ROGER & ME
[Spoilers]
A film review by Tom Markson
Copyright 1990 Tom Markson
After seeing ROGER & ME tonight, I was amazed that such a negative subject could be presented with such wit. "Roger" is Roger Smith, chairman of General Motors. "Me" is Michael Moore, a writer who is watching his hometown of Flint, Michigan, dissolve after GM lays off 30,000 workers.
The film is a documentary of sorts; where the "plot" consists of Moore's comical attempts to see Roger Smith. Much of the film revolves around his interviews with Flint residents and "celebrities." Moore is able to change your emotions between sadness and laughter at a moments notice.
**** SPOILERS FOLLOW ****
Moore gives a quick history of Flint, Michigan and then presents three years in which despair turns to hope and finally becomes abandon. The despair is when GM lays off the workers. You see the workers cheering as the last automobile is finished and a worker comments "Why are they cheering? They've just lost their jobs."
Despair turns to hope when Flint attempts to appeal to tourism. Immediately, the viewer knows that this will fail. The city builds a Hyatt Regency, a shopping center and "Autoworld," an indoor theme park whose theme is the Automobile. Moore compares the theme park to building "ChemicalWorld" in New Jersey or "ExxonWorld" in Alaska. All go bankrupt within a year.
The hope quickly fades and people begin to leave Flint faster than ever. Crime spins out of control. When "Nightline" comes to town to broadcast live, their broadcast truck is stolen. Ex-autoworkers are hired as prison guards and find themselves locking up their former co-workers. When the jail becomes too crowded, a new one is built. Prior to its opening, though, the gala "Jailhouse Rock" party is held where guests may spend a night in jail for $100. It is Moore's ability to expose irony in this way that gives the film an almost surrealist quality. You see people celebrating the opening of the new jail, but blind to fact that having to build a bigger jail is negative.
This picture is also a character study, of sorts. It certainly makes a character study of Roger Smith (who appears in the film for less than 5 minutes). The woman I attended the film with, who rarely says a harsh word about anything, commented, "Roger Smith is an evil man and I hope he burns in Hell." It is also a character study of Flint, Michigan. Flint takes on an almost human presence on the screen -- that of a drowning man. It is also the story of one of the few employed people in Flint, the evictor. He evicts those who do not pay their rent. He has a job to do and must do it. "At least they have someone to talk to," he comments while evicting his friends.
During the course of his interviews, Moore seems to catch many people at their worst. Pat Boone, for instance, describes how wonderful a company GM is for giving him two cars a year when he was their advertising representative. Or when Moore asks Miss Michigan what she thinks of Flint's economic woes, she replies "I'm for employment." Or the semi-famous Bob Eubanks joke (for which he later made a public apology)
Whether intentional or not, there is a very strong symbol in the film: A woman who raises rabbits for food. She says she raises them to about four months and then kills them. While she holding a rabbit and caressing it softly, she notes that it is to be her dinner. She kills, skins and guts it. Is that so different from what General Motors has done to Flint?
Moore put several unusual conditions in his agreement with Warner Brothers. The most obvious being the placard on one of the theatre seats that reads "Reserved for Roger Smith, Chairman of General Motors." Another was that Warner would pay rent for all families evicted in the film. He has also stated that he will create an endowment for independent film makers.
I found ROGER & ME to be an intelligent and very entertaining film well worth seeing. I plan to see it again.
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