Salesman:
For those who haven't seen it. See it or take a college film class, you'll see it then.
Four Bible salesman. The open road. Fall in love with these men. Fall out of love with the world. The American dream. The American Nightmare. How do you sell the Holy Book? These guys have been doing it for more than twenty years and they still don't know.
You'll find out how scary honesty is.
Salesman was a revolution; both in film and in my head. Salesman is cinema verite: literally, cinema-truth. It revolves around the idea that if you put a camera in front of a person eventually they will forget that it is there and return to acting like their original selves.
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~~~~~This does beg the question if the people on Jersey Shore or Real Housewives of New Jersey actually act like ogres, since they do spend a majority of their waking lives in front of a camera.
probably not. no.
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I tried to contain the "New Jersey" as to not infect the rest of this post.
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Salesman is the perfect gadfly because it says so much without saying anything at all. While Micheal Moore's veins pop as his shrill nagging voice is slammed into that megaphone he carries everywhere, the Maysles sit quietly actually documenting. They pose questions by presenting the truth. Brilliant!
You can't shove an opinion at someone and expect anything but shut doors and closed minds. Documentaries don't document anymore, they tell, they shout, loading people with more facts to support their already bloated arguments. Do they change anyone? No of course not, everyone who went to see Moore's most recent garbage (french pronunciation for comic effect, always use french pronunciation when talking about film, the northward dwelling liberals love it.) already had an opinion before they even entered. The Maysles give you information and let you take what you want. So-crates asked the rich and powerful questions on those Greek stairs, some understood his message, most didn't. McCarthy stressed this; So-Crates never imposed his opinion on the people he questioned. The Maysles didn't either.
There had to be a couple people who left thinking.
There had to be a couple people who left thinking.
Fact: Gil from the Simpsons is based on one of the characters in salesman.
Gil- "I need this sale, my wifes gonna leave me"
Car Salesman - "I'll take it from here Gil"
Gil picks up phone - "You should have seen me honey, I was so close to making a sale. Hey, who is that in the background? Awwww, is that Tom? I thought you were gonna leave him. No, no... dont put him on. Oh, hi Tom!"
Gil picks up phone - "You should have seen me honey, I was so close to making a sale. Hey, who is that in the background? Awwww, is that Tom? I thought you were gonna leave him. No, no... dont put him on. Oh, hi Tom!"
XoXo
To the post on the modern-day gadfly:
ReplyDelete"Gadfly" is a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or just being an irritant. (Of course this definition is from wikipedia, take it if you will)
My point is, you can't just dismiss Michael Moore as being a "bad" gadfly because his documentaries are biased. He does upset the status quo by posing upsetting questions, though some of these may be posed in a more biased way. His documentaries leave people thinking. They pose obvious questions that make you think critically about societal institutions that we simply accept or take for granted nowadays. Your Misley Brothers on the other hand show the hardships of running a traveling bible sales business. What questions to they pose while on camera? You say they have come to a point where they forget they are being filmed and rather live life as they would without it. How do they question and upset the status quo just by showing their daily hardships on screen?
And if the Misley Brothers do succeed in being a modern day gadfly and posing questions that upset the status quo, what makes them a "better" gadfly than Michael Moore? Maybe you are answering who is more alike to Socrates rather than who actually fulfills the role of gadfly.
You're right, under that definition, which is the correct one, Micheal Moore is a Gadfly, and a good one at that. My irritation with Micheal Moore comes from his assult on the issues he is adressed in his documentaries. He does not come from a place of wanting to know, learn or document but rather from a place of wanting to disturb. That's where So-Crates and Micheal Moore are different So-Crates disturbed to learn, Micheal Moore, in my opinion, disturbs for a more engaging cinematic "adventure". While his documentaries do put on display issues that are controversial and need addressing, his uniquely forceful way of dealing with them creates a barrier between himself, the subject, and the audience. To me his documentaries become more about him than the subject. That's why I like the Maysles brothers, their only involvement is behind the camera, letting the subjects speak for themselves. The irritation of the status quo comes not from making the viewer directly acknowledge the problem but from giving them information, a documentation of a reality, and letting them draw a conclusion from it. I can see where Moore is a gadfly, but maybe if you're too upsetting you can't really adress the issues at hand. Thanks for the comment it was interesting and insightful.
ReplyDeleteXoXo