Battle Of The “Experts”

This month, Cari Crosby and Russell Bartholomee face off on documentaries, and seem to agree about as much as they disagree!

Russell:  There've been a lot of successful documentaries in the last few years, both in terms of critical praise and box office sales.  Much of the credit for that success has to be given to people like Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock who have made these really entertaining or provocative films like Bowling for Columbine and Super Size Me.  But don't these films and others like them take enormous liberties with the facts in order to promote the filmmaker's agenda?  As entertaining as they are, I'd argue that a documentarian is supposed to try to get to the truth, not just editorialize and fill seats.

Cari: Recent documentaries certainly have a different purpose than the traditional documentaries we are used to seeing on The History Channel.  Unfortunately, these traditional films were simply not watched by the average American.  They were deemed overly academic by many, meaning they were often only viewed by a captive audience in an academic setting, or by a certain elite group.  However, the recent blockbuster documentaries are clearly not just for the academic elite.  Several things about the actual films produced have changed as a result, and perhaps some of the facts have become a bit more questionable.  While that is unfortunate, I think it's generally okay because while some of the information may be flawed, it's still information that the general public should know - whether it be what eating fast food will really do to you, or information regarding politics.  Either way, these are things that the public should know about, and I’d like to believe that people have a responsibility when viewing anything in the media: to find out for themselves what is and what is not "pure truth."

Russell: I certainly agree that people have the responsibility to do their own fact checking.  You shouldn't take any single source's word for just about anything.  But even so, when a filmmaker makes a documentary, they have a responsibility to present the facts without purposefully distorting them. 

Case in point:  You referenced Super Size Me, and you said it tried to show what eating fast food really does to you.  I just watched that film, and that's certainly what the director (Morgan Spurlock) claims to be attempting.  His experiment is supposed to demonstrate what effect a steady diet of McDonalds will have on the human body.  But in terms of science, the experiment is not valid.  He not only completely changes his diet for thirty days, he also gives up exercising.  Additionally, during the 30 days, he travels all over the country, which is physically exhausting.  In a controlled experiment, you're only supposed to change one thing.  His decline in health during the month could be brought on by any of these drastic changes.  McDonalds food isn't responsible for all of them.  Now, I think we'd all agree that fast food is a bad steady diet, but his documentary is manipulative.  It's very entertaining.  It's worth watching for thought-provocation, and it makes some excellent points.  But it's not accurate.  Say what you want about the traditional documentary, but "The Mating Habits of the Cheetah" was at least free of propaganda.

Cari: I completely agree with you about the lack of scientific validity to Spurlock's methods in Super Size Me.  It was my biggest criticism after watching it: Of course he gained weight - he forced himself to eat large quantities of McDonalds (sometimes even forcing himself to continue when he was already full) and stopped exercising – both of which can lead to a change in fat composition.  Of course, it’s still worth watching.  The arguments made within are still valid - it emphasizes some important points, and what I think was most enlightening was how shocked the doctors were at all of the physical changes he went through.  He not only gained 30 lbs but starting having problems with his liver and other parts of his body.  He felt fatigued and started having depressive tendencies.  These changes, while not part of a true scientific experiment - do show that fast food can affect people in all sorts of nasty ways, and that's important for people to understand.

Russell: Well, I actually agree with most of what you just said.  Super Size Me is certainly worth watching.  Actually, it made me rethink my own diet.  When the film isn't about the gimmicky experiment, it's quite informative.  I love it when he looks at school lunch programs and their contribution to America's poor nutrition, for example.  And you're right that the doctors' reactions are very telling.  Still, as much as I enjoyed watching the film, I think it would have been a better documentary (i.e. exploring truth and not just entertaining) if it had concentrated more on those elements and less on his own flawed experiment.  It's also obviously agenda-driven.  There are two main ways that historians approach their research.  One is to gather as much data as possible and then report what you find.  The other is to start with a premise and look for data that proves your point, leaving counterarguments aside.  It seems like a lot of these films are the cinematic equivalent of the latter.  Michael Moore's films have more or less taken this approach.  I don't argue his right to make the films, and I actually really like some of them, but I think the former approach is more honest.

