate Entertainment. The film made almost $22 million the weekend it was released, topping the previous box - office record for a documentary set by Bowling for Columbine. Moore made no secret of hoping his film inspired Americans to vote Bush out of office. He pushed for a summer release of the film and an October release of the DVD to reach as many viewers as possible before the November 2004 U.S. presidential election. "I hope that people go see this movie and I hope they throw [him] out of office," he told the New Statesman in 2004. "My mantra in the editing room has been: 'We've got to make a movie where, on the way out of the theater, the people ask the ushers if they have any torches.' "
Audiences and critics were divided on the film. Some thought Moore showed aspects of the government and war that the media ignore while others accused him of grandstanding and manipulating facts. To counter charges of fabrication or embellishment, Moore hired two former aides to U.S.President Bill Clinton and a fact - checker from the New Yorker magazine. While opinion was divided, the film reached a wide audience, despite its unabashed bias. "You would have expected Moore's movie to play well in the liberal big cities, and it is doing so," Richard Corliss wrote in a 2004 issue of Time. "But the film is also touching the heart of the heartland. In Bartlett, Tenn., a Memphis suburb, the rooms at Stage Road Cinema showing Farenheit 9/11 have been packed with viewers who clap, boo, laugh and cry nearly on cue. Even the dissenters are impressed." While Moore did not realize his ultimate aim - to prevent the re - election of Bush - he remained true to his ideals. "I come from a factory town," he told Time in 2004. "And you don't go to a gun fight with a slingshot."
Books
Newsmakers, Issue 3, Gale Research, 1990.
Periodicals
Entertainment Weekly, October 25, 2002; July 9, 2004.
Moore was born in Flint, Michigan[1] but raised in nearby Davison, a suburb of Flint, to parents Veronica, a secretary, and Frank Moore, an automotive assembly-line worker.[9] At that time, the city of Flint was home to many General Motorsfactories, where his parents and grandfather worked. His uncle was one of the founders of the United Automobile Workerslabor union and participated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike. Moore has described his parents as "Irish Catholic Democrats, basic liberal good people."[10]
Moore was brought up Roman Catholic and attended St. John's Elementary School for primary school.[11][12] He then attended Davison High School, where he was active in both drama and debate,[13] graduating in 1972. At the age of 18, he was elected to the Davison school board.[14]
Post-school career
After dropping out of the University of Michigan-Flint (where he wrote for the student newspaper The Michigan Times) and working for a day at the General Motors plant,[15] at 22 he founded the alternative weekly magazine The Flint Voice, which soon changed its name to The Michigan Voice as it expanded to cover the entire state. In 1986, when Moore became the editor of Mother Jones, a liberal political magazine, he moved to California and The Michigan Voice was shut down.
After four months at Mother Jones, Moore was fired. Matt Labash claims this was for refusing to print an article by Paul Berman that was critical of the Sandinista human rights record in Nicaragua.[16] Moore refused to run the article believing it to be inaccurate. "The article was flatly wrong and the worst kind of patronizing bullshit. You would scarcely know from it that the United States had been at war with Nicaragua for the last five years".[17] Berman described Moore as a "very ideological guy and not a very well-educated guy" when asked about the incident.[18] Moore also believes that Mother Jones fired him because of the publisher's refusal to allow him to cover a story on the GM plant closings in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. He responded by putting laid-off GM worker Ben Hamper (who was also writing for the same magazine at the time) on the magazine's cover, leading to his termination. Moore sued for wrongful dismissal, and settled out of court for $58,000, providing him with seed money for his first film, Roger & Me.[19]
During September and October 2004, Moore spoke at universities and colleges in swing states during his "Slacker Uprising Tour". The tour gave away ramen and underwear to young people who promised to vote. This provoked public denunciations from the Michigan Republican Party and attempts to convince the government that Moore should be arrested for buying votes, but since Moore did not tell the "slackers" involved for whom to vote, just to vote, district attorneys refused to get involved. Quite possibly the most controversial stop during the tour was Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah. A fight for his right to speak ensued and resulted in massive public debates and a media blitz. Death threats, bribes and lawsuits followed. The event was chronicled in the documentary film This Divided State.[21]
Acting
He has also dabbled in acting, following a 2000 supporting role in Lucky Numbers as the cousin of Lisa Kudrow's character, who agrees to be part of the scheme concocted by John Travolta's character. He also had a cameo in his Canadian Bacon as an anti-Canada activist. In 2004, he did a cameo, as a news journalist, in The Fever, starring Vanessa Redgrave in the lead.
