Moore is Less

Michael Moore, who carries around controversy the way Paul Bunyan toted an ax, has won legions of fans for being a ball-cap-wearing fly in t...

Michael Moore, who carries around controversy the way Paul Bunyan toted an ax, has won legions of fans for being a ball-cap-wearing fly in the ointment of Republican politics. For tweaking the documentary form. Even for making millions of dollars in the traditionally poverty-stricken genre of nonfiction film.

Many despise him for the same reasons. Toronto-based documentary filmmakers Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk started out in the first camp. But during the course of making an unauthorised film about Moore they wound up somewhere in between. 8220;What he8217;s done for documentaries is amazing,8221; said Melnyk 8220;People go to see documentaries now.8221;

But according to Caine, an Ohio-born journalist and cameraman, the freewheeling persona cultivated by Moore was not quite what they encountered when they decided to examine his work. 8216;8216;When we turned the cameras on one of the leading figures in our own industry, the people we wanted to talk to were like: 8216;8216;What are you doing? Why are you throwing stones at the parade leader?8217; 8220; said Caine

Their film, Manufacturing Dissent, sheds an unflattering light on Moore8212; whose work includes the hit Fahrenheit 9/11 and the Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine.

8220;We didn8217;t want to refute anything,8221; Melnyk said. 8220;We just wanted to take a look at Michael Moore and his films. It was only by talking to people that we found out this other stuff.8221;

In part the 8220;stuff8221; amounts to a catalog of alleged errors8212;both of omission and commission8212;in Moore8217;s films, beginning with his 1989 debut, Roger 038; Me. That film largely revolved around Moore8217;s fruitless attempts to interview Roger Smith, then the chairman of General Motors, after his company closed plants in Moore8217;s birthplace, Flint, Mich.: an interview that occurred, Melnyk and Caine said, although Moore left it on the cutting-room floor.

8220;I8217;m still a big proponent of Roger 038; Me, especially for its importance in American documentary making,8221; said John Pierson, the longtime producers8217; representative. 8220;But it was disheartening to see some of the material in Debbie and Rick8217;s film.8221;

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In Manufacturing Dissent Caine and Melnyk note that the scene in Fahrenheit 9/11 in which President Bush greets 8220;the haves, and the have-mores8221; took place at the annual Al Smith Dinner, where politicians traditionally make sport of themselves.

Melnyk and Caine, who are married, admit to one fabrication of their own: They printed their own business cards before an appearance by Moore at Kent State University. There were other obstacles. Among other incidents, they said, they were prevented from plugging into the sound board at Wayne State University during a stop on Moore8217;s Slacker Uprising tour and were kicked out of his film festival in Traverse City.

8220;I don8217;t think he expected us to follow him around,8221; Melnyk said.

JOHN ANDERSON