The Moore, the merrier - director Michael Moore - Interview

Interview, Sept, 1994 by Karen Duffy

MTV's Karen Duffy interviews her new boss, Michael Moore--the creator of Roger & Me, TV Nation, and the upcoming John Candy comedy, Canadian Bacon

KAREN DUFFY: Hello, Mr. Watson!

MICHAEL MOORE: Hi, Duff.

KD: I sound like Alexander Graham Bell on this phone.

MM: You're in Italy. What are you doing there?

KD: I was in Rome to meet the Pope, and then I hooked up with Dwight [Yoakam]. He performed at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Now he's playing bullrings in Spain--

MM: He doesn't actually go out there and fight a bull?

KD: No.

MM: Just as a joke, they should release a bull during one of his songs--see what he'd do.

KD: [laughs] That would be a great idea. See, you're full of great ideas. So let's talk about some of them. Everyone asks me what it's like to work with you on TV Nation. You're known as this world-class smart-ass with solid-gold cojones. What most people don't know is that after Roger & Me you took care of all the people who were evicted in that film. I love the fact that you got Warner's to agree to all of those stipulations, which must have been a first.

MM: Well, sometimes artists don't ask for things, and they'd be surprised, if they just asked, what they might get. I made it part of my contract with Warner Brothers that they pay for housing for those people for two years.

KD: You do things differently from so many people in the industry. And I think what's so inspiring about the work you're doing now is that it's so clearly your work. What has surprised you the most about your success?

MM: The thing that has surprised me the most is that people whom you would consider fellow travelers in the left-of-center political end of the spectrum are usually the ones who will attack you the most. Like, where's our Bob Dole? Who's our barracuda who's gonna fight for us? Now that I'm doing interviews for TV Nation people have been asking me to describe myself politically. My politics come from Flint, Michigan, from my family, who are workers. Whatever I believe in and care about was formed in that kind of upbringing. As far as dealing with success on a personal level, I've done that by maintaining the same friends and relationships I've had for the past decade or two. You know, I'm still in the same relationship I was thirteen years ago.

KD: You haven't left her for Morgan Fairchild?

MM: No. [laughs] So how do you think people are going to react to TV Nation?

KD: I think people are going to be captivated and galvanized by it, because it's a smart television show. It certainly has me looking at issues from another side of the fence--like the piece I reported on the AIDS insurance brokers.

MM: What about the sponsors? I mean, who's gonna advertise on this show? We're gonna need an 800 number at the end of the show to pay for it. Although, I must say, I'm very impressed with the product placement in the O. J. story. I mean, the words "Ford Bronco" have been repeated thousands of times in newspapers and on TVs across the country. O. J.'s trusted boy manservant, Kato [Kaelin] took him to McDonald's. Then there was the American Airlines red-eye O. J. took to Chicago, and we know he stayed at the Best Western at O'Hare. He was wearing his Reeboks. He bought this knife at Ross Cutlery. I've never seen a news story have so many references to commercial products. And I'm wondering, Did these people pay for this product placement? It's the one thing about the case that's really amazed me. That, and the fact that no celebrity in American history has ever committed capital murder.

KD: John Wilkes Booth.

MM: He wasn't a celebrity.

KD: He was a pretty famous actor.

MM: You think so? I heard he was a loser.

KD: I don't know. [laughs] I saw that you made Ben Hamper, who was in Roger & Me, a correspondent on TV Nation.

MM: It's my goal in life to keep him employed.

KD: Is he in Canadian Bacon?

MM: Yes. If you're a friend of mine, or a family member, I will try to keep you employed. I don't know if you can pay the rent on it, but I will try to work in all friends and relatives.

KD: In the editing room at TV Nation the other week I saw these guys looking at the TV, and I said, "Oh wow, you're watching Dr. Strangelove." And they said, "No, we're editing Canadian Bacon." Could you explain the movie's plot?

MM: It's set in the United States a few years after the end of the cold war. The president has run out of enemies. The Russians are gone. The wars he gets into last only a couple of days. The defense industry is on the decline. They need a real enemy, and so they decide that Canada will be the new evil empire. They go about trying to convince the American public to hate and fear Canadians. Suddenly, everybody is up in arms about Canada. They believe that Canada's just too big. And, you know, Canada controls the world's largest supply of ice. They certainly have taken over the media and Hollywood--from Peter Jennings to William Shatner.

John Candy plays the sheriff of Niagara Falls, and he takes the propaganda a little too seriously and conducts his own invasion into Canada.