Instead of speak to Sicko director Michael Moore (who’s been quoted everywhere lately), L.A. Times columnist Patrick Goldstein has spoken to directors Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Supremacy) and Brett Morgen (Chicago 10) for a 7.3.07 piece about Moore’s style and tactics.
Moore’s work, says Greengrass, is “‘highly interventionist‘ in the sense that he’s willing to use the power of film, be it clever cutting or funny archival footage or cheap melodrama, to carry the day. ‘His work is often intensely tabloid, but I remember from my days as an on-camera interviewer that the question that makes you sweat by the very idea of asking it is the one you should always ask. And Moore’s brilliance is that he always asks that question, over and over.”
I felt guilt pangs the instant I read that passage about “the question that makes you sweat is the one you should ask.” I’ve wimped out on that score more times than I’d care to remember. Too often when I have a tough question in my head I go into my chickenshit tap dance — equivocation, verbal padding, side-stepping — before saying it.