Sicko

[Chris Knipp]

Sorry I deleted my previous post to edit it. Here it is now. Your above response still holds. Yeah, well, we'll have to hear from his mom on what it was like having him as a kid.

Thanks for your early report and evaluation. I'm eager to see this and soon will. I'm not going to say you're wrong, but I'm reserving judgment about several remarks you make about Moore's 'maturity' or self-control.

Moore's success was inflating his ego and that ego was taking up more screen time than the subject matter itself in his films.

Moore still can't resist a cheeky, sarcastic turn but his filmmaking is maturing. While past efforts struggled to maintain their objectivity, feeling at times like one man�s personal vendetta against the powers that be, SICKO is more like a rallying of the people, exposing many Americans�

I'm really glad to hear that he comes across that way, and this new movie is certainly helped by Moore's involving himself concurrently with the coming wave by various organizations to push for an American government health plan. The fact that presidential campaigns are already very active and Bush is very much a lame duck makes the delayed timing of Sicko actually very good timing.I'm not so sure as you are that Moore's big "ego" (as big as his body) really grew over time; I think he just sprang from his mother's womb that way, and it's essential to his fame and his power as a provocateur. His 1989 documentary first feature, Roger and Me, is as much about him as anything since. I don't think you can separate Moore's outrageous provocations and practical jokes and personal obtrusions from his accomplishments. I will be thinking about your remarks when I see Sicko to see if I feel he has held back more this time. In person, he seems as in-your-face as ever, and that's what makes him such an amazing public speaker. After Fahrenheit 9/11, which I was even more excited to see, I tend to feel more and more that Moore is just preaching to the converted; I'm not sure how much of a galvanizing effect he has.........but rallying the converted to action is a necessary role he may be particularly valuable for in this matter. Do you really feel that if he had been cool and reserved and kept himself more in the background, his previous documentaries would have been more effective with the public? Hubert Sauper, who made Darwin's Nightmare, never appears in that film. But does that mean it is restrained, or isn't dominated by his personality?

[Chris Knipp]

He has definitely held back. He's still there though. And he does get in everyone's face come the end of the film but he just seems less interested in his own image this time around.

That sums it up pretty well. I'm just going to ponder whether it is a significant improvement when I see it. I'm encouraged by the fact that Moore seems involved with MoveOn and others to use his film as part of an ongoing campaign for a nationall health plan for all. In America.

You're in Canada, aren't you? How is the health plan in Canada from your point of view? Do you find Moore's representation of the Canadian health system in Sicko to be valid and informative? Or are there important things he leaves out? I just talked to someone from England with a skin problem. He said the National Health didn't cover a dermatologist for this particular problem; they would not send him to one; and he can't afford a private dermatologist. Every encounter anything like that?

I'm not trying to punch holes in national health systems. Anything would be better than what we've got here now. The word is the US ranks around 37th on health care, though it's the richest nation in the world. That discrepancy is absurd and disgusting.

[cinemabon]

Here, here, Chris.

[Chris Knipp]

Medtacritic score: 74.

Good, and some very favorable comments about this one in relation to his others, but I am (for the cause of better health care in the US) pretty disappointed that a few of the more major and prestigious US publications are not very positive about it, and some that are pretty positive are given quotes that are not encouraging: .

Barring a middle-class revolt, it's extremely unlikely that, whatever its virtues, universal healthcare could ever take hold in America. . .

So says Peter Rainer writing as reviewer for the Christian Science Monitor. Is that because he represents a paper associated with a religious group that traditionally at least believed in not having recourse to any health care at all? (Such a gratuitous negative claim seems out of replace in a film review, but of course Moore is too visceral to allow coolness in critics, I guess. )

The Wall Street Journal, Slate, the NYTimes, Washington Post, Newsweek, Salon. The Village Voice, Chicago Reader, and The New Yorker all gave it fair but relatively lukewarm reviews (70). I might add that The Nation devotes only a few lines to it--after devoting almost absurd length to A Mighty Heart. Denby of the New Yorker gave it a terrible review (Metacritic: 40) saying in it Moore "scrapes bottom." Denby can be a big sourpuss, but such a dismissal makes me want to look at Moore's methods very carefully this time. If his jokes are as lame as Denby feels, then the cause is not well served by this movie. Have not seen it yet but will probably in a day or two. MoveOn has a big push to get people out to see it this weekend, as was done for Fahrenheit 9/11 before it.

[oscar jubis]

I don't like to watch popular movies on weekends for obvious reasons. And Sicko is indeed a popular movie. Chelsea and boyfriend went tonight (with a petition to establish universal health insurance in Florida) and report the large theater was practically sold out. I'm going Sunday with my stack of MoveOn "Sickened by Sicko?" fliers. I'm sure the theater will be packed. This time I won't complain about feeling crowded.

