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Corporate punishment >> In The Big One, Michael Moore is back gunning for CEOs by MATTHEW HAYS
The Big One feels both like a sequel of sorts to Roger & Me, Moore's landmark documentary in which he took on General Motors for their horrific treatment of the folks of Flint, Mich. (the auto giant began to bail on the town even after posting record profits). The film made Moore famous. He emerged as a sort of anti-corporate crusader never devoid of a sharp one-liner--a sort of David Letterman/Ralph Nader hybrid. Roger & Me was snubbed by the Academy and set off a massive controversy (detractors argued Moore was making fun of the citizens of Flint). Since then, Moore launched his series TV Nation, an irreverent look at basically anything he finds intriguing, and made a less-than-successful fictional comedy about America and Canada going to war (Canadian Bacon). He also wrote a book, Downsize This! Random Threats From an Unarmed American (Random House), which rose to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. The Big One is his video diary of highlights of his promotional book tour. As with Roger & Me, The Big One manages to pack in plenty of hilarious, absurd and surreal moments, scenes so specific in style they can be described only as Michael Moore moments. Sure enough, Moore manages to find a little bit of Flint in many of the towns he visits. Copious corporations were shutting down factories in book-launch stopovers, and Moore enters the headquarters of each one, followed by his camerafolk, hoping to meet with the CEO to inquire why plants are being closed. (In some cases, the factories are simply being moved to developing nations like Mexico where the labour is cheap and environmental laws are lax.) Shot entirely on video, The Big One looks rough and cheap, but that's clearly part of the point. Moore sets himself up in opposition to the apparently unthinking head honchos who are too busy fretting about "maintaining their competitive edge" to think about the effects of widespread unemployment on struggling families and the community as a whole. Like the end of The Wizard of Oz, Moore finally gets to confront a CEO (the only one to date willing to go on camera with the filmmaker), Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. The results are somewhat predictable, with Knight trying to put on the best PR face when confronted with some pretty straightforward questions. Ultimately, The Big One doesn't feel quite as coherent as Roger & Me, but Moore's refreshingly anti-corporate take on the bottom line makes the film well worth the price of admission. The Big One opens next Friday, April 17
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Despite all the statistical noise about how well the U.S. economy is doing, vigilante filmmaker Michael Moore wants you to know things are in fact getting worse. As corporate profits climb to new Everest-like heights, more and more Americans are worried about being downsized by corporations; real wages for the average American worker have declined in the past 20 years, while corporate CEO salaries have jumped (174% in 1997 alone). And while the stats unravelled in The Big One, Moore's latest feature-length rant about the state of America's rampant capitalist system, Canadian audiences will find abundant points of reference.