Bashing burns Ken (Defends Michael Moore)

Toronto Sun ^ | July 9, 2004 | Bill Brioux

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Get off Michael Moore's back.

That was the message yesterday from fellow documentarian Ken Burns, fed up with right-wing carping against Moore's anti-Bush rant Fahrenheit 9/11. "Of course he's entitled to express his opinion --that's what this country is all about," says Burns, best known for epic documentaries The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz. "You're supposed to be able to stand up here and say, 'This guy is a schmuck.' "

Burns concedes that Moore has an agenda, but so what? "Whatever your argument about his methodology, this is a man with a deep, abiding sympathy for the working man," he says.

Burns was on the press tour promoting his upcoming PBS project Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise And Fall Of Jack Johnson. The unblinking portrait of the first African-American heavyweight champion -- who so dominated white opponents he inspired race riots in the early 20th century -- will air next January on PBS. Samuel L. Jackson, Billy Bob Thorton and Ed Harris provide narration for the film. Burns hopes to bring it to Toronto this September for the International Film Festival.

While he defends Moore's right to make the films he wants, Burns did take issue with his math. With a $70-million U.S. box office and counting, Moore claims Fahrenheit is already the most successful documentary of all time.

Burns figures that means roughly 7 to 10 million people have seen the film. "That's a good night for us on PBS," he says, arguing that, while his The Civil War never had a feature release, far more peole have seen it.

Burns told a story about meeting Moore two years ago at a film festival where they were joined by European filmmaker Werner Herzog. Herzog sized up all three documentarians this way: He was after the estatic truth, Burns went for emotional truth and Moore was after physical truth. "Just look how he puts his big belly right up on the screen," Herzog said of Moore.

[Steel Wolf]

"Whatever your argument about his methodology, this is a man with a deep, abiding sympathy for the working man," he says.

So were Marx, Lenin, and Mao.

Waiiit a minuite....

[The Scourge of Yazid]

How could I have possibly forgotten?(!)

That is always an integral part of tendentious, liberal, documentary film-making.

Errol Morris is the ne plus ultra of documentarians when it comes to this technique.

Though he prefers to rely mostly on very weird reenactments and subtly placed digs-through nifty camera work and lighting adjustments-at his chosen targets.

[Publius6961]

"Of course he's entitled to express his opinion --that's what this country is all about," says Burns, best known for epic documentaries The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz. "You're supposed to be able to stand up here and say, 'This guy is a schmuck.' "

So what's the controversy?
That's the problem with deviants, their brain is not wired for logical thought.

Moore is entitled to an endless train of inanities and distortions, but his critics have a limited, measured dose of criticisms that they may make? And the deviants get to decide what that limit is?

Give me a break!

[VOA]

bump

[VOA]

Now there's a trifecta.

As an Okie, I hate to admit that Ed Harris actually attended The University of
Oklahoma for a few years...

[NYCVirago]

Burns concedes that Moore has an agenda, but so what? "Whatever your argument about his methodology, this is a man with a deep, abiding sympathy for the working man," he says.

Oh yeah? Then why doesn't Michael Moore actually live in the neighborhoods of the working man, like in one of the other boroughs, instead of living in Manhattan's Upper West Side. And libs like Burns accuse our side of being superficial and shallow, while all it takes to convince them that Moore is a working class hero is a big belly and a baseball cap.

[votelife]

Whatever your arguments about communism, this is a philosphopy with a deep abiding love for the working man.