Marriage
Since 1990, Moore has been married to producer Kathleen Glynn,[22] with whom he has a stepdaughter named Natalie. They live in Traverse City, Michigan.
Moore first became famous for his controversial 1989 film, Roger & Me, a documentary about what happened to Flint, Michigan after General Motors closed its factories and opened new ones in Mexico, where the workers were paid much less. Since then Moore has been known as a critic of the neoliberal view of globalization. "Roger" is Roger B. Smith, former CEO and president of General Motors.
In 1995, Moore released a satirical film, Canadian Bacon, which features a fictional US president (played by Alan Alda) engineering a fake war with Canada in order to boost his popularity. It is noted for containing a number of Canadian and American stereotypes, and for being Moore's only non-documentary film. The film is also one of the last featuring Canadian-born actor John Candy, and also features a number of cameos by other Canadian actors. In the film, several potential enemies for America's next great campaign are discussed by the president and his cabinet. (The scene was strongly influenced by the Stanley Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove.) The President comments that declaring war on Canada was as ridiculous as declaring war on international terrorism. His military adviser, played by Rip Torn, quickly rebuffs this idea, saying that no one would care about "...a bunch of guys driving around blowing up rent-a-cars".
Moore's 2002 film, Bowling for Columbine, probes the culture of guns and violence in the United States, taking as a starting point the Columbine High School massacre of 1999. Bowling for Columbine won the Anniversary Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and France's Cesar Award as the Best Foreign Film. In the United States, it won the 2002 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. It also enjoyed great commercial and critical success for a film of its type and became, at the time, the highest-grossing mainstream-released documentary (a record now held by Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11). It was praised by some for illuminating a subject slighted by the mainstream media, but it was attacked by others who claim it is inaccurate and misleading in its presentations and suggested interpretations of events.
Fahrenheit 9/11 examines America in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, particularly the record of the Bush administration and alleged links between the families of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden. Fahrenheit was awarded the Palme d'Or, the top honor at the Cannes Film Festival; it was the first documentary film to win the prize since 1956. Moore later announced that Fahrenheit 9/11 would not be in consideration for the 2005 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, but instead for the Academy Award for Best Picture. He stated he wanted the movie to be seen by a few million more people, preferably on television, by election day. Since November 2 was less than nine months after the film's release, it would be disqualified for the Documentary Oscar. Moore also said he wanted to be supportive of his "teammates in non-fiction film." However, Fahrenheit received no Oscar nomination for Best Picture. The title of the film alludes to the classic book Fahrenheit 451 about a future totalitarian state in which books are banned; according to the book, paper begins to burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. The pre-release subtitle of the film confirms the allusion: "The temperature at which freedom burns." At the box office, Fahrenheit 9/11 remains the highest-grossing documentary of all time, taking in close to US$200 million worldwide, including United States box office revenue of US$120 million.
Moore directed this film about the American health care system, focusing particularly on the managed-care and pharmaceutical industries. At least four major pharmaceutical companies—Pfizer, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, and GlaxoSmithKline—ordered their employees not to grant any interviews to Moore.[25][26][27] According to Moore on a letter at his website, "roads that often surprise us and lead us to new ideas – and challenge us to reconsider the ones we began with have caused some minor delays." The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 19 May 2007, receiving a lengthy standing ovation, and was released in the U.S. and Canada on 29 June 2007.[28] The film was the subject of some controversy when it became known that Moore went to Cuba with chronically illSeptember 11th rescue workers to shoot parts of the film. The United States is looking into whether this violates the trade embargo. The film is currently ranked the third highest grossing documentary of all time[29] and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.[30]
Moore takes a look at the politics of college students in what he calls "Bush Administration America" with this film shot during Moore's 60-city college campus tour in the months leading up to the 2004 election.[32][33] The film was later re-edited by Moore into Slacker Uprising.
Moore outside the NYSE filming his new documentary.
In 2009, Michael Moore is creating a movie which looks at the financial crisis of 2007–2009 and the U.S. economy during the transition between the incoming Obama Administration and the outgoing Bush Administration. [34]
Between 1994 and 1995, he directed and hosted the BBCtelevision series TV Nation, which followed the format of news magazine shows but covered topics they avoid. The series aired on BBC2 in the UK. The series was also aired in the US on NBC in 1994 for 9 episodes and again for 8 episodes on FOX in 1995.
His other major series was The Awful Truth, which satirized actions by big corporations and politicians. It aired on Channel 4 in the UK, and the Bravo network in the US, in 1999 and 2000.
