Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [154]
Remarkably, when we got to the “theater,” even though we were put up against the opening night film, the place was packed.
About five minutes before showtime, I looked out the window of the hall and saw a lone figure, a stout man, waddling down the street toward Masons Hall. It was none other than Roger Ebert. He walked in the door and saw his stalker standing there.
“Don’t say a word,” he ordered, putting his hand up and averting his eyes from mine. “I’m here. That’s all that needs to be said.”
“But—” I said, disobeying him—and being cut off by him in the same instant.
“I’m only here because there was this strange look in your eyes, a look that told me maybe I better be there. So here I am.” He went into the theater and took the last available seat, three rows from the back. No pressure now.
I went in and took my seat in the last row. My sisters had positioned themselves on each side of my seat so they could both sit directly next to me, to comfort me in their role as the good sisters that they were (and are), to be there for me in my moment of impending embarrassment and failure. The lights in Masons Hall began to dim, and as the theater went dark, Anne and Veronica each grabbed a hand of mine and held it tightly. All would be well, no matter what.
At that moment, the music began and the title of the film appeared on the screen.…
Michael Moore is a filmmaker and author. He was born in Flint, Michigan.
Notes
Epilogue: The Execution of Michael Moore
1. I am still banned from one of these networks for liberating their footage of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz licking his comb, and George W. Bush making faces and clowning around just seconds before he went live on national TV to announce the bombing and invasion of Iraq.
2. It went on to become the largest-grossing documentary in the history of cinema, and the largest-grossing Palme d’Or winner ever (a list of winners that included films like Apocalypse Now and Pulp Fiction).
3. Right-wing groups and talk-show hosts weren’t the only ones behind the attacks. Corporate interests began to spend large sums of money to stop me. When I announced that my next film would be about health care in this country, a consortium of health insurance companies and drug manufacturers formed a group to try and stop the film, mainly by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a disinformation campaign intended to discredit me and the film. And if that plan didn’t work, then they would do what they had to do to “push Michael Moore off the cliff.” Wendell Potter, the vice president of CIGNA Insurance, blew the whistle on this to the journalist Bill Moyers and in his own book, Deadly Spin.
A Holy Thursday
4. She did not use the F word. I just thought it would be cool if she did.
The Exorcism
5. Yes, in the more violent future that lay ahead of us, this sort of thing would have resulted in my expulsion and jail time. But in 1969, it was just funny.
Zoe
6. I was a practicing Catholic who went to Mass every Sunday. But this is what I believed: Human life begins when the fetus can survive outside the womb. Until then, it is a form of life, but not a human being. A sperm is life (after all, it’s not swimming with a battery pack on its back), an egg is life, a fertilized egg is life, a fetus is life—but none of these are a human being, none of these are human life—just as a seed or a stem is not a flower. When you are born, you are a human being. That’s why your driver’s license lists your birthday as the day you came out of your mother’s womb, not the day you were conceived. Some people, I guess, just like to be the uterus police, the bossypants of other women’s reproductive parts. And that has always struck me as really, really weird.
Two Dates
7. This was in the days before instant replay, DVRs, and other devices that kept memories for you. In 1971, you were forced to use brain matter and to keep pleasure stored for long periods of time.
Hot Tanned Nazi
8. Less than a decade later this book would become an inspiration for a young man and