Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [146]
“I’m writing a screenplay,” Shelton said, “a sort of a modern-day version of The Grapes of Wrath. We’ve heard about the hard times Flint has been having, about the many people who’ve lost their jobs and have had to pack up everything and leave the state. So, the story follows a family who loses everything here in Flint and throws together what’s left into the truck and heads to Texas in search of work.”
“And when they get to Texas,” Donaldson added, “they are treated the way the Joads were treated when they got to California.”
I sat and looked at them and, goddammit, if I just didn’t want to get up and hug them right there. Somebody—from Hollywood, no less—wanted to tell our story! I thought we’d been ignored, forgotten. Not so.
“So the reason we stopped by to see you is that we’re collecting information and stories and research, and someone mentioned you would be a good person to talk to. And that your paper was really the only paper in town covering this story from the side of the workers.”
“Well, I don’t know what to say,” I remarked, trying to find the right words and be cool at the same time. “First off, thank you. I can’t believe you are actually here and give a shit. That means a helluva lot.”
“We do give a shit,” Donaldson said. “We think there really is this shift taking place in America, where those with the money want to turn the clock back to a time when everybody else has to scrape and scrap and beg for the crumbs. And we think that this will make for a powerful movie.”
They talked to me for an hour, asking me to tell them some stories about life in Flint and what would I do if I were them to keep the story “authentic.” I spoke a mile a minute, sharing everything I could think of and giving them my advice as to what I thought would make for a good movie. They took notes and seemed very pleased.
“We’d like to get a bunch of back copies of your paper and take them with us,” Shelton said as we were wrapping up. “And we’d also like to subscribe to it. Can I pay for a subscription?” (I made sure to frame this subscription slip and hang it on my wall.)
“We’ll be in touch if there’s anything else we need,” Donaldson said. “We’re going to do the drive from Flint to Texas, scouting along the way. Thanks for your time. We’ll be in touch.”
They left as they came in, and I got on the phone and called everyone I knew. “Hollywood was just here!” I shouted into the phone a dozen times that day. I just couldn’t believe the randomness of this encounter—and the fact that Flint was going to star in a movie, a real movie!
Around that same time, Nina Rosenblum, the documentary filmmaker from New York City, was making a number of trips to Flint. She, too, decided that Flint was a worthy subject for a film—and in her case, a documentary. I and others spent a lot of time with her, and she seemed ready to put our story down on film. This was exhilarating; we were glad that we were no longer going to be ignored. The movie people had shown up!
For whatever reason, neither film got made and, as fate would have it, I would soon leave Flint myself. Within a month of having made my move to California for the dream job of a lifetime, I was sitting in San Francisco both without a dream or a job and collecting unemployment. Dejected, I returned home to Flint to think about what course my life should take. Should I try to restart the Flint Voice? Should I run for office, like maybe mayor of Flint? Maybe I could get a job… well, there was nowhere to get a job.
When I wanted to be alone in those jobless days in late 1986, I would head to downtown Flint, which was like a ghost town within a ghost town. I would take a newspaper or a book or my legal pad into Windmill Place, a failed urban renewal project designed by the people who built the South Street Seaport in New York City. They promised to do for Flint what they had done for the Lower East