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Consider how documentary serves as a vehicle for the perform

 

Almost always present on screen and when off screen provide narration they are a constant presence. The success of Michael Moore's 2001 film "Bowling For Columbine" can be largely explained by the charismatic and comic presence of Moore himself. It is no coincidence that Moore released his best-selling book "Stupid White Men" to coincide with the films release. Moore had built up a growing fan base over the 90's starting with his successful documentary "Roger and Me" in 1989 and continuing with his books and television shows. It is therefore questionable if Moore is more preoccupied with using his "documentary" films to promote himself than highlighting the subject matter. "Roger and Me" can be perhaps placed in the essay documentary category as it is an autobiographical film following Moore as he returns home to Flint, Michigan U.S.A to record the social devastation caused by the General Motors corporation closing a plants in the area. However while the film may appear to begin as an essay film initially it soon becomes clear that Moore is using the film and the quest to confront GM chairman Roger Smith as a platform to promote his political views and his own brand of media activism. "It is as though the filmmaker hooked us by offering himself as bait in order to draw us into his anti-corporate capitalist sermon. The factual distortions of Roger and Me and its cavalier manipulations of documentary verisimilitude in the service of political polemic have been analysed at great length" Phillip Lopate .
             To paraphrase Lopate is suggesting Moore has manipulated the documentary to further is own personal political agenda and as this agenda is key to Moore's public persona by extension his own media profile.
             Unlike other documentary filmmakers who endeavour to depict events that are occurring without the intervention of the filmmaker (Bakri's Jenin, Jenin for example) Moore and Broomfield are antagonists for their own films, they personally create scenes for the purposes of the film with what has been described as "ambush journalism" by critics.


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