Cari: Well, we agree too much then, don't we?  Quite the battle this has become!  I also agree that it would have made a better documentary if it had concentrated more on flawed school lunch programs and such, however that would have made it far less entertaining, and therefore far fewer people would have seen it.  So which is worse - having a flawed experiment that is fun to watch along with a bunch of interesting and eye-opening facts that a wide portion of society will watch, or a fact-filled documentary that exposes the same important truths in a less entertaining way, that a very small elite group of society actually bothers to see?  I would argue that it is more important that the message gets out at all, even if that means having a few questionable facts within.  The average Joe isn't interested in the scientific method - or the ensuing debate that comes out of it not being used.   So for someone like Spurlock - why bother using it at all?  I'm not sure his goal was to prove anything scientifically, but instead it was more of a 'common-sense' oriented study that appealed to the aforementioned average Joe.  He wanted to prove the evils of fast food to laypeople, not to scientists. 

As for Moore's methods, I agree he tends to use the "find stuff to prove what you already believe" method, which is obviously pretty flawed.  Again though - I'm not sure if Moore sees it as his duty to inform the American people of every possible angle of what he is focusing on.  It's no secret that he is left-leaning, and that his opinions are surely going to seep into (or completely take over) his films.  But the bottom line is that he does provide a lot of really important facts in his films that people should know about.  Even things like what happened in Florida during the 2000 election.  While everyone knew it was a sticky situation, the way Moore laid it all out and portrayed a play-by-play of what happened, it provided more information than the average American knew.  Regardless of personal opinions surrounding the matter, it's important that clouded facts get out there - even if they are part of a very opinion-laced film.

Russell: Which is worse?  I guess I'd rather more people grapple with a subject based on flawed information than have only a handful see a better collection of facts in a less entertaining package.  But why must they be mutually exclusive?  Why can't these subjects be handled in an entertaining way AND be factually sound?

Let me state for the record that I like Michael Moore's films (especially Roger & Me and Bowling For Columbine) and think he's done more good than harm, if only because it's always better when debate on these kinds of issues takes place.  And this guy is great at sparking a debate.  But his coverage of the eve of the election in 2000 is exactly where I have problems with him.  You're quite correct that most Americans weren't aware of the play-by-play that night, but Moore didn't show all the plays - just the ones that suited his story.  I watched hours of news coverage that night, and there are some really important things that happened in calling the election in Florida that are absent from Moore's narrative.  He correctly points out that every network besides Fox called it for Gore, but he neglects to point out that the polls weren't closed in all of Florida yet.  He correctly asserts that Fox called it for Bush first, followed by everyone else, but he leaves out what happened for the several hours between.  Once the polls closed, Bush closed the gap.  All of the networks that had called it for Gore recanted and went back to "too close to call."  A couple of hours went by with no change.  Bush pulled ahead by about a thousand votes, and Fox (prematurely) called it for Bush.  Now, I'm not making any assumptions about who really won that state.  I'm just saying Moore left out anything that didn't point to Fox jumping the gun for Bush.  To hear his take, all the networks called it for Gore correctly, Fox called it for Bush, and all the other networks changed their minds - in the space of minutes.  What happened is complicated.  And Bush's cousin at Fox News calling it for Dubya seems to fly in the face of "Fair and Balanced" reporting.  But by leaving out some key facts, Moore makes the whole evening seem other than it was.  While I'm grateful to him for showing the footage that most people never saw, without context it's manipulative.

Now I'm not saying that all of Fahrenheit 9/11 suffered from that sort of selective reporting, but there was enough of it that some of Moore's conclusions are suspect.

Cari: True.  In a perfect world, documentaries would be able to be entertaining and informative at the same time.  However, finding a filmmaker willing to do both is a bit of a challenge.   Even more typical documentaries can be controversial among experts.  Even “facts” can be controversial.  It’s not an easy task to know exactly what happened with anything.  Things like motives for individual’s actions are never provable. 

With that said, you’re right that Moore didn’t portray everything in the most impartial way.  And as a documentary filmmaker, that was wrong.  But I’m not sure that what he portrayed was necessarily wrong either.  He left a lot of the timing of the whole Florida debacle up in the air – and maybe I’m not remembering correctly - but I think a lot of the way he did it left room for interpretation.

