Michael Moore Talks 'Dangerous Docs' at Montclair Film Festival

Michael Moore worries about a lot of things, from America’s health care system, to gun violence to what he considers the questionable virtues of capitalism.

The outspoken documentary filmmaker also frets about the future of his genre, which he has used to shed light on those and other issues in such films as “Sicko,” “Bowling for Columbine” and “Capitalism: A Love Story.”

Moore discussed how he hopes to revive the genre, and whether films can really change the world, as moderator of “Dangerous Docs,” a Montclair Film Festival panel discussion held at the Montclair Art Museum Sunday. 

The Oscar winner is known for using humor to get his point across, and he began the talk drawing laughs declaring, “I hate documentaries.”

Moore said documentaries can be boring and preachy, which is why he advises filmmakers, “Don’t make a documentary film, make a movie.”

The evening’s panelists — Lucy Walker ("The Crash Reel"), Bill Siegel ("The Trials of Muhammad Ali") and Montclair's own Dawn Porter ("Gideon's Army"), whose films were all shown during the festival — have in Moore’s opinion succeeded in making "movies."

Siegel’s work explores race, politics and religion in America through boxer Cassius Clay’s spiritual transformation, and Porter’s first film is an eye-opening look into the country’s overloaded criminal justice system through the struggle of three idealistic public defenders in the deep South.

“On the big screen is the most intense way of experiencing someone else’s reality,” said Walker.

In "The Crash Reel" the two-time Academy Award winner follows the story of a U.S. Champion snowboarder who suffers a massive brain injury while training for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The Los-Angeles based filmmaker did not pay herself in the making of “Crash Reel." She said she makes movies not to make money, but to have them seen.

“I’m at the peak of my career,” she said, “and I didn’t get a dime.”

Moore contrasted the popularity of nonfiction on bookshelves and television line-ups with the lack of nonfiction movies on theater marquees. He said while a handful of movies like “Supersize Me” and “Spellbound” broke barriers and reached big audiences, the momentum seems to have stopped.

“Lawrence of Arabia” watched on a mobile phone is not “Lawrence of Arabila,” he said, just as a stamp of the Mona Lisa released by the U.S. Postal Service is not the Mona Lisa.

Determined to have documentaries viewed on a big screen, Moore holds a regular “doc night” at the State Theatre in Traverse City, Mich., a theater he helped renovate and runs as a non-profit. He suggested a movement to create a national "doc night."

He’s also partnering with Jon Alpert, Downtown Community Television Center co-founder, to break ground later this week on the first all-documentary, all-the-time movie theater in New York City.

He said he hopes the theater in Soho will start a trend across the country.

Still, he said the challenge is to get Americans to do more than just see the movie.

Moore said, “What are we going to do except be moved by it?”

Discouraged about the lack of change, particularly with the rise in mass shootings since the release of “Bowling for Columbine," Moore said he met the families of Newtown victims after a recent screening of “Columbine” in Connecticut. On an optimistic note, he called the families a force that is not going to go away.

He did acknowledge the role “Fahrenheit 9/11” may have played in electing Obama by arguing that the Bush administration’s motivations for engaging in wars with Afghanistan and Iraq were personal.

One movie in particular that has moved him is "5 Broken Cameras".

Moore said if he could mail a DVD to every home in America, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be solved.