Michael Moore

His life:

Michael Moore was born at St. Joseph Hospital in Flint, Michigan, and grew up in the city of Davison a suburb of Flint. At the time, Flint was home to many General Motors factories, where his mother was a secretary, and both his father and grandfather were auto workers. His uncle was one of the founders of the United Automobile Workers labour union and participated in the famous Flint Sit-Down Strike.

Moore, an Irish American, was brought up a Roman Catholic and attended a Diocesan seminary at age 14. He then attended Davison High School, where he was active in both drama and debate , graduating in 1972. That same year, he ran for and won a seat on the Davison school board on a platform based on firing the high school's principal, John B McKenna, and vice principal, Kanje Cohen. By the end of his term both had resigned.

Moore is also an Eagle Scout, the highest rank awarded by the Boy Scouts of America, an achievement of which he is still very proud. For his Eagle Project, he filmed a documentary pointing out various safety hazards and issues within his community.

After dropping out of the University of Michigan-Flint (where he was majoring in fictional influences in literature and wrote for the student newspaper entitled The Michigan Times), at 22 he founded the alternative weekly magazine The Flint Voice, which soon changed its name to The Michigan Voice. In 1986, when Moore became the editor of Mother Jones, a liberal political magazine, he moved to California and the Voice was shut down. In 2003, the Star-Ledger printed an opinion piece by Paul Mulshine where he quoted Paul Berman who stated that Moore had been fired, following a series of clashes with people on the magazine's staff, which included a dispute over Moore's refusal to publish an article by Berman that was critical of the Sandinistas' human rights record, a piece the magazine, before Moore's arrival, had commissioned. Moore later sued for wrongful dismissal, seeking $2 million. He finally accepted a settlement of $58,000Ð'--the amount of anticipated trial costs- from the magazine's insurance company. Some of this money provided partial funding for his first film project, Roger and Me.

Moore has been married to producer Kathleen Glynn (born April 10, 1958 in Flint) since 1990. They now live in New York City. Natalie (born 1981), is Michael's stepdaughter. He has no other children.

He has also dabbled in acting, following a supporting role as a perverted man-child who agrees to be part of the scheme concocted by John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow in Lucky Numbers (2000).

Directing

Films:

Roger & Me: Moore first became famous for his controversial 1989 film Roger & Me, a documentary about what happened to Flint, Michigan, after General Motors closed its factories and opened new ones in Mexico, where the workers were paid much less. Since then Moore has been known as a critic of the neoliberal view of globalization. "Roger" is Roger B. Smith, former CEO and president of General Motors. The documentary was an extremely ambitious undertaking for someone who had never attended film school or worked in any capacity in the movie industry. Moore was largely taught the craft of filmmaking by his cinematographer Kevin Rafferty, who is ironically also a first cousin of President George W. Bush. The influence of Rafferty, who co-directed the 1982 cult classic documentary film The Atomic CafÐ"©, can be seen in Moore's satirical use of archival footage taken from vintage B-movies, television commercials, and newsreels that has since become a hallmark of his documentaries.

Canadian Bacon: In 1995, Moore released a satirical film, Canadian Bacon, which featured a fictional US president (played by Alan Alda) engineering a fake war with Canada in order to boost his popularity. It is noted for containing a number of Canadian and American stereotypes, and for being Moore's only non-documentary film. The film was also the last featuring Canadian-born actor John Candy, and also featured a number of cameos by other Canadian actors.

The Big One: In 1997, Moore directed The Big One, which documents the tour publicizing his book Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American, where he criticized mass layoffs despite record corporate profits. Among others, he targeted Nike for outsourcing shoe production to Indonesia.

Bowling for Columbine: Moore's 2002 film Bowling for Columbine, probes the culture of guns and violence in the United States. Bowling for Columbine won the Anniversary Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and France's Cesar Award as the Best Foreign Film. In the United States, it won the 2002 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. It also enjoyed great commercial and critical success for a film of its type and became, at the time, the highest-grossing mainstream-released documentary (a record now held by Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11). It was praised by some for illuminating a subject slighted by the mainstream media, but it was attacked by others who claim it is inaccurate and misleading in its presentations and suggested interpretations of events.

Fahrenheit 9/11: Fahrenheit 9/11 examines America in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, particularly the record of the Bush administration and alleged links between the families of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden. Fahrenheit was awarded the Palme d'Or, the top honour at the Cannes Film Festival; it was the first documentary film to win the prize since 1956. Moore later announced that Fahrenheit 9/11 would not be in consideration for the 2005 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, but instead for the Academy Award for Best Picture. He stated he wanted the movie to be seen by a few million more people, preferably on television, by Election Day. Since November 2 was less than nine months after the film's release, it would be disqualified for the Documentary Oscar. Moore also said he wanted to be supportive of his "team mates in non-fiction film." However, Fahrenheit received no Oscar nomination for Best Picture. The title of the film alludes to the classic book Fahrenheit 451 (about a future totalitarian state in which books are banned; paper begins to burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit) and the pre-release subtitle of the film confirms the allusion: "The temperature at which freedom burns." At the box office, Fahrenheit 9/11 remains by far the highest-grossing documentary of all time, taking in close to $200 million worldwide, including United States box office revenue of $120 million.

Sicko (filming): Moore is currently working on a film about the American healthcare system from the viewpoint of mental healthcare, focusing particularly on