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Topic subjectRE: Not quite accurate...
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=2959&mesg_id=3003
3003, RE: Not quite accurate...
Posted by signified, Thu Nov-13-03 03:49 PM
I don't think the
>content is the real issue here.

Well the content is the issue, as I have been stressing over and over. You can say that its not the issue but I've made my case quite clearly as to why it IS the issue.

>As for the editing, I think you're
>underestimating its importance. But I'll save that, it's not
>really relevant to the discussion.

Underestimating its importance? I am stressing its importance in terms of Moore's overall presentation. I am taking issue with the actual STYLE of the editing itself. You used the term 'perfectly timed' which, although I might have mistook your meaning, is only a weak indicator of a well-edited film.

>If it was really as poorly done as you
>thought, it would not have been so popular among
>critics(whether you hate them or not, they do have expertise
>on film making).

I've already responded to this argument in the thread. Critics are notoriously cheap and easy to come by, especially in American newsmedia. And again, I dont think anyone praised the documentary itself, more the political relation it bore to a shitty prez in office and a lousy term and that is, as I said, only historically contingent. There is nothing good about the actual documentary itself, nothing that makes it stand out. And additionaly, as I also mentioned, Moore is taking credit for a long history of intellectual dissent in a very empty-handed way with the film. So there is no room to give credit at all in this case.

>He didn't go to an upscale neighborhood, he went to a middle
>class neighborhood. The same middle class neighborhood that
>in the United States that would have a big fence and 5
>deadbolts on the door. I lived around Hamilton for a long
>time, and most people there didn't lock their doors either.
>I know our door was almost always open. To me, this
>depiction was totally reflective of how things were for me.
>It's just a different mentality here, all you need to do is
>ask someone who has lived in both countries.

Actually he did go to an upscale neighborhood. Rent is upwards of 1500 a month in the Esplanade for a 1 bedroom. Same with the Annex. It looks a bit downtrodden but it is definitely upscale, which again, suits Moore's deceptive hypothesis to a tee.

You are citing Hamilton as an example? That doesnt really count. Any decentralized area of sprawl will always experience less crime. But most importantly, you are obsfucating in the same way that Moore is. If Canada is really as he portrayed it in the film then why wasn't he in Regent Park knocking on peoples doors?

>They showed that ghetto because in most Canadian cities,
>that's the extent of a ghetto. Don't get me wrong, I don't
>suggest there is no poverty here, but nothing on the level
>of a New York or Chicago ghetto. Maybe there are worse
>ghettos here in Canada than the one Moore depicted, but not
>many, and I think that was the point.

Ever been to New York? Any project development with a parkette looks the same at 2pm in the afternoon. Have him go to Jane/Finch at 10pm and see if he can draw the same conclusions.

>Again, middle class neighborhoods also practice the unlocked
>door policy, I've seen it myself. Of course their are acts
>of violence, the film didn't say violence was non-existant.
>Of course people have security systems, locks, etc. That's
>not the point. The point was that there wasn't violence on a
>scale anywhere near that of what happens in the US. I think
>you've misinterpreted a lot of what the film said about
>Canada.

So let me get this straight. Moore's point about the difference between the amount of violence in the US and in Canada is proven by him knocking on doors in a upperclass suburb of Toronto, and by filming a ghetto parkette at 2 in the afternoon? Dont you see how assinine that is? Further proof that this film is utterly weak.