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Published: 25 February 2010
by DAN CARRIER

THERE is now some body of work coming together in contemporary cinema that shows how film-making can be a tool for political activism and find a nugget of room on general release screens.

From The Yes Men to The Age of Stupid to Food Inc, from the End of the Line to Star Suckers, trendy and socially conscious film-makers are sticking their cameras into the places that capitalist pigs would rather the world did not have illuminated for them. All are done with an air of taking a heavily serious message and then trying to ring some comedy out of the absurdity that is 21st century neo-liberal capitalism. 

I suppose the grandfather of this genre is Michael Moore, who has been making these doc-coms since he took apart the behaviour of General Motors in his 1989 movie Roger and Me. 

It is now 20 years ago since he made the exposé, and in Capitalism he returns to the same theme, namely how corporate America rampages through people’s lives, a giant cash-making monster for the tiny few while pillaging the lives of those who feed its giant belly. 

Moore trundles through the forgotten streets of middle America, pops in on the big boys in Washington, and harangues the men who make Wall Street. 

He raises laughs by his simple telling of the utter stupidity of a ­system that is based on everyone for themselves, while also recording the shocking cost of such a wasteful way of organising our economies.

Moore uses his films to consider the bigger questions about human nature – namely why, in our supposed advanced societies, do we still allow such horrible inequality to exist? Why do we have so little regard and respect for our fellow humans? He often chooses sitting duck targets, and it means the films can get lost in translation – for example, his badgering of Charlton Heston as the head of the National Rifle Association in his post-Columbine film about gun control was hardly original and amazingly made you feel slightly sorry for Heston – the poor deluded old fool was getting heckled mercilessly by Moore, and I hoped he’d rise above poking the stupid old coot with a long stick.  Perhaps his American target audience are more ensconced in the whole thing and therefore ­hitting them with such “revelations” is a good thing. 

But the fact he still gets these movies out there and they no doubt bug the hell out of the Sarah Palins of this world means there is still place in my heart for Michael Moore.