TRANSCRIPT A PINEWOOD DIALOGUE WITH MICHAEL MOORE Michael Moore is the most famous, controversial, and commercially successful documentary filmmaker working today. The notoriety surrounding his films has obscured the fact that he is a gifted director who uses a wide range of cinematic techniques to engage, entertain, and provoke his audience. Sicko , his widely acclaimed, no-holds barred attack on the American healthcare system, uses the issue of healthcare to explore larger questions about what kind of country America is. In this discussion presented by the Museum of the Moving Image in collaboration with Variety , Moore spoke passionately about the many questions raised by his film. A Pinewood Dialogue following a screening of this country and say to those on the other side of Sicko , moderated by Chief Curator David the political fence, “Look, aren’t there some issues Schwartz (June 28, 2007): where we can find some common ground and work together on this? And it shouldn’t be about DAVID SCHWARTZ: Congratulations on the film. The Democrat or Republican. If the polar ice caps are film was rushed into the theaters last week and I melting, that affects all of us. If 47 million people understand that you went to some of the don’t have health insurance, that affects all of us. screenings at the Lincoln Square [theater]. The film Can’t we agree to fix this?” So I do hope that that has gotten really an amazing response. will happen. Having said that, that may make my most subversive film, because I am attempting to MICHAEL MOORE: Well… (Applause) reach deep into mainstream America with this movie. SCHWARTZ: A woman outside, when you came in, came up and said, “I’m glad you were born.” You SCHWARTZ: There’s so much discussion and press said you’d never heard that one before. around any opening of a Michael Moore film. It’s just been amazing trying to keep up with all the MOORE: No. (Laughs) No, in fact I’ve spent most of stories coming out. And I think sometimes you’re the last three years listening to people say, “I wish not appreciated enough, or people don’t talk you were dead.” (Laughter) enough about just the filmmaking craft and process that you go through. SCHWARTZ: But there’s a different reception to this film than the sort of polarizing effect that previous MOORE: Thanks. I appreciate that, because I rarely films have had. I mean, this film seems to really be get a chance to talk about that because people bringing people together. usually want to engage in—which is okay—in the political discussion, but… MOORE: Yeah, I—no, that’s true. I mean, they’ve actually tested it with Republican audiences SCHWARTZ: Well, we’ll get into that! (Laughter) But I (Laughter) and it’s tested very well. And the Fox know that you—for one thing, that this film probably News channel reviewer called it “Brilliant and had the highest shooting ratio: about 250:1, from uplifting.” So… (Laughter) I thought, “What are they what I understand. And really, what I want to ask is trying to do, ruin me?” (Laughter) But I made this in how you put this together? I heard that you were a spirit of—while I still believe, obviously very making a film about healthcare, and I couldn’t strongly, in the things I believe in—that this picture how that would work as a film, or what you shouldn’t be a partisan issue. I’m hoping to hold would do. my hand out across the great divide that we have in MOORE: Neither could I, I would say. (Laughter) But painful at times to watch.” But it is a Michael Moore I like to pick subjects that I think either sound film; you always make your films entertaining. boring, or difficult to understand or—I always imagine someone saying to their spouse or MOORE: Well, and I also say in the first two minutes boyfriend or girlfriend, “Hey honey, let’s go to that that I’m not going to do what you may think I’m health care documentary tonight!” (Laughter) going to do, which is give you a two-hour film about because I wouldn’t want to go to that. So I start with the poor (as any good Liberal would want to make that: that I wouldn’t want to see a film like this. And a film about that). I’m at a point in my life where if I so, while shooting it, I’m always in a theater seat, in have to spend two hours trying to convince people an imaginary theater seat, thinking about, “What that 47 million [Americans] who don’t have would I like to see on a Friday night?” And as a insurance should at least have insurance—or at filmmaker, first and foremost, I set out to try and least the 9 million of them who are children should make a film where, at the end of the two hours, be covered—if I have to take, really, two hours and people will leave with a feeling of exhilaration. And I a year-and-a-half of my life to make that film, then think all filmmakers hope to do that, ultimately. we’re much more messed up than a two-hour film is ever going to correct. So I start with the People work hard all week, and Friday night comes; assumption that most people think that that’s they want to go to the movies. And so I want to give wrong and somehow should be fixed. I thought it them that two hours of something where they’ll was much more interesting to focus on people who laugh and—you know the cliché, “They’ll laugh are covered, who have insurance, and who think they’ll cry… and, in this case, leave the theater everything is hunky-dory until they meet with a wanting to slap an insurance company serious illness. executive…” (Laughter) No, don’t! No violence. SCHWARTZ: So how did the shape of it come into I mean, I love this art form, and I worry that it’s been focus? Because you did a call for stories, you so debased by the bottom line, by Hollywood, collected all these stories, but you have a very which is owned by other companies that are clear… it’s an essay film, in a way. It’s entertaining, concerned about profit and not about the art. That’s but you’re making a very clearly thought-out why we have so many movies that—I mean, I like argument. going to the movies, so I go to a lot of movies, and I just leave constantly with a sense of… (Sighs) Am MOORE: Well, it was because of those letters. I I right? I mean, that’s not an unfamiliar feeling. We mean, I thought we would hear mostly from people don’t want that feeling! We want to skip up the who don’t have insurance—and we did. But the aisle. And so I’m thinking a lot about that. stories that we heard from people who were covered, and who found out that even if they had SCHWARTZ: Let’s talk, then, about just how you start money, [they] could end up destitute—people in the film, the first two shots. We start off with George the upper middle class who lost everything Bush. It’s an easy laugh-line, of course. It’s a great because of hospital bills that were half-a-million, a laugh-line. million, two-million dollars, and [who] found that their insurance company no way wanted to pay MOORE: Well, it’s a tease to you, too. (Laughs) two-million dollars, and [that they were] going to Because, you know, I just imagine people going, find any way they could to get out of paying that “Oh, here we go again. (Laughter) Two hours of bill. And I thought, “Geez, you know, I wonder how Bush bashing. O-h-h-h.” And then you don’t see many people really realize that?” Because I think him for another hour, so it’s really—I’m just having most of us—if you’re healthy, and you haven’t really some fun with the audience. had a serious illness—you don’t really think about it a whole lot. In fact, we actually like to brag about, SCHWARTZ: Then you go to this incredible shot of “Hey, yeah, I got benefits . Oh, yeah, I got. I’m fully this guy stitching up his wound—right with those covered! Fully insured!” After this film, I want first two shots, just saying, “This is going to be people to maybe pick up their health insurance something different. Something that might be policy and read the fine print, because there’s a lot TRANSCRIPT: A PINEWOOD DIALOGUE WITH MICHAEL MOORE PAGE 2 of things in there that I think would shock a lot of figure out how we can make that work in our unique people. situation. SCHWARTZ: Now, the idea to look at other SCHWARTZ: I want to ask you about a few of the countries—and you’ve done this before a bit with choices you made, where you probably knew you voyages to Canada in Bowling for Columbine —but were opening yourself up to questions or criticism. the idea of using that, and winding up in Cuba as And I’ll start with the easier one: The person who you did, can you talk about how that came into the had the anti-Michael Moore website, and you story? Because that’s not from the stories you decided to help him out.