Moore, Michael (1954–)

AMERICAN DOCUMENTARY filmmaker and director of TV series and music videos, Michael Moore is also the author of best-selling political books that critique U.S. domestic and foreign policies from a leftwing perspective and with scathing humor. Throughout his career, which was internationalized by the Academy Award-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine(2002), Moore has been praised for his investigations of corporate crimes and obscure international American dealings. Equally, he has been criticized for his alleged anti-Americanism, his aggressive style, and fabrication of facts.

Moore was born in Davison, a suburb of Flint, Michigan. Several of his relatives worked at the local General Motors factory, where Moore's uncle was one of the founders of the United Automobile Workers labor union. He received a Catholic upbringing and attended a youth seminary until the age of 14, when he went to Davison High School. Moore began his career as a polemicist at only 22 when he founded the unconventional weekly magazine Flint Voice, which he published for 10 years.

In 1989, with the money obtained through mortgaging his house and financial support from bingo fundraisers, Moore directed Roger and Me. The documentary, which became a surprising box-office hit, made him well known to the American public as a critic of neoliberal economic theories and of the globalization process. Through his distinctive combination of gritty reality and black humor, Moore shows the disastrous consequences on the local community of General Motors CEO Roger Smith's decision to close down several auto plants in Flint.

After directing the satiric movie Canadian Bacon(1995), in which an increasingly unpopular American president declares war on Canada to turn the public attention from domestic troubles, Moore returned to criticize corporate America in his best-seller Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American(1996). The book advocated more accountability for transnational conglomerates and targeted corporations such as Nike, which assigned orders to third world contractors whose focus was more on delivering on time and saving on the budget than on workers' rights.

Moore's longstanding critique of big corporations is also apparent in his 1999 and 2000 TV series, The Awful Truth, which was awarded the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award for Arts and Entertainment. On the New York Times best-seller list for 50 weeks, Stupid White Men (2001) describes the shortcomings of U.S. foreign and domestic policies at the turn of the millennium, targeting, in particular, George W. Bush's administration.

Completed just before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the book was initially held back by its publisher, HarperCollins, who asked Moore to rewrite it, toning down his critique of Bush. Yet, because of public pressure, HarperCollins finally agreed to publish the book in its entirety. Moore's critics pointed out his failure to sustain his accusations with evidence, a criticism to which the author responded with a more careful use of sources in his next book, Dude, Where Is My Country?(2003). The target is still the Bush administration, and chiefly its spurious motives for the Iraq War.

Moore's documentaries Bowling for Columbine(2002) and Fahrenheit 9/11(2004) definitely consigned their director to international fame, earning him respectively an Oscar for Best Documentary and the Palm d'Or at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Bowling for Columbine explores the culture of guns and violence in the United States, starting from the Columbine High School massacre. According to Moore, the United States is pervaded by a culture of fear, rooted in racial and economic concerns, which constantly pushes people to worry about their surroundings and thus turn to guns for security.

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