Capitalism: A Love Story

One of the main points of a documentary is to show a corrupt part of reality and expose it the the public.  The film makers use fact-based arguments to persuade the viewers to usually do something about the problem.  In Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore takes facts that have little or no relevance to the problem and use them to make a point.  Most documentary makers do this, but Moore takes this to the extreme by being so blatantly obvious with this by not trying to hide or conceal these facts in the movie.  One of the most obvious examples of this to me was when he was talking about greed.  He talked about Columbine High School, the place of the fourth deadliest school shooting in our nations history.  He said that the company that employs the most parents of Columbine students is a weapons manufacturing plant.  If you think about this, what percent of parents at one high school are usually employed by a single company?  I’m guessing that the percentage of parents working at this plant is less than 5% and is a mere coincidence considering what happened at Columbine.  Moore said that these parents were too blinded by greed and need for income to notice that they were promoting this kind of activity.  In other words, Michael Moore tailors the facts in order fit his needs.

In Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore also plays with the viewers emotions unlike any documentary I’ve seen.  When talking about the “dead-peasants” he plays sad music and zooms in on the faces of the children who had lost parents, while major corporations made a profit on them.  It is simply human nature to sympathize for these kids and believe Moore’s argument is valid.  Dana Stevens, a writer for Slate, says, “The scene makes you cry, yes—who wouldn't when hearing how a little girl asked whether she could cut a hole in the hospital wall to see her mother one last time?—but it seems like something you shouldn't be allowed to see. Once again, Moore's goodhearted aims come into direct conflict with his bludgeoning tactics.” 

The facts in this movie were very loosely connected.  There were sections of the movie where he made good, valid points, but they did not do anything to further is point that capitalism is evil.  Overall, I did not like the movie one bit.  I felt that Moore was very irritating and infuriating with the things he did and said.  I would not recommend this movie to anyone, unless they wanted to see an example of how not to make a documentary.

Ste     Stevens, Dana. Capitalism: A Love Story. Slate, 17 Jan. 2012. Web. 18 Jan. 2012.    <http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2009/09/capitalism_a_love_story.html>.