Hollywood revolutionary or stupid white man?
Michael Moore's risky antiwar Oscar speech provided the only real, hard-line political message of the evening. How will this affect his career? JAMES ADAMS reports By JAMES ADAMS
Five minutes before he was invited to take the stage of the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, Michael Moore had convinced himself that Bowling for Columbine wasn't going to win the Oscar for best feature documentary, so, he said, any speech he was thinking of delivering was "beside the point."
But Bowling for Columbine did win, and what Moore said after he bounded from his 11th-row aisle seat to the stage Sunday evening unleashed the kind of torrent of boos and cheers rarely, if ever, heard at the Academy Awards.
Moore, of course, was only living up to a promise he'd made days earlier: That if he won the Oscar, he'd use his thank-you speech to condemn President George W. Bush and attack U.S. foreign policy on Iraq.
It wasn't what the Canadian-born co-producer of Bowling for Columbine wanted him to do, however. Speaking yesterday from his hotel room in Los Angeles, a tired-but-wired Michael Donovan, chairman and CEO of Halifax-based Salter Street Films, said he'd discussed Moore's possible acceptance speech "on several occasions" before the Oscar and counselled the maverick filmmaker "to do the unexpected thing. I said he should take a much more congratulatory approach, thanking the academy for giving its highest award to a film that is so subversive and full of dissent."
Moore didn't do that. After a few seconds of "thank-yous," he launched his now-famous attack on the "fictitious election" of Bush in 2000 and the "fictitious reasons" for the U.S. assault on Iraq. Amusingly, Donovan -- who came on the stage with Moore and the other "non-fiction" shortlisters for the documentary prize -- "couldn't quite hear what Michael was saying," in part because Moore, initially at least, was speaking relatively quietly and because "it was completely crazy and I was probably a little bit distracted."
Much of the distraction was due to the thousands sitting or standing in the auditorium in front of him. From Donovan's perspective, "all the jeering, 100-per-cent of it, was coming from the bleachers" -- the balconies where the industry types ("the Republican Guard," as fellow Columbine producer Charles Bishop later called them) were seated. By contrast, support for Moore's remarks came from the orchestra/main floor, "and a lot of them were really cheering," Donovan said, not least Renée Zellweger, the best-actress nominee for Chicago, who was up on her feet, clapping and whooping.
Contrary to Oscar master-of-ceremonies Steve Martin's humorous remark that Moore, post-speech, was being helped into the trunk of his limousine by the Teamsters, Moore and company went backstage for about 25 minutes of photo shoots and press interviews. When asked if he was concerned that his speechifying might get him blacklisted in Hollywood, Moore replied: "I'm funded by Canadians and others that don't live here. But it was Hollywood that voted for this award."
"Who knows?" was Donovan's response to a suggestion that perhaps exhibitors might choose to pull Bowling for Columbine from cinemas. The film was playing in more than 100 U.S. theatres on the weekend. Since its release almost six months ago, it's taken in more than $35-million (U.S.), supposedly a record for a feature documentary (and, reportedly, enough to earn it second-place status as the most popular English-language Canadian film since Porky's). Odeon Films, Columbine's Canadian distributor, had the movie on 32 screens across the country on the weekend. So far it's grossed more than $4.6-million here.
Donovan is betting that Columbine will get a lift from the Oscar telecast. "That's the beauty of America. Business rules as far as I can tell. And this is show business, let's not forget: Anything that makes people get out to see the film helps, even if it's just for the sake of curiosity." He mentioned that Moore spent some time backstage talking with representatives of the film's distributors, United Artist/MGM, doubtless urging them to put the film in more theatres this weekend.
Reaction to Moore's speech was, unsurprisingly, divided. Donovan, for one, said, "If it was me, I wouldn't have done it. But Michael's entitled to what he thinks . . . He's got good instincts on these sorts of things." The Hollywood Reporter headlined its Oscar yarn "Brody's plea steals thunder from Moore," a reference to the teary "peace plea" from best-actor winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist).
At the various social functions following the awards, it was Moore's remarks that dominated conversations. They made the front page of The Los Angeles Times and were vociferously debated on the morning talk shows in that city. Most callers condemned Moore's remarks, although fewer than the expected number of viewers actually witnessed Moore's defiant speech (only 33 million Americans watched the show, down from almost 42 million the year before, making it the lowest-rated Oscars since 1974).
On the street, Danny Sussman, a talent manager with the Brillstein-Grey Agency, said he wasn't going to speculate on Moore's future in Hollywood but deemed the documentarian's comments as being "in poor taste. Michael Moore is a fine filmmaker, without question. And his films are important. But his timing was bad and completely inappropriate. Everyone watched TV yesterday and knew that 15 U.S. Marines were killed. It was not a good time to be vocalizing antiwar sentiments."