And Kiarostami said editing was irrelevant. The Observer’s Andrew Anthony calls Michael Moore “arguably the most ideological and emotive editor since Sergei Eisenstein,” about as high as praise can get for a maker of agitprop. He points to Farenheit 9/11‘s powerful juxtaposition of criticism and humor, raw and manufactured images and predicts it could make an unprecedented “historic difference.”
But Moore, it seems, not only exaggerates or sometimes ignores inconvenient facts, he’s insufferably self-aggrandizing and unpopular with more refined movie folk; he has bodyguards and a limo, and sends his kid to private school. To the ideologically pure–the armchair Marxist readership of the Observer, presumably–he’s a hypocrite whose buzz-making and popularity are to be barely tolerated.
Hey, I hate Moore as much as the next guy, but it is exactly the unfettered pursuit of unadulterated dogma that got us in this mess (pick your mess; this isn’t a bloghdad post). And besides, how seriously can Anthony’s Man of The People criticism be taken when it’s being made in the lobby of the Majestic?
[via greencine, who’s got an excellent collection of Cannes wrapup coverage. ]
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the making of, by greg allen