The voyage in the Michael Moore documentary

Résumé du document

Michael Moore's documentaries are famous for the problematic issues they deal with, and his movies have won many awards because of their unique style. Michael Moore can be seen as a voyager, i.e., as the Cambridge dictionary states, a 'person who goes on a long and sometimes a dangerous journey'. We can't help wondering about how the voyage process is used in Michael Moore's films, and for what purpose. The definition of voyage in Moore's works is two-fold. It can be either a trip through space, or a trip through time.

Extraits

[...] If some would denounce a process that hampers the viewer to make his own opinion, and thus qualify Moore as a demagoguery, which is intrinsically false, because by saying this, the critics formulate a contradictory opinion about the facts shown in the films; others will see the voyage as the essence of the Moore's movies, and the crux of all investigative documentaries. Bibliography Moore, Michael (2003). Dude, Where's My Country?. New York: Warner Books. Moore, Michael (2004). Will They Ever Trust Us Again? New York: Simon & Schuster. Moore, Michael (2004). The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader. New York: Simon & Schuster. [...]

[...] The voyage definition in Moore's works is twofold. It can be either a trip through space, or a trip through time. Voyage through space 1. Investigative journalism On the one hand, in his films, Michael Moore travels a lot. He uses this typical process of the investigative journalism in order to highlight the fact that he is looking for answers, even if he has to fly from Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grill in Flint where America's youngest school shooter's mother worked to Dick Clark's house in California, just to ask him a single question Moore's appearance in his own films Moreover, this quest for the truth, of which the perfect metaphor is the voyage, and the travels that accompany this quest, are a way for Moore to come on stage in his own films. [...]

[...] This is a voyage through time. There is this idea of progression, which is at the root of the investigative journalism. For example, Fahrenheit 9/11 starts with Bush's 2000 election, and from this point we explore Bush's foreign policy mistakes and flops, up till the Iraq campaign in Moore's films and time sequence Besides, this evolution of the investigation is emphasized by the time sequence of every documentary he made. Therefore, the viewer's hands are hold by the director, who takes him through this trip. [...]