Corporate Social Review Magazine 1st Quarter 2012 | Page 69

Review
ART

REVIEW

REVIEW

Capitalism, A love Story.
(Michael Moore)

OK. Let’s get one thing straight, right now. Documentaries are cool. Of course, you probably don’t think
so, I mean who does, right? But then, when you think
documentary, you’re probably thinking about those
terrible old tomes; the dry and dusty films about dry
and dusty things that used to sap your very will to live.
You’re thinking about long shots of desert flowers and
alpine slopes, dry-as-a-bone voice overs and tweedy,
beardy men with thick rimmed glasses (before they
were cool) and pipes.
But that’s not the modern documentary world. At least
it’s not anymore. And Michael Moore is one of the
people responsible for taking the documentary format
and giving it a good shake.
It started in 1989 with Roger & Me. A deeply personal
exploration of the decline of western industry seen
through the prism of the death of the motor industry
in Moore’s home town of Flint, Michigan. After that he
gave us (among others) Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko. His films are personal, they are
angry, they are shamelessly and gloriously polemical
and – most important – they are thought provoking,
chall enging and endlessly entertaining.
With Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore takes a look at
the American dream at that very moment when it is

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turning into a nightmare. In doing so he takes a hard
look at what the world looks like when capitalism is
unrestrained by regulation, a sense of social responsibility and accountability or any real sense of morality.
Money makes the world go round and Capitalism (like
Democracy) is the very worst possible system except
for all the others. But when the profit motive becomes
the only motive, when big business only thinks about
quarterly profit reports and shareholder value and ignores the needs of the people they serve; when individual wealth is accumulated without any conscience,
then the results are the empty shells of entire neighbourhoods, families destitute and starving, and a system that seems to be steadily consuming itself.
You’ll laugh watching this film, and you’ll get angry,
and you’ll get sad, and – when Michael tries to arrest
Wall Street (His ‘stunts’ really are very clever whatever your politics or persuasion) - you’ll probably laugh
again.
Captain of industry or foot-soldier in the corporate
army, this is a film worth seeing. And there’s hardly a
beardy bloke or a tweed jacket in sight.

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