Roger & Me

Roger & Me
Movie poster
Directed by	Michael Moore
Produced by	Michael Moore Wendey Stanzler (associate)
Written by	Michael Moore
Starring	Michael Moore Roger B. Smith Janet Rauch Rhonda Britton Fred Ross Ronald Reagan Bob Eubanks
Cinematography	Chris Beaver John Prusak Kevin Rafferty Bruce Schermer
Editing by	Jennifer Beman Wendey Stanzler
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	December 20, 1989 (USA)
Running time	91 min.
Language	English

Roger & Me is a 1989 American documentary film directed by independent filmmaker/author Michael Moore. With sarcasm and irony, Moore illustrates the negative economic impact of the late General Motors CEO Roger Smith's summary action of closing several auto plants in Flint, Michigan, costing 30,000 people their jobs (eventually 80,000 to date) and economically devastating the city.

Plot synopsis

Moore begins by introducing himself and his family through 8 mm archival home movies; he describes himself as "kind of a strange child," the Irish American Catholic middle-class son of a General Motors employee assembling AC Spark Plugs. Moore chronicles how GM had previously defined his childhood in Flint, Michigan, and how the company was the primary economic and social hub of the town. He also points out that Flint is the place where the Flint Sit-Down Strike occurred, resulting in the birth of the United Auto Workers. He reveals that his heroes were the Flint natives who had escaped the life in GM's gigantic factories, including the members of Grand Funk Railroad, Casey Kasem, the spouses of Zubin Mehta (Nancy Kovack) and Don Knotts, and "Flint's most famous native son," game show host Bob Eubanks.

Initially, he achieves his dream of avoiding factory life, working for a magazine in San Francisco, but this venture fails for him and he ultimately travels back to Flint. As he returns, General Motors announces the layoffs of thousands of Flint auto workers, the jobs of whom will go to cheaper labor in Mexico. GM makes this announcement even though the company is experiencing record profits.

Disguised as a TV journalist from Toledo, Ohio, Moore interviews some auto workers in Flint and discovers their strong antipathy to General Motors chairman Roger B. Smith. Moore begins seeking out Smith himself to confront him about the closing of the Flint plants. He tries to visit Smith at GM's headquarters in Detroit, yet he is blocked by building security as Moore hasn't made an appointment. A company spokesman comes to the lobby and exchanges contact information with Moore, promising him to discuss an interview with Smith. Over the course of the film, Moore attempts to track down Smith at the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club and the Detroit Athletic Club, only to be told either that Smith is not there or to leave by employees and security guards.

From here, Moore begins to explore the emotional impact of the plant closings on some of his friends. He interviews an auto worker named Ben Hamper who apparently suffered a nervous breakdown on the assembly line and is currently staying at a mental health facility. From here, to the Beach Boys song "Wouldn't It Be Nice?", we see a montage of the urban rubble and decay enveloping Flint, interspersed with newspaper headlines about the increasing layoffs, residents moving away, and a news report informing us that the rat population in the city soon outnumbered the human population. He also turns his camera to the middle/upper class residents of the more affluent suburbs such as Grand Blanc, who display rather classist and naïve attitudes when it comes to the economic hardships of the city.

Here, Moore changes course and turns his camera on the Flint Convention and Visitors Bureau, who are in the process of response by promoting a vigorously incompetent tourism policy. The Bureau, in an effort to lure tourists into visiting Flint, permit the construction of a Hyatt Regency Hotel, a festival marketplace called Water Street Pavilion, and AutoWorld, hailed as the world's largest indoor theme park. These efforts fail, as the Hyatt soon files for bankruptcy, Water Street Pavilion sees most of its stores go out of business, and AutoWorld closes due to a lack of visitors just six months after the grand opening. (AutoWorld would reopen the next summer only to close down again, and in the end was demolished, which is seen in Moore's film The Big One.)

Well-known personalities and celebrities are also shown coming to Flint to bring hope to the unemployed, some of them interviewed by Moore. Ronald Reagan visits the town and suggests that former auto workers find employment by moving across the country, though the restaurant where they are meeting has its cash register stolen during Reagan's visit. The mayor pays television evangelist Robert Schuller to preach to the town's unemployed. Pat Boone and Anita Bryant, who have supplied GM with celebrity endorsements, also come to town; Boone tells Moore that Roger Smith is a "can-do" kind of guy. Moore also interviews Bob Eubanks during a fair near Flint, during which he cracks an anti-semitic and homophobic joke.

Moore also meets some of the residents of Flint, who are reeling from the economic fallout of the layoffs. We meet a former feminist radio host named Janet who, to find work, joins Amway as a saleswoman. We also meet a former auto worker, angered over the layoffs, who is actually named James Bond. The most famous resident that appears in the film is Rhonda Britton, who sells rabbits for "Pets or Meat" (The scene many believe was the reason Roger & Me received an R-rating features Britton killing a rabbit by beating it with a lead pipe. The rabbit fights back before and during the early part of the beating.) Prevalent throughout the film is Sheriff's Deputy Fred Ross (who worked at a Flint GM plant for 17 years before accepting his sheriff's deputy job), whose job now demands that he go around town carrying out evictions on families unable to pay their rent.

