Beauty or Truth: Point of View in ‘Roger & Me’ and ‘The Man With the Camera’
Documentary filmmaking is a matter of perspective. Few examples exist of strictly objective and scrupulously balanced documentary considerations of a given subject or issue. This would, after all, amount to little more than straightforward journalism, and a simple recounting of facts. But Michael Moore’s tactics, the film’s exaggerated line of questioning and the mock serio-comic tone that Moore adopts in his narrative clearly identify Roger & Me as anything but journalistic. In a 1990 New York Times review, Richard Bernstein noted that “Mr. Moorewas no more operating within the standard framework of journalism than was Jonathan Swift when he wrote his ‘Modest ...
