Roger & Me (1989)

Moore in Michigan

Michael Moore's "Roger&Me" was revolutionary in its day. It was Michael Moore's first major documentary...back in his slimmer,less propagandistic days. Moore aptly tackled the subject of corporate corruption when trying to interview the said "Roger" who ran GM in Flint, Michigan and laid off thousands of his workers. Flint is shown to be a wasteland. A woman subsists on skinned rabbit. The city has fallen apart.

"Roger&Me" shows the divide between corporate culture and that of everyday people. Corporate honchos make millions while everyday people struggle to survive. It's timely,considering how oil companies are making obscenely huge profits while working class people try to get food on their tables and commute to work without going into debt.

"Roger&Me" was Michael Moore's debut. Unfortunately,he got plumper,angrier,and progressively wackier. It's a promising debut,with a strong message about corporate responsibility. Capitalism is good when it's moral,not when it makes profits at the expense of the everyday person. June 26, 2008

Ummm ... I think you all are missing the POINT ...

WOW! After reading the reviews of this film, then watching the film, I have come to the conclusion that all of you that have commented that this film is a "comedy" ... are demented. Whomever feels that this is a COMEDY, is "touched".

I found the responses to Michael's questions, and the NON-responses to his questions, to be ludicrous and unbelievable, but I did NOT find them to be FUNNY.

Look at our economy here in 2008, and THEN laugh at this film. It's all still happening!

The very demise of our economy in this country is directly the fault of our large corporations and the 1% of our society that control all the wealth.

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE REALITY FOLKS .... This movie looks at the stupidity of our quest for more money.

Big business does NOT care about the worker.

Don't buy this movie if you are looking for a light-hearted comedy. It's about the reality of big business, the naivety of the wealthy toward the common person's situation in this country, and the WOOL they are trying to pull over our eyes.

Without the WORKER, the OWNER would be nowhere.

THINK about it. May 3, 2008

The awful truth about Michael Moore

I agree on the majority of Moore's political views and used to be a huge fan. However, more and more I learned about his techniques to get a point across. This film which happens to be - like all his other films - tremendoulsy entertaining is by no means a documentary. The reason: The extent to which Moore bends the truth is called even among the most unethical journalists "lies":

- Moore who in this picture tries to get to talk to the GM ceo Roger Smith DID GET to talk to him. Moore tried in vain to prevent his colleagues from admitting this, nevertheless the interview got printed by Premiere Magazine.
- According to witnesses in the stockholder meeting shown in the film, Moore did not get cut off when he asked questions to Roger Smith. Moore deliberately edited the scene in a way where it comes off that way. Often he takes quotes from interviewees out of context by letting parts end up on the cutting room floor. He himself admitted to this.
- The failed mall, hotel and autoshow were closed down prior to the layoffs and are hence not the result of them.
- Reagan visited Flynt in 1982 not in 1986 during the layoffs as claimed here.
- Moore doesn't mention anything about the impossible requests by the unions, which ultimately led to the heads of GM to contemplate foreign assembly.
- There are more reasons as to why the Academy Awards revoked an Oscar for Roger & ME, however I'm tired to waste any more time on this hypocritical, self absorbed former stockowner of Ely Lilly and Halliburton securities.

Michael Moore bends the truth, cashes in, and thus is just as much of a journalistic failure as his greedy right wing counterpart. He puts us left wing libertarians in a bad light. March 18, 2008

Not entirely factual, not entirely false, not entirely documentary

Other than the fact that his presentation of himself as the "Average Guy on the Street" is a little questionable and VERY staged, Roger & Me has a major, major problem if Moore wants it to be taken as a factual documentary. The chronology of the events has been changed.

The concept of cause-and-effect is crucial to Roger & Me. One of the defining criteria of a documentary film is the absence of obviously fictional elements. Don't create events, dialog, costumes--and don't manipulate chronology. But that's exactly what he did. When Flint started hemorrhaging jobs, the city did not just stand by and do nothing, they tried to recreate the economy by building the Water Street pavilion, the hotel, and autoworld, attempting to raise tourism money. (Rolling Eyes) In the movie, the reverend comes to town for $20k to pray away unemployment, Reagan shows up and his advice is basically to move (wearing a UAW jacket--totally inappropriate for him). Now when Moore comes back to Flint, it's 1986 when the BIG layoffs are happening. It's been intermittent up to this point.

In the film these events are presented as a response to the massive layoffs that began in 1986, but Reagan actually came in 1980, the evangelist in 1982, and the tourism plan was in 1985. This is a huge problem for the film and basically disqualifies it as a real documentary because these visits/plans were not a result of the BIG layoffs.

These are well-documented, look around a bit, see what you can find. The hotel and Autoworld also went bankrupt before or early on in the layoff cycle, even though they are presented very late in the film.

Along the vein of the chronology problem, notice that Moore wants to bring Roger Smith to Flint to see the devastation. The film explains that GM, the richest corporation in the world, closed 11 North American plants. Work went to Mexico. With increased profits, money goes to shareholders. They then invest in high tech weaponry. Before this, they were the most profitable corporation in the history of mankind, but this decision is made to increase the profit margin further (needlessly, the film asserts).

So here's my point about that paragraph. They spend 28 seconds on these highly important facts. Now notice that they spend about 5-10 minutes on Miss America, and another 5 or so minutes on the crazy rabbit lady, simply because people will get a kick out of that stuff. That's also a big part of what I'm talking about. How can you discuss complex global economics in 28 seconds? Left out are the facts that there was a significant recession at the time, lots of unemployment, and lots of people buying imports which were cheaper and more efficient with the gas crisis. In order for plants to close, contracts had to be dissolved and the UAW played a huge role in this. This is pertinent information that people need to know if they are to be educated on this subject. Yet Michael Moore is harder on Miss America than on the UAW. He displays some condescension and ambush journalism tactics like with the wealthy old ladies at the golf course.

You see, I'm not saying he's lying, I'm saying he's twisting and distorting. The whole thing is just an entertaining film designed to fill theater seats. It's not pure documentary.

And like I said, Michael Moore is not just an average blue-collar "one-of-the-guys" type of guy, he's a media giant (admittedly this was not AS true in 1989, but he was still big). Putting on the baseball cap and jeans, not lighting anything, and walking in the front door of GM to try to get an interview with Roger Smith is totally absurd. They were very conscious decisions and very trite ways to get some entertaining footage.

Even if you can somehow dismiss those problems with Roger & Me, I have one that's a lot harder to deal with. This film was made on bad faith. He wants to present himself as the intrepid "Joe Plainfolks" going on a noble quest to bring Smith to Flint and force him to own up to the consequences of his decision. This goal was abandoned in favor of making a comedy. Whatever the serious, human, and compelling issues motivated Roger & Me were thrown out the window in favor of making a series of SNL skits.

Apparently Roger & Me is not meant to be seen as pure documentary, but as advocacy and partisan journalism, it's just that it's not marketed that way. Sadly, and this is coming from someone who mostly agrees with Moore's opinions, I have to call 'BS' on this film. February 20, 2008

One sided story

Michael Moore gives a very biased view of Roger Smith. This film illustrates the uneducated Michael Moore. Michael Moore fails to shed light on many of the economical problems facing GM and Flint. January 11, 2008

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