During all of this, as the film progresses, Flint's crime rate skyrockets, with shootouts and murders becoming all too common. Crime becomes so prevalent, that when the ABC News program Nightline tries to do a live story on the plant closings, someone steals the network's van (along with the cables), abruptly stopping the broadcast. Living in Flint becomes so desperate, that Money magazine names the town as the worst place to live in America. The residents react with outrage and stage a rally where issues of the magazine are burned.

At the film's climax, Moore finally confronts Smith at the chairman's annual Christmas message, addressing him from a distance (Moore claims in the DVD commentary that two security guards are restraining him to keep him from getting closer to Smith). Smith is shown expounding about generosity during the holiday season, concurrently as Sheriff Fred Ross evicts more families. After Smith's speech, Moore bird dogs Smith:

Dejected by his failure to bring Smith to Flint, Moore proclaims that "as we neared the end of the 20th century", as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, "it was truly the dawn of a new era."

After the credits, the film displays the message "This film cannot be viewed within the city of Flint", followed by "All of the theaters have closed."

History

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)

This film, financed partly by Michael Moore's mortgaging of his home and partly by the settlement money from his Mother Jones lawsuit, was meant to be a personal statement over his anger not just at GM, but also the economic policies and social attitudes of the United States government which allows a corporation to remove the largest source of a town's income from that town. The film proved to be the most successful documentary in American history at the time in its theatrical run (since surpassed at the box office by Moore's later documentaries Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11) and enjoyed wide critical acclaim. In response, General Motors threatened to pull advertising on any TV show that interviewed Michael Moore.

Roger & Me was filmed under the working title A Humorous Look at How General Motors Destroyed Flint, Michigan.^[1]

Roger & Me was the first film to document the following: (1) downsizing of corporations, and (2) outsourcing of jobs to developing world nations. GM's closing of several plants in Flint and opening new plants in Mexico is a prime example of outsourcing.

Warner Bros. gave Michael Moore $3 million for distribution license, a very large amount for a first time filmmaker and unprecedented for a documentary. Part of the distribution deal required Warner Bros. to buy four houses for the families evicted in the film and give away 20,000 tickets to the unemployed workers.

Michael Moore went on to become a leading social critic and activist, filmmaker, TV producer, and author based in part on the success of this film. He uses both an expository type documentary and an interactive perspective to demonstrate his opinion in this film.

Moore returned to the subject of Roger and Me with a documentary called Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint (1992), which aired on the PBS show P.O.V. In this film, Moore returns to Flint two years after the release of Roger & Me to see what changes have taken place. Moore revisits Flint and its economic decline again in later films, including The Big One, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Capitalism: A Love Story.

Criticism

Film critic Pauline Kael criticized the film, claiming it exaggerated the social impact of GM's closing of the plant and depicted the actual events of Flint's troubles out of chronological order. Kael called the film "shallow and facetious, a piece of gonzo demagoguery that made me feel cheap for laughing". One such criticism is that the eviction at the end of the film occurred on a different day from Smith's speech, but the two events were intercut for emotional effect.^[2] Moore addresses this criticism in the DVD commentary, stating that "there are no dates in the film; we'll be going back and forth throughout the decade of the '80s."

GM argues that the reason for its downsizing was fierce competition from Japanese auto manufacturers and that the only alternative to the factory closures in Flint would have been major government subsidies or increased protectionism. Moore briefly touches upon these issues, noting that GM and the factories were profitable when they were moved.^{[citation needed]}

In March 2007, Canadian filmmakers Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine appeared on MSNBC's Tucker to talk about their documentary Manufacturing Dissent. They reported to have found that Moore talked with General Motors Chairman Roger Smith at a company shareholders' meeting, and that this interview was cut from Roger & Me.^[3][4] Moore acknowledged having spoken with Smith after surprising him at a shareholders' meeting in 1987, before he commenced filming, but said the encounter concerned a separate topic unrelated to the film.^[5] The filmmaker also told the Associated Press that had he managed to secure an interview with Roger Smith during production, then suppressed the footage, General Motors would have publicized the information to discredit him. "I'm so used to listening to the stuff people say about me, it just becomes entertainment for me at this point," he remarked. "It's a fictional character that's been created with the name of Michael Moore."^[5]

Technical data

• Running time: 87 min.
• Country: USA
• Language: English
• Color: Color
• Sound: Mono

See also

• Flint Sit-Down Strike
• Six Flags AutoWorld
• Pat Boone, Anita Bryant, Robert H. Schuller, and Bob Eubanks — all visited Flint during its tough times, and all appear in the documentary
• List of documentaries

Related books and films

• Final Offer - a documentary film that shows the backroom 1984 General Motors contract negotiations, that would result in the union split of the Canadian arm of the UAW. It also shows how the UAW was more willing to negotiate with General Motors than their Canadian counterparts providing a very interesting look at union negotiation. The film depicts some of the events that would lead to the closing of plants in Flint, and other plants around the United States. GM Chairman Roger Smith is featured in the film.
• The Corporation - shows the history of the corporation and some of its potential downfalls. Michael Moore appears in the film.

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Roger & Me

• The Official Unofficial Roger & Me Museum
• Roger & Me - official site
• Roger & Me at the Internet Movie Database
• Roger & Me at Allmovie