I think your problem may have to do with your understanding of what a "documentary" is or should be. Although documentaries are about fact rather than fiction, it is impossible to keep point of view out of it.
There is a difference between fact and truth. Documentaries are factual, but not necessarily truthful. They all have a POV.
I think you would find, if you looked, that many famous documentaries took license with their subject matter, staged certain shots that were missed, etc.
Also, just as there are a multitude of genres to fiction, so too are there genres in documentary. There are newsreel documentaries, nature documentaries, unnarrated documentaries, etc.
From what I can tell, Moore's movie is in the propaganda genre of documentary. It isn't the first. They are frequently made by governments. The U.S. has made them.
So, I don't see any problem calling this a documentary just because it has an agenda or a POV. You can disagree with the POV or the agenda, but that is a different issue.
I still haven't seen it, but I will, and I expect to enjoy it. My mother saw it on Friday with a group of her 60-something girlfriends who live outside of Chicago. She enjoyed it. Said that Moore's point of view was ever present, and that clearly the content was slanted to support his theories. However, she wouldn't go so far as to call it untruthful.
As she described it the footage spoke for itself, but the sequencing of the footage spoke for Moore. |