That specific portion of the film isn’t worth debating though.  Your last comment that “some of Moore’s conclusions are suspect” is more interesting.  Of course his ‘conclusions’ were suspect: he didn’t’ really come to any!  He threw out a lot of his own opinions of how he would go about explaining things, but never provided any real answer the problems he posed.  I felt he left a lot of that up to the viewer – for those watching to make up their own minds, based on what they had just watched (flawed as it may have been).  I like his approach – he provides information, asks a lot of open-ended questions, answers a few of them for himself, but largely leaves the answers up to the viewer.  He makes his audience think.  And I think he does a really great job of that.

Russell: That's so funny because I'd say that the biggest weakness of Fahrenheit 9/11 is that he didn't leave enough open for interpretation.  I don't fault him for asking the questions, but he doesn't trust his audience to draw their own inferences enough.  In the scene where Bush is sitting in the classroom, I thought it was enough to have the minutes tick by on the clock.  But Moore had to add a voiceover of what he thought Bush was thinking at the time.  That's ludicrous!  He wasn't even putting words in Bush's mouth, he was thinking for him, as well.  I know he was, to some extent, going for a laugh there.  But he undercut the effectiveness of the moment.  It would have been much better to let the images speak for themselves.  Let the audience interpret what they're seeing for themselves.

You're quite right that even conventional documentaries' presentation of the facts can be controversial.  But at least by holding to a standard of trying to let the evidence lead to the conclusion (and not the other way around), they stand up to much better scrutiny and hit closer to the truth.  Again, I think that's the goal.  After all, they're called "documentaries."  The evidence is supposed to take precedence over editorial.  Moore's problem is that he's not always willing to let strict adherence to the facts get in the way of a good story.  And honestly, I think he generally gets at the truth in the big picture sense.  Even so, he's perfectly willing to tell things out of chronological order (especially in Roger & Me) or do some clever editing to prove his pre-ordered point.  Scrambled chronology is fun in Pulp Fiction.  It's a misrepresentation of the truth in a documentary.

My favorite modern documentarian is Errol Morris.  It seems to me that films like The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War are much closer to the mark in terms of what a documentary ought to be.  They're compelling, entertaining, and - most of all - he lets the subjects speak for themselves.  His own voice rarely gets heard.  Moore and Spurlock could really learn a thing or two from him.  If I was sure that people didn't treat these blockbuster documentaries as gospel - if they were really willing to do the fact-checking – I'd be less bothered.  What concerns me is that I regularly hear people quoting Fahrenheit 9/11 book, chapter and verse.

Still, I'll give a lot of credit to the debate that these films - all of them - have generated.  The fact that these concepts are being discussed at all is encouraging.

Cari: I see what you mean about the unnecessary voiceovers that Moore provides in Fahrenheit 9/11.  However, I don’t think he’s really providing answers as much as comic relief (as you suggested).  Providing thoughts for Bush after the terrorist attacks is like adding captions to silly photographs.  Surely the looks on his face were just asking for those silly captions.  And whether he intends to or not, he looks vacant – a lot.  I think Moore just couldn’t resist the cheap shot at Bush.  Then again, maybe I just didn’t mind because I thought it was damn funny.

I agree that his technique is not the best method for documentaries, but I still believe that the information he provided was mostly valid – even if it wasn’t the whole story.  When politics are concerned, however, the whole story is rarely a simple thing to provide.  To provide the whole truth on any political story – wouldn’t you have to focus on all of the roots to the issues at hand as well?  Politics make for a complicated story – and at the root of politics is personal opinion.  So sure – let his personal opinion seep in and each person watching can decide for themselves (as both of us have) what they think.

Your last point says it all: the debate that all of these films have caused has made them worthwhile.  These films are getting people thinking and talking about subjects they might not otherwise.  Even if you never saw Fahrenheit 9/11, Super Size Me, or any of the recent string of documentaries, it would’ve been hard to avoid all of the media talk.  Experts from both sides debated on news shows, talk shows, morning shows – it was impossible to avoid talk of these films!  Who would’ve guessed that the Bush family ties to the Bin Ladens would be discussed on Good Morning America?  If having that debate heard isn’t worth the entire film, I don’t know what is.  And now McDonalds offers bottled water on their menu!  These films have had good outcomes - even if the films themselves might not be perfect.

Fahrenheit 9/11 and Super Size Me are available on DVD from Amazon. 

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