Roger & Me has performed well at the box office (grossing over seven million dollars to date), but controversy continues to surround the film and its director. Michael Moore had been the target οf a series οf ad hominem articles (in publications as diverse as The Village Voice, The New York Press, Newsday, The Washington Times, and Premiere) which seek to expose the real’ Michael Moore hiding behind his folksy image on the screen and, in some instances, thereby also to prove the film a fraud. A certain amount οf this animus seems to be an adverse reaction to the radical journalist-turned-filmmaker’s tireless if canny milking οf his working class hero’ image in his promotional efforts for the film.
Whatever one thinks οf Michael Moore or his film, there is no question that Roger & Me is an important–maybe even a landmark–documentary in terms οf its enormous popular appeal. The following two takes on Roger & Me deal not only with the film and the surrounding controversy, but also with some οf the esthetic and political issues it raises, from the perspective οf two ex-Detroiters who grew up in the heart οf the auto industry. For his review, Carley Cohan interviewed Ben Hamper, one οf the auto workers interviewed in the film, who is presently on disability leave from GM, and whose account οf his experiences, entitled Rivethead, will be published next year by Warner Books. Gary Crowdus concedes that kits mixed reaction to the film derives from his family background, including a father who worked nearly thirty years on the, assembly line (at Ford and Motor Products) and a sister who has sold Amway products.
The sudden success οf Roger & Me, up out οf the festival circuit to nationwide commercial release, has incited a fury οf critical second-guessing. Last October, after the first blush οf Telluride and Toronto, Moore was called a “satirist equal to Mencken and Lewis,” ripe for his “lightning ascent to prodigy status.” Yet by December he was, according to The New Yorker’s Pauline Kael, “a gonzo demagogue [who] made me feel cheap for laughing.” Film Comment’s Harlan Jacobson busted Moore for advantageous misrepresentation οf fact, and The New York Times published an article calling Roger & Me “narrow, simplistic, wrong.” These reviews faulted Moore for miscalculating layoffs, flubbing chronologies. Misrepresenting GM’s role in Flint. They suggested that somehow Moore had broken an ethical promise implicit in the documentary form itself.
Far from such formalistic quibbling, GM was working at real-life damage control. Its president, Robert Stempel, admitted the film was “a hurt” and had stymied their publicity department. Roger Smith, GM Chairman and the Roger οf the title, called Moore’s work, without having seen it, “a great disservice to the community οf Flint.” The UAW, the strange and, οf late, constant bedfellow οf GM, fretted that all this would encourage people to “buy Toyotas because GM is shown to be a repugnant organization.” As part οf twin counter publicity campaigns, both G,M and the UAW mailed out copies οf Kael’s scathing review. But outside οf trade magazines like Auto World, it appears that GM has scored just one success. Through veiled threats οf withdrawn funding, it managed only–and this in its own backyard — to get Roger & Me cancelled from leadoff position in the Detroit Institute οf Arts’ prestigious film series.
But while GM’s PR efforts fall clearly in the category οf the cover-your-ass absurd, the ludicrousness οf reviews in The New Yorker, Film Comment, et al., is more difficult to fathom. From the beginning οf Roger & Me, when we see super-8 snippets οf the filmmaker as a moocow-cute youngster, Moore encourages us to see industrial Flint from a personal point οf view, specifically Michael Moore’s own. He warns us that he grew up thinking “only three people worked for GM — Pat Boone, Dinah Shore and my Dad.”