[Chris Knipp]

Good luck. It''s in multiple theaters in the Bay Area and will probably do very well here this weekend. In Berkeley the MoveOn liefleters will be busy I'm sure. One has already emailed me.

[oscar jubis]

SICKO (USA/2007)

Sicko aims to spread the message that the American Health system is inhumane and unfair. That it is driven exclusively by the profit motive, i.e. greed. That socialized medicine is a "no-brainer" and that we don't have it because we're too afraid or numbed to demand it. Michael Moore wants to communicate this in such a way that any middle-schooler (or the 65% of Americans who couldn't find England on a map) would understand it. He figures he needs to keep it simple, tug at our heart strings and tickle our funny bone. He does, and it works, perfectly.

Sicko is being criticized as simplistic by some critics who wish the film had a more ambitious agenda. The New Yorker's David Denby wants to know "how medical care in, say, Toronto might differ from that in a distant rural area", and "what part Cuban officials played in receiving the American patients?". Denby also wants Moore to stop playing dumb: "at every stop, he pulls the same silly stunt of pretending to be astonished that health care is free. How much do people pay here in France? Nothing? You’ve got to be kidding."

Jonathan Rosenbaum also raises similar issues: "Because he insists on delivering his message in such broad strokes, his picture of health care in Paris and London is so rosy that he can't even allow for the possibility that any patient in either city could ever receive less than perfect treatment. Nor does his view of things account for patients paying for care there (the only two times I stayed in a hospital overnight in London and Paris I paid for the privilege)."

There's remarkable agreement between these critics regarding Sicko's limitations or, perhaps, flaws. The difference is that Rosenbaum recognizes the film's merits and "cogent arguments" and proceeds to issue the film a 3-star rating, a "must see". On the other hand, Denby goes on a negative tangent and ends up naively and irresponsibly calling Sicko "almost superfluous". He states that "in the actual political world, the major Democratic Presidential candidates have already offered, or will soon offer, plans for reform." I think it will take much more than promises by candidates to fix this mess. It's going to take millions of determined Americans ready for a tough fight. Michael Moore's accessible and populist Sicko is built to recruit an outraged people's army. For our sake, I hope it succeeds.

[Chris Knipp]

Have still not seen it (maybe tomorrow--re-saw La Vie en Rose today); but completely agree with your responses to Denby. Saying Sicko is already passe' because all the candidates are for health reform borders on ridiculous. Good point that Moore wants to communicate to middle-schoolers. It may not be till they're voting age that we get a complete overhaul. I've been seen by doctors in Italy last fall and the year before; I didn't pay anything, and any medications cost a nominal fee. Did not have Rosenbaum's experience. But that isn't really the issue; the issue is if citizens of the countries get the care free of charge, not whether visiting Americans do. The issue isn't whether everyone in other countries gets top quality medical care or has to wait for it, but whether what the US has to offer is even a viable, let alone superior, alternative. It's obvious why our system falls short: it's manipulated by the health industry, HMO's and the insurance and drug companies, whose varous lobbies control Congress. This is what you mean when you say our system is driven "by the profit motive, i.e., greed." The irony is that we have the edge in many areas in methods and equipment, but are behind in attitudes, humanity of treatment, and availability. We can't deliver what we've got, or the way we do deliver, causes suffering. US medical care is the most expensive in the developed world by a wide margin, Germany next far below in a table I found, and Moore pointedly cites a 2000 WHO ranking of 190 nations in which US medical care comes in 37th and French 1st. It is obvious that we have fallen behind in many aspects of health care, right across the board. A June 18, 2007 LA Times article tied in with Moor's film points out how and why in more detail. I am not sure if it's true as you say that "we're too afraid or numbed to demand it" (i.e., socialized medicine or single-payer health care as it's more neutrally called) -- for several reasons. I'm not sure that for most Americans "socialized medicine is a 'no-brainer'." Free enterprise is god here. I'm not sure a majority thinks another method is more practical. Moore's film should both buck up the courage of any timid souls and also point people to a more practical approach than our profit-based system. I'll be looking to see if I think Moore has succeeded that way.

[oscar jubis]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I am not sure if it's true as you say that "we're too afraid or numbed to demand it" (i.e., socialized medicine or single-payer health care as it's more neutrally called) -- for several reasons. I'm not sure that for most Americans "socialized medicine is a 'no-brainer'."

I agree with everything you say in your post. I just want to clarify that the two sentences of mine you quote are not what I think is true or actual but two of the messages Sicko seeks to convey or two of its conclusions.