Another 1999 series, Michael Moore Live, was aired in the UK only on Channel 4, though it was broadcast from New York. This show had a similar format to The Awful Truth, but also incorporated phone-ins and a live stunt each week.
In 1999 Moore won the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in Arts and Entertainment, for being the executive producer and host of The Awful Truth, where he was also described as "muckraker, author and documentary filmmaker".
Moore has directed several music videos, including two for Rage Against the Machine for songs from The Battle of Los Angeles: "Sleep Now in the Fire" and "Testify". He was threatened with arrest during the shooting of "Sleep Now in the Fire", which was filmed on Wall Street; the city of New York had denied the band permission to play there, although the band and Moore had secured a federal permit to perform.[35]
Moore appeared in The Drugging of Our Children,[36] a 2005 documentary about over-prescription of psychiatric medication to children and teenagers, directed by Gary Null a proponent of Alternative Medicine. In the film Moore agrees with Gary Null that Ritalin and other similar drugs are over-prescribed, saying that they are seen as a "pacifier".
Moore appeared as an off-camera interviewer in Blood in the Face, a 1991 documentary about white supremacy groups. The film centers around a neo-Nazi gathering in Michigan.[37]
Moore was interviewed for the 2004 documentary, The Corporation. One of his highlighted quotes was: "The problem is the profit motive: for corporations, there's no such thing as 'enough'".[38]
Moore appeared briefly in Alex Jones's 2005 film Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State. Jones asks Moore why he did not mention some of the information regarding the September 11 attacks in his film Fahrenheit 9/11, in particular, why he did not explain why NORAD stood down on that day. Moore replied, "Because it would be Un-American."
Moore featured prominently in the 2005 documentary This Divided State, which followed the heated level of controversy surrounding his visit to a conservative city in the United States two weeks before the 2004 election.
Though Moore rejects the label "political activist,"[39] he has been active in promoting his political views. According to John Flesher of the Associated Press, Moore is known for his "fiery left-wing populism,"[40] and the political left have hailed him as the "new Tom Paine."[41]
Stupid White Men (2001), ostensibly a critique of American domestic and foreign policy but, by Moore's own admission, "a book of political humor,"[42] and
Despite having supported Ralph Nader in 2000, Moore urged Nader not to run in the 2004 election so as not to split the left vote. On Real Time with Bill Maher, Moore and Maher knelt before Nader to plead with him to stay out of the race. In June 2004, Moore claimed he is not a member of the Democratic party. Although Moore endorsed General Wesley Clark for the Democratic nomination on January 14, Clark withdrew from the primary race on February 11. Moore drew attention when charging publicly that Bush was AWOL during his service in the National Guard (see George W. Bush military service controversy).
With the 2004 election over, Moore continues to collect information on the war in Iraq and the Bush administration in addition to his film projects. On several occasions during 2007, he called for Al Gore to run for President.
On April 21, 2008, Moore endorsed Barack Obama for President, claiming that Hillary Clinton's recent actions had been "disgusting."[43]
Moore has been at the center of several controversies, most of which are focused on his films' content. At a press conference, the filmmaker remarked:
I exist to provide balance, and I tell you, it isn't much balance. They're on every day–all day. My film is 2 hours. If for 2 hours during this entire year, people are exposed to the other side of the story, isn't that ok? It's amazing how they go after me. You asked me back there, "You're biased. You have only one side." Well, yeah, I have a bias. I have a bias on behalf of the little guy who doesn't have a say. I'm lucky enough to be able to have this bully pulpit, to be able to say the things I say, on behalf of the people who don't have a voice. The pharmaceutical companies and corporate America, they've got their voice. They own the networks and they can say whatever they want, all the time, and they do. So can we just have 2 hours for this side to have their say? I hope so, I think so. That's what I'm trying to do.[44]
^ Moore, having been elected to the Davison School Board in 1972 at age 18, was amongst the first persons in the country to hold elected office at this age. He also ran on a platform of firing the existing High School Principal.
^The Philadelphia Inquirer: Inqlings | Michael Moore takes on Glaxo. Michael Klein, 30 September 2005. Archive accessed 9 July 2006.
^Common Dreams News Center: Drug Firms are on the Defense as Filmmaker Michael Moore Plans to Dissect Their Industry. Original Article - Elaine Dutka, L.A. Times, December 22, 2004. Archive accessed August 09, 2006
^Chicago Tribune: Michael Moore turns camera onto health care industry. Bruce Japsen, 3 October 2004. Archive accessed 9 July 2006.
^CBC Sicko to have unofficial premiere at Democratic fundraiser May 26, 2007. URL accessed October 14, 2007.
