Capitalism: A Love Story - A Review Attempt

Science is science; art is art. One explains reality and one conveys moods evoked by reality. A documentary is a hybrid of the two. Capitalism - A Love Story, is a great stringing together of facts, not simply as cold reality, but congealed by anger and humor.

In one of its opening scenes a family documents its own eviction, prying the window blinds to count the number of squad cars that are coming up their road. It's a moment of great tension that silenced movie audiences: watching an unarmed family having their door smashed in by heavily armed uniformed sheriffs. In the past decade as an organizer for the Campaign for Renters Rights, we've frequently had the cops called on us while fighting evictions. The movie carried the reality of foreclosures and the emotional anxiety and devastation, like I've never seen on the big screen.

The movie brings you to the edge of your seat with empathy and anger. Then you get a break with a laugh at some horrible bastard's expense, and then it reassures you that you can fight back.

The ruthless nature of capitalism, its drive to steal everything that's not nailed down, its unbroken and utter corruption, all of its sins that most working people knew were true, are explained. Given who Michael Moore is and who he supported in the last election, this movie is more than a pleasant surprise. He goes places I never thought he would as a liberal documentarian who continues to move further and further left. He shows the poll, we publicized in our "Facts" newsletter that given the choice between identifying between capitalism and socialism, under 30-year-olds, were almost evenly split at 36% for capitalism and 33% for socialism.

He argued powerfully against attempts to reform capitalism, argueing that it needed to be abandoned completely in favor of "democracy." He stopped short of calling it socialism or even a workers democracy, but all that was implied.

I was very impressed at how Moore took on the religous right, explaining the anti-rich sentiments of early christianity and of christianity in urban America. He dubbed over a Messiah movie, having Jesus turn down a sickly old man because he couldn't cure him with a pre-existing condition. My partner, brought up in a religious household was almost in tears, laughing. But then he overdoes it, bringing in footage of a Chicago Bishop blessing workers occupying their factory. He risks counterposing the horribly corrupt Catholic establishment against the capitalists who claim to be born again.

The Democrats and in particular the Democrat House leadership that pushed through the original $700 billion bailout are hammered. Yet he skirts around Obama. He exposes how all these White House insiders are bought and paid for by Finance Capital, in particular Goldman Sachs and Citibank. Yet, for a man who has skillfully and thoroughly connected the threads and workings of capitalism in this movie, he carefully does not connect these insiders to the President. Moore basically followed the path to the current White House door, showed us the door but didn't go in. A friend in our gang at the movie who was the only one of us that voted Democrat in '08, yelled out, she was so mad at the soft portrayal of Obama.

I was touched when Moore walks his own dad over the expanse of flattened buildings that remain of the big GM plant in Flint that once employed tens of thousands. His dad talks about how he misses his workmates and the comeradery of working at GM. The role that the union leaders played in rolling over in the face of closures was a stone unturned.

What makes Micheal Moore special and different and such a great documentarian is not just technical or even his smarts. To me, his movies are never dull or grey. They are not the product of a stale University research group or Washington thinktank. Michael Moore has kept the working class element in himself alive. He captures the spirit of resistance, the tenacity, the indignance, the strengths and humor of the American working class. He has a feel for his medium and a feel for people. The world is a better place for this movie. It is inspiring, shining light on those things kept hidden and raiseing the will to fight, through careful and skillful movie-making. He has attempted to connect the dots for all of us out here.

Art is the product of concious thinking and subconcious feelings. Moore, with scientific precision, has provocatively blended how he views Capitalism with the contempt that Capitalism views us.

Rob, unemployed carpenter, California