Complexity

The best political magazine in the world, Reason, has an interview with documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman.  You’ve probably never heard of him, so here’s the introduction to the piece.

It has been 40 years since the premiere of Titicut Follies, a bleak and scathing documentary about an asylum for the criminally insane. The audience at that first screening saw a cascade of disturbing images of mistreatment and neglect, most notoriously a brutal force-feeding of a naked inmate. As the prisoner is fed through the nose, a guard tells him to “chew your food”; the tube itself is lubricated with grease, and a doctor dangles a burning cigarette over the funnel.

But the most grotesque detail may be the follies of the title: an annual musical revue put on by the prisoners and guards. The revue frames the film, which begins with a row of madmen with pompoms singing “Strike Up the Band” and ends with the cast crooning “So Long for Now.” It’s a strange and darkly comic performance, part Ziegfeld and part Bedlam.

The movie was both a landmark piece of journalism and a landmark work of art. It made the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Bridgewater one of the most infamous madhouses in the country, and it is now one of the most celebrated documentaries of the ’60s. It is also notable for two reasons that have nothing to do with its merits. It was the first picture to be directed by Frederick Wiseman, a former law professor who at age 37 was beginning a long series of rich and challenging films. And it is the only movie in U.S. history to be banned for reasons other than obscenity or national security.

Inevitably the subject of Tubby Riefenstahl rears its head.

Reason: There’s a recent trend toward documentaries in which the filmmaker makes himself a part of the action. Obviously that’s very different from your style. Sicko and Hospital are both about American health care, but their approaches are just poles apart.

Wiseman: Well, I haven’t seen Sicko, but generally speaking I’m not a fan of Michael Moore’s.

Reason: How come?

Wiseman: I think he’s an entertainer. I don’t think he’s interested in complexity.

I’m not against the filmmaker appearing in a film. I think some of the greatest documentaries I’ve ever seen have been made by a filmmaker who’s present in the film. I don’t know if you’ve seen any movies by Marcel Ophuls—The Sorrow and the Pity or Hotel Terminus. Ophuls is a great filmmaker because he’s a great interviewer and he has a very sharp and analytical mind. In the case of Michael Moore, I don’t see any particular filmmaking skills, and I think his point of view is extremely simplistic and self-serving.

One of my goals is always to deal with the ambiguity and complexity that I find in any subject. Even the simplest human act can be subject to multiple interpretations or have multiple causes. In Titicut Follies, for example, there are scenes where you see a guard or a doctor or a social worker being cruel to an inmate. But there are other situations where they’re being kind. Some of them are both kind and cruel, if not simultaneously then serially.

“He’s not interested in complexity.” That’s about the most accurate critique of Moore I’ve ever read.  It’s a point Jim and I have made here a thousand times. 

Sicko has NOTHING to do with healthcare.  Absolutely nothing.  Sicko is a two hour informercial for socialism, and healthcare is merely the context in which that infomercial is presented.  The issue of universal healthcare is unquestionably one of the most complex facing human society today.  As the baby boomer generation ages, where are we going to get the money and resources to provide unlimited free healthcare?  Is it fair to saddle the current generation with a massive mountain of debt to do so?  Is single-payer government-run healthcare the best or most efficient means of providing universal healthcare?  Should we even have universal healthcare?

The questions are endless, as are the possible solutions.  Note that NOTHING in Sicko would ever lead the viewer to question whether socialism is the solution.  The reason for this is simple:  the movie exists to justify Moore’s socialist political beliefs, not to lead a debate on finding solutions to the questions that face us.  Socialism is presented without critique, Santa Clause and government all rolled up in a sugar-coated ball of dreams, while any solution involving competition or the market is shown as hateful, evil, greedy, heartless, and so on.  It’s an either/or solution, two sides of the same coin.  Capitalism evil, socialism perfect.  America evil, Europe perfect.  And the Cuba segment speaks for itself.

For the record, once again let me state the obvious.  Both Jim and I believe (a) that universal healthcare is possible, (b) that the American system is a complete disaster, (c) that the socialist model Moore glamorizes is just as bad, if not worse, and (d) that we as a society need to have the courage to look for different, novel solutions.  Moore has no interest in actually solving the problem, he wants the problem solved using the socialist system he has clearly believed in since he was a teenager. 

Think of the issue of race in America.  Two people who benefit the most from race relations are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  Do any of you out there honestly think that either of these men want to see the end of racism in America?  Of course they don’t, because if there were no racism then there would be no need for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  So they foment that which they claim to oppose because it is the source of their power.  This is the exact situation with Moore.  He needs sick people, because he needs a reason to justify socialism.  There is no problem for which socialism isn’t the solution. Socialism is perfect.

Don’t you think that someone tackling an issue as complex as universal healthcare should have an interest in complexity?