Moore Nonsense

It’s no secret at this point that Armond White takes the crazy-but-fascinating pompous blowhard thing to a level would make Lee Siegel sputter incoherently (and possibly anonymously). The critics are rather similar in many ways: the severe tone, the pose of moral and intellectual righteousness, the accusatory manner, the contrarian posturing--all of which lead to some rather odd and outrageous conclusions (see, for example, this week's bizarre rave of Crossover, which is on par with his legendary praise of Biker Boyz). However, as with Siegel, White’s adamant refusal to follow the mainstream occasionally leads him to get things right. His pan of This Film is Not Yet Rated is only semi-successful, but it includes at least one statement that seems to succeed at being self-evident (which is good, because White’s shtick is always to go long on assertions and short on evidence):

The contemporary documentary was ruined when Michael Moore encouraged the abrogation of credibility in favor of sarcasm.

“Ruined” might be too harsh a word, but a part of me thinks he’s absolutely correct to point out the debilitating effect of Moore’s fact-allergic, cheap-shot ridden, jokey style on contemporary documentary. Of course, one could also argue (and I might be willing to accept) that Moore’s bumbling everyman persona and easy comedic populism opened up the documentary format to a far wider audience than ever before, and along the way, gave filmmaking a renewed social and political relevance, at least in the eyes of certain segment of the population. And to add to my waffle, I’m also not sure those ideas are mutually exclusive. How’s that for a hedge?