Kelraz Bladesinger

Copy/Pasted from my own guild's message boards:

Now I'm sure the conservatives will jump all over this one, so my challenge ... I want to see where some of the "lies" are. Copies of this forum are going to be sent to a few different places, to compare these with the "truth", one being a friend of mine over at NBC News in Washington, DC, another being my old documentary professor at American University (the leading university in the United States for documentary films).

*edit* I forgot to include why my old school of communicataions is covering the election and this kinda debate is interesting news!

Faervas1

Dear Kelraz it's not a matter of a lie but pushing a conclusion, yes. At the beginning of the film M. Moore made sure you knew that GW's cousin made the call that Bush Won Fla. Well he failed to point out that NBC ABC CBS where all at Fault to for calling a winner at all based on statical projections. New programs are no longer interested in report news but packaging news. The votes could of been called either way. He often showed effect of something but we never know what fully caused the effect. Many of the tragic since of soldiers talking about what just happen to the innocent victims of a battle. He never described the events leading up to the battle and how Iraqis soldier used the innocent non combatants as shields. So Iraqis people Good.

here is my Summery of the movie:
American People Good but are rubes American Soldiers are good but are doing evil things Iraq Good. GW Bush Bad bad.

Talveran Shadowbomb

How about showing the 1000s of children is mass graves and suffering from the after effects of mustard gas instead of them flying a fucking kite..

Kelraz Bladesinger

Talveren, thats simply stupid. Of course no one would show that ... why would you put opposing arguments into something thats supposed to support your argument. However, there were those children flying their kites that morning and those days -- that my friend, is factual information.

I mean, that would almost be as dumb as putting arguments ... say, pictures of themselves juxtaposed against pictures of Hitler ... on a commercial supporting yourself.
www.georgewbush.com/ -- check out the commercial "This is not a time for pessimism and rage"

Sanchek

I rank even American Idol, TRL, and Survivor higher than that crap. People wasting their money to support Moore is one thing, but giving credibility to that as a fact based documentary is silly.

Crist0

Point number one, if you were smart enough to pay attention when you watched the film you would have read the part about those being commercials from Kerry supporters, and that Kerry denounced the Bush people for showing them, but never denounced his own people who made the commercials to begin with.

Next, there IS a textbook definition of documentary, "Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter". Moore strikes out on all three counts in that definition: he is most certainly not objective, he editorializes everything, and he not only inserts fictional matter but he removes factual material that takes away from the point he is trying to make.

What Michael Moore does is not documentaries, but propaganda films with the goal of defaming his political oponents, ie the President and conservatives.

I haven't seen the film(nor will I, as I refuse to put a dollar into that worthless uneducated buffoon's pocket) but I have already heard Republican members of Congress that he confronted on the street talk about how they were portrayed. Same thing different day, he didn't like what they said so he edited out their comments and edited in what he wanted them to look like/say.

Grumblin

defensive?

Of course not. /scoff

Bowler

At least people care enough about it to create discussion. Agree or disagree but at least people are talking about it and that makes him the winner from his perspective.

Kelraz Bladesinger

Cristo I don't know who you are, but you have no clue what a documentary is if you think there is a definition. Thousands of scholarly journals and meetings have attempted to define the relatively new medium, but the fact is (and yes, fact) that you can never portray factual information because the instant you try to capture it on film the lense itself will alter it. People act different in front of a camera, and anything can be taken extremely out of context. These people said and did what they did because the camera was there, and that should never be forgotten. There is also the use of editing which takes the medium of "documentary" into the fictional realm. One of my first assignments during Documentary Filmmaking 3 was to cut the exact same footage 5 different ways, each portraying a radically different story. Before you try to talk about things, lets go to school first?

You should always question what you see in any medium, especially in the digital age as there are no rules. Its like the National Geographic (a highly respected fact based organization) moved the pyramids on the cover of one of their magazines to make it look prettier -- an arangement of pyramids that will never be seen in reality on this planet. Anyone who blindly follows what the film tells them is a fool and an idiot, but anyone who slanders it calling it not a documentary is equally a fool.

Sanchek