The health profiteers prefer to use "socialized medicine" rather than "single-payer health care" for obvious reasons. Moore recognizes this and makes a valiant effort to demystify the word "socialized", to remove its stigma.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for the clarification. I should withhold discussion till I've seen the movie, but of course the issues are clearly laid out by you and others and known to all of us, so I made come comments, but I get that those statements were Moore's, not yours. The "socialism" issue is a key one, perhaps really THE key one in any campaign to convert the majority of Americans to working intensively at the grassroots and national levels to push for a serious overhaul of the US health system. For you and me, Moore's politics are appealing and not far away from ours, regardless of his outrageous ways of expressing himself. But for a lot of Americans Moore may seem pretty extremely to the left. This in spite of the fact that according to various reports and on many issues, the US public is more to the left in its views than is acknowledged. Moore has been saying this for some years. I'm afraid he may make progressive or left viewpoints look wild when he expresses them, but I may be overlooking his down-to-earth populist image. He is a very effective public speaker--entertaining, clear, stunningly direct, and like I said, down-to-earth. Maybe if anybody can make socialized medicine appear to be a no-brainer, he can.

[Chris Knipp]

MICHAEL MOORE: SICKO (2007)

It's not about socialism: it's about humanity—and good sense—versus rapacious greed.

Review by Chris Knipp

Michael Moore's polemical documentary Sicko focuses on the heartless nature of the United States health system—it's inferior in that respect to those of Canada, England, France, even Cuba, he shows. Infant mortality is lower and the life span longer in those four countries and many others as well, compared to "the richest nation in the world." The problem with the American system is it's designed more to make money for the providers of care than to make itself available to everybody as tax-based government systems are.

Sicko is no more cool and unbiased than any of Moore's other documentaries. It's what he means it to be: effective fact-based agitprop. He doesn't present downsides to the non-US health care systems he looks at. But he still makes a strong case in showing in the first half what's wrong with the American system. A well-off Canadian Moore interviews says he's a conservative, but the national health service is an essential given. Can we ever get there? Moore is a provocateur; he also has the ability to speak with the down-to-earth populist voice of the ordinary man of good sense. His obesity may even help him with poor and working class people. Though it's a problem he's privately working on, it keeps him from looking like a sophisticated rich guy.

People tend to respond with scorn or loud applause to Moore's provocations and his methods. This time he's been accused of mindless absurdity for the way he keeps asking Canadian and then British patients and medical personnel what they pay or what they charge when under a government system the answer is always "nothing." These questions didn't seem excessive to me. Moore's point is that Americans are so traumatized by a system based on HMO, insurance company, and drug corporation greed that they simply can't believe the luck of countries where universal health care is granted with no questions asked. There's got to be a catch—the kind of hidden clause, rule, or exception that he's shown the Kaisers, Aetnas, Cignas, Humanas, and the rest in America dream up to make more money for their shareholders and bloated CEO's and allow a baby to die of a fever and a father to die without a bone marrow transplant from a brother. (These two tragedies both involve black people.) Anyone who sees Sicko will remember the man in England who lost most of the fingers on one hand and got them put back on for free, versus the American given the choice after a saw accident: sew back the end of your middle finger, $60,000; of your ring finger, $12.000. Having to rely on his own savings, he went for the ring finger.

Sicko goes further afield. Not only England but also France comes across as paradise compared to the injustices of the USA. Moore films a gathering of Americans who live and work in France to speak up about how generous their work weeks, vacations, maternity leaves and medical care are over there. One woman at the all-Yank Paris dinner says she feels guilty about the good life she can live just by virtue of working in France when her parents back home have struggled so hard and yet still have less. The government even provides in-home nannies; and people (again in Paris presumably) can get an "S.O.S." doctor who makes free house calls in a shiny little white car; Moore goes around with him one night.

Moore doesn't go into detail about the disadvantages of other systems than the American one. In response to some usual criticisms of government medicine, he shows an English doctor who lives well working for the National Health and a Parisian family that is comfortable and happy paying French taxes. What Sicko's' facts and arguments put across to the viewer is that in a world of modern health care where America ranks somewhere around 37th (the 2000 WHO report's estimate), government-sponsored universal medical treatment isn't about democracy, socialism, or capitalism. It's more about humanity—and good sense—versus rapacious greed.

Sicko shows how volunteer post-9/11 World Trade Center helpers suffering from respiratory and PTSS problems have been rejected by the US system and he takes them in a boat to Guantánamo after Congressional testimony stated the prisoners there get better treatment than some in the US. This is one of Moore's old practical joke gestures that leads into a visit to Cuba where the 9/11 volunteers actually get some free diagnoses and treatments, no questions asked. They enter a spectacular marble-lobbied hospital (the Cubans were obviously glad to show off the best of what they've got) and all they need to give is their names and dates of birth.

For some mainstream viewers, the Guantánamo trip or at least the Cuban one might be alienating. But then, there are the heroes of 9/11 along with Moore to validate the journey and say: See how bad US health care is? We have to go to Havana to get help! Medicare, it seems, may not save you with really serious health problems; even for minor ones, government payment of 80% of the bill isn't enough for poor people.

