THE BIG ONE: INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL MOORE
Prairie Miller
I prepared myself for an encounter with the funny and infamous Michael Moore as if I were on a strange adventure, and not at all certain if The Big One referred to the movie's ambitious war plan, or the filmmaker's own larger than life physical dimensions. Moore directed the highest grossing documentary ever Roger & Me, in which he relentlessly stalked the head of General Motors to demand answers about the closing of the GM plant in his home town of Flint, Michigan. This time around, Moore ended up shooting The Big One as an antidote to being stalked by his own publicist during a book tour for his bestseller Downsize This. The filmmaker also talked to me about how he relieved his bored life on tour by cornering some board chairmen like Nike's Phil Knight, around topics like child labor in overseas plants. PRAIRIE MILLER: I heard a rumor that you're giving out presents of Nikes to the press today... MICHAEL MOORE: No, there'll be no gifts here. We believe that a press without gifts is a press that will tell the truth! PM: So. The corporate avenger is at it again, right? MM: Yes...Let me consult my counsel first! PM: Did the idea for The Big One come from your book Downsize This? MM: The idea for the movie grew out of me being bored beyond belief with the book tour. I was in city number fifteen on the book tour when I decided to make the movie.
They send you out on a book tour, and you go to all these cities and spend most of the day in hotel rooms waiting for the book signing at night. The press doesn't really want to talk to you because they'd have to, you know, read the book.
So I'm just in the hotel room watching game shows in my underwear and raiding the mini-bar, thinking there's got to be more to life than this. And eventually I decided to make the movie. PM: That's a funny story. Is there another funny story about how Miramax got interested in The Big One? MM: It was really weird. Harvey Weinstein, the chairman of Miramax, saw this movie at the Toronto Film Festival. I was sitting in front of him, and he starts kicking my chair, saying various Yiddish words I didn't understand. So he grabs me by my collar, and he goes, C'mon, I wanna buy this film! He's like hauling me out into the lobby while the film is still going on, and he says he wants to give fifty per cent of whatever Miramax makes to the people in Flint.
I was stunned by this, this was a very generous offer. And they've already put up a hundred thousand dollars, before they even make a dime on the movie, to various groups from the soup kitchens to the homeless shelters and the job training programs that I support back in my home town. PM: One of the most poignant moments in the film was the woman who comes up to you at the book signing in tears because she had just been laid off. Did you have any reservations about including that in the movie? MM: Oh, yeah. I had it out of the film mostly, but the editor was really encouraging me to keep it in. I just thought, the critics are going to nail me on that. But you know, it's honest because every night on the tour, there was at least one person who would come up to the table in tears because they had just lost their job. And you don't see that on the nightly news. So I decided to leave it in.
PM: Some of the people in The Big One who are out of work look even physically different. Just dazed. MM: Have you ever been there, have you ever been at that place where you've been out of work? It is not a good feeling. I've been there. I remember when I lost my job in the mid-eighties. I didn't get out of bed for a month. I mean, I just literally lay in bed every day.
You are dazed. And you're not quite sure what it all means, and what's going to happen to you. It's something we don't really talk about a whole lot. PM: Is it harder now to corner people for your notorious on the spot interviews, now that you're well known? MM: No, it's about the same. Because they know you, they think that you're part of them now. You know, that I made it, I'm successful. So I'm going to be a little easier on them, or I'm going to understand. So... PM: But corporate people like Nike chairman Phil Knight, they must know what you're up to. MM: Well, I didn't go looking for him. He called me. PM: How did that happen? MM: He called in on a radio talk show. He phones in and says, oh I want to see you. His wife had given him my book as an anniversary present to him, because I had named him as one of my favorite corporate crooks. I thought that was really kind of strange, and maybe I should go there and check it out. And so yeah, I was pretty shocked that he would talk to me. PM: What do you hope The Big One will change, in terms of people's opinions about what they're seeing in your movie? MM: I didn't make this film so that people would stop buying Nike's. But once people are aware of the truth - and this is what is really great about this country - the average American has a good heart and a good soul. And when they learn that these young teenage girls are making these shoes for forty cents an hour, people do not feel good about this. And it's very heartening to see the response to the film on that level. PM: Does it surprise you that a big company like Miramax, which is owned by Disney, would distribute a movie that attacks big business? MM: I always find it ironic that these major corporations will put my work out there, because I probably stand for everything that they don't stand for. But because they're in the business to make money, they perceive that there's a wide audience for this film.
Miramax is, I think, different from a lot of these companies. It's run by these two guys who grew up in a working class section of Queens, N.Y., and I don't think they've forgotten their roots even though they've been successful. I find them to have a very good heart, and they've been excellent people to work with. PM: Tell me about that mischief you enact in the movie, where you get rid of that clinging Random House publicist by reporting her to the police. MM: When you go on one of these book tours, they have these publicists that attach themselves to you and watch your every move. You never have a minute to yourself. You're essentially a commodity. So I reached a point in the tour where I just had to get away from these publicity people.
I remembered something that Rick Nielsen, the lead guitarist for Cheap Trick, had told me what they do in the rock world. When they want to get rid of the publicists, they just tell the police in a particular city that there's this stalker that's been after them. They show them a picture of the publicist, and then the police nab them and take them away. And it worked. It actually worked! We couldn't believe it. PM: Did the publicist still speak to you? MM: Are you kidding? They're in like a Hollywood movie! They're like royalty now in these towns. PM: I hear you have some strange connection to Seinfeld. MM: Yeah, it's funny. The guy that I've hired to be the producer of this sitcom that I've written, Larry Charles, he was one of the original producers and writers for Seinfeld. PM: Tell me about your sitcom. MM: I've been working on the script. It's called Better Days. CBS just gave the green light to make the pilot. Jim Belushi and Chris Elliot are the stars, and we'll see what happens. We're casting the two female stars right now, so if you have any ideas, I'm open.
It's about a southern town where no one has a job, and it's a comedy. It's about how these four characters scheme and scam their way to survival each week in the fictional town of Back Bay, Wisconsin. Otherwise known as Flint, Michigan. I gotta quit picking on them. So...
But I'll be surprised if it gets on the air. I don't think CBS has had anything like this since All In The Family. It will be very irreverent. It's going to deal with what's going on, and it will have my dark, Irish American sense of humor. PM: Do you think you'll ever run for office? MM: No, no, no...I think it's better that I do this. I want you to know that I made this movie because I consider myself a filmmaker. I did not make this as a sermon or a political statement, or whatever. Obviously I care about these things, but I'm a filmmaker.
I ran for office when I was eighteen. I was one of the first eighteen year olds elected in this country when eighteen year olds were given the right to vote in 1972. I was on the school board back home for four years, and I retired at age twenty two. And now it's your turn!
Prairie Miller
Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)