[Culturetalk] Important new film

[Kirk Huffman]

*Michael Moore's latest film: 'Capitalism: A Love Story'*
**
Although not specifically concerned with culture, the important new film
below deals with one of the most serious threats to *real *culture in the
Pacific; the phenomenon of unrestrained capitalism and extreme free-market
economic theory. The supposed glories of these are sometimes pushed onto
unsuspecting Pacific island governments as if they are 'normal' and
therefore should be followed with no restrictions. This critical and
profound dissection of the pros and serious and hidden cons and mistakes of
these types of approaches should be required viewing at all universities -
especially economics departments - within the Pacific, and maybe should be
required viewing by members of all Pacific governments. The promoters of
unrestrained capitalism, business, etc, get enough free publicity as it is:
it is about time that the other side of the story is exposed for the Pacific
public to understand what it is really all about overseas. This film is a
great stride forward in exposing, in relatively plain language and in a
fascinating format, some of the hidden truths behind the tarnished world of
modern economics.


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This was spotted this on the guardian.co.uk site and it was thought you
should see it.

To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/06/capitalism-love-story-review

*Capitalism: A Love Story
*
If Michael Moore's latest documentary lacks the clean punch of his
best-known work, it can only be because the crime scene is so vast, writes
Xan Brooks at the Venice film festival

Xan Brooks
Monday September 7 2009
guardian.co.uk


http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/06/capitalism-love-story-review


The bankrobbers caught on CCTV at the start of Capitalism: A Love Story are
a forlorn and feeble bunch. We see a bedraggled old man in a Hawaiian shirt,
and what looks to be a 12-year-old boy wearing a balaclava. For all their
flailing efforts, they've got nothing on the real crooks: the banking CEOs
who recently absconded with $700bn of public money, no strings attached.
That's what's known as a clean getaway.

Michael Moore's latest documentary drew tumultuous applause at the Venice
film festival today, suggesting that the veteran tub-thumper has lost none
of his power to whip up a response. If the film finally lacks the clean,
hard punch provided by the record-breaking Fahrenheit 9/11, that can only be
because the crime scene is so vast and the culprits so numerous.

Undeterred, Moore jabs his finger at everyone from Reagan to Bush Jr, Hank
Paulson to Alan Greenspan. He drags the viewer through a thicket of
insurance scams, sub-prime bubbles and derivative trading so wilfully
obfuscatory that even the experts can't explain how it works.

The big villain, of course, is capitalism itself, which the film paints as a
wily old philanderer intent on lining the pockets of the few at the expense
of the many. America, enthuses a leaked Citibank report, is now a modern-day
"plutonomy" where the top 1% of the population control 95% of the wealth.
Does Barack Obama's election spell an end to all this? The director has his
doubts, pointing out that Goldman Sachs ? depicted here as the principal
agent of wickedness ? was the largest private contributor to the Obama
campaign.

Capitalism: A Love Story is by turns crude and sentimental, impassioned and
invigorating. It posits a simple moral universe inhabited by good little
guys and evil big ones, yet the basic thrust of its argument proves hard to
resist.

Crucially, Moore (or at least his researchers) has done a fine job in
ferreting out the human stories behind the headlines. None of these is so
horrifyingly absurd as the tale of the privatised youth detention centre in
Pennsylvania, run with the help of a crooked local judge who railroaded kids
through his court for a cut of the profits. Some 6,500 children were later
found to have been wrongly convicted for such minor infractions as smoking
pot and "throwing a piece of steak at my mom's boyfriend". The subsequent
bill for their incarceration went directly to the taxpayer.

Moore's conclusion? That capitalism is both un-Christian and un-American, an
evil that deserves not regulation but elimination. No doubt he had concluded
all this anyway, well in advance of making the film, but no matter. There is
something energising ? even moving ? about the sight of him setting out to
prove it all over again. Like some shambling Columbo, he amasses the
evidence, takes witness statements from the victims and then starts
doorstepping the guilty parties.

"I need some advice!" Moore shouts to some hastening Wall Street trader who
has just left his office. "Don't make any more movies!" the man shoots back.
Moore chuckles at that, but the last laugh is his. This, more than any
other, is the movie they will wish he had never embarked on.


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