Having nothing more than that myself, this film left me feeling not only depressed but vaguely afraid. And Moore has inserted several key allusions to fear. In an interview the retired English socialist MP Tony Benn says a ruling class tends to control the poor through keeping them demoralized and scared. Later Moore himself generalizes that in France the government is afraid of the people, but in America the people are afraid of the government. Insofar as that's true, it helps explain why Europeans have social services Americans lack. Never having had medical insurance, I feel lucky to have had a lifetime of good health.

But with the technology and education and—yes—the health care system we have in the US—were it more available to all—luck shouldn't be so necessary to have gotten through. The system we have isn't right.

[Chris Knipp]

Notes.

The WHO report ranks the US just above Slovenia, as Moore says, but Moore leaves out the fact that just below Slovenia is Cuba.

I came across a white suprematist website where the first post expressed shock at what Sicko taught him about US health care. . A sign of how the issues override politics.

The wide pirating of the film won't please Weinstein, but won't it presumably get the film a lot more viewers? Any views on that? It isn't great for box office figures, I guess. Or does it matter for that?

[Johann]

Thanks for all of the reviews.

I saw SiCKO a while ago and I'm completely in Moore's corner.
However I left the theatre feeling quite empty.
It totally feels as if he's preaching to the choir.

Will anything get done on this matter?
This is about control and profit.
As Moore said on the View, would you expect a firefighter to rake in tons of money for doing something so vitally required?
Should police departments all over America be making scads and scads of money for doing an essential service?
Why should the health care industry be about money first and foremost?

The point is that the whole idea of democracy means paying taxes for things exactly like universal health care.

Canada is painted pretty rosily in SiCKO, but it's not 100% awesome. We have bed and nurse shortages, we have longer wait times in major cities, and (having done security in a hospital before) I know first hand how emergency rooms and outpatients operate- it can be a zoo.

but our health care premiums ARE as low as they can be.
Everybody who lives in Canada is generally in agreement that our health care is a giant reason why we love our country.
Remember the scene mentioning Tommy Douglas?
He was voted GREATEST CANADIAN- even over Wayne Gretzky.
And that's saying something. Canadians worship hockey.
To have a non-skate-wearing person being the greatest Canadian is huge.
We are forever grateful to Tommy Douglas.

Moore speaks, but who listens?
Will there be any impact?
Any changes?
Should you hold your breath?
A lot of people have died because of how "things are run"
let's pray something gets done.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann
It totally feels as if he's preaching to the choir.
I couldn't possibly disagree more. Mr. Moore starts off by providing convincing evidence that the American system is deplorable. Vignette after vignette that dramatizes just how bad things have gotten. Do you think all this is shown for the benefit of those of us who have been quite aware for years that this system is unfair and based on profits for the few at the expense of the masses?
Then he travels to Canada, France and England assuming a know-nothing persona. This stance is designed to encourage populist identification. It's not for the benefit of those of us lucky to have traveled and witnessed the quality of life of the average Joe and Jane in these countries. The "choir" or the "converted" don't need to be convinced that it's possible to have a comfortable life while paying French taxes or working for the government-regulated British health system. The "choir" or the "converted" are not afraid of the word "socialized", used by the health profiteers to scare away "freedom-loving" Americans. Moore spends considerable time dispelling the myths and stigmas that have been used to keep the American public from demanding the health system we deserve.
Besides, Mr. Moore keeps the discourse at a basic level so that it's accessible and clear to those of limited education due to young age, lack of opportunity, or whatever.
A documentary made for the choir would spend some time dealing with implementation strategy, aspects of others systems that would be most applicable to America and aspects that could be problematic, different approaches to universal health care, potential problems that could arise at different stages of implementation, etc.


Moore speaks, but who listens?
Will there be any impact?
Any changes?
Moore has stated during interviews that we're "a nation of slow-learners". Those getting rich under the present system will put up a fight, old west style, to the death.

[Chris Knipp]

Then he travels to Canada, France and England assuming a know-nothing persona. This stance is designed to encourage populist identification.

I definitely agree on that, Oscar. That was my reading.

A documentary made for the choir would spend some time dealing with implementation strategy, aspects of others systems that would be most applicable to America and aspects that could be problematic, different approaches to universal health care, potential problems that could arise at different stages of implementation, etc.

I hope we get one of those too.

Those getting rich under the present system will put up a fight, old west style, to the death.

And Those getting rich under the present system unfortunately as the movie points out with dollar-graphics over heads, includes principal members of the executive and legislative branches.

Good response, Oscar, but could you reply a bit more fully to Johann's final questions?

Moore speaks, but who listens?
Will there be any impact?
Any changes?

Can you say more about that?

I agree the movie is an outreach to the ordinary guy, but is the ordinary guy seeing it? My hope is this will have an impact on the next presidential campaign by educating the electyorate.