Michael Moore: Aims at capitalism in new film

Michael Moore: Aims at capitalism in new film

"Roger & Me" had turned Michael Moore into a national figure twenty years back and with that the commercial potential of documentaries also opened up.

And about five years back his "Fahrenheit 9/11" became the highest-grossing documentary of all time.

So, it seems Moore is the only filmmaker in US, to get a wide release for a movie with the ionic title - "Capitalism: A Love Story" - which is the first Hollywood film to have the word 'capitalism' in the title.

While Moore's documentaries have ideally focussed on specific issues as gun culture, the Iraq war, healthcare - "Capitalism: A Love Story" is a broader critique. The fallout from last year's Wall Street nail-biter crops up throughout, though he started woking on the movie before that. His actual target is the system which is the cause of the problem.

"Capitalism: A Love Story" - is in many ways a perfect bookend to "Roger & Me."

The credits are followed by clips from a Britannica Films production about the decadent decline of the Roman Empire, intercut with recent footage that fits right in. But before long we are forced to watch families in the Midwest being evicted from their homes, ruined by having fallen for deceptive mortgage practices.

Though the trailer shows Moore talking to members of Congress and trying to gain access to the AIG building in order to make a citizen's arrest of its chief executive, he is not seen more than he was in "Fahrenheit 9/11." We see pre-adolescent Mike in home movies as he gives a few details about the notion of the American Dream that he was raised on. And, quite touchingly, he takes a walk with his very old dad, past the site of the demolished factory where the latter worked for thirty years.

In US, capitalism is so relentlessly paired with communism that to knock the one is to praise the other. It's impossible to imagine Moore embracing the latter. It's not even clear that he's entirely opposed to capitalism; what he's really going after is the corporatism that has made profit a goal beyond all ethical considerations. And his alternative seems no more radical than an extension of seventy-year-old New Deal ideas.

Given the political events of the last few decades, he by no means gives the Clinton administration or the Democratic Party a pass.

"Capitalism: A Love Story" should be a complete downer, even with its humor. Moore tries to avoid this by presenting the stories of a few recent cases in which workers have successfully acted to improve their lot.

But what's most moving comes at the end. Moore's researchers found film footage, long thought to be lost, of FDR presenting his "second bill of rights" during a 1944 fireside chat. It's a simple list of rights -- to healthcare, a job, education -- that almost no one could disagree with - except, unfortunately, all the people with the most power.