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08/05/2006
Panel discussionLots of politics, little artTRAVERSE CITY — About an hour into the fourth of six film festival panel discussions — just as Michael Moore finished speculating about Jesus Christ's personal feeelings on sex, abortion, homosexuality and NASCAR — the lights went down suddenly at the City Opera House. For a few fleeting seconds, the audience was left to wonder in the dark if Moore had just triggered a politically motivated assassination or the wrath of a higher power. The lights came back on and all six panelists found themselves still safely in their seats, but by the end of Friday morning's talk they had discovered just how hard it is to generate a meaningful dialogue on the divisive subjects of politics and religion. The festival's daily panels have been punctuated by insightful questions and thoughtful responses from filmmakers, actors and producers. By comparison, Friday's talk was often unfocused and rambling. After starting 25 minutes late, panelists Moore, Iranian director Mani Haghighi, British-born director Mark Dornford-May and producer Lawrence Bender talked mainly about their own projects, interacting little. "Borat" director Larry Charles made ironic observations about American government. Malcolm McDowell, star of the Stanley Kubrick masterpiece "A Clockwork Orange," kept the crowd entertained and laughing with fiery, foul-mouthed rants and stories of accidental political protest. When audience members were handed microphones to ask the panelists questions, most offered opinions instead. The roughly 90-minute talk featured only snippets of discussion about the line dividing the artist and the politician — the panel's purported topic. "I don't see a distinction between art and politics," Haghighi said. People in Iran, like people in America, don't like to be preached at, he said, and political messages in films need to be delivered "with subtlety." "I think it's crucial to make the movie exactly the way you want it to be. Whether it makes people think or makes people take action is secondary," the director of "Men at Work" said afterward. Moore, on the other hand, made no bones about his desire to influence political sentiment. "I only do this because I believe you will leave the theater, rise out of your seats and demand a torch on your way out of the building," he said to the crowd, half-jokingly. Moore said he's more interested in the quality of a movie than the political leanings of the people who made it. "I want to see a good movie first," he said. "I think generally most people, right or left, conservative or liberal, still have somewhat of an open mind." Charles praised Moore and Bender, who produced Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," for making documentaries that stimulate moviegoers to take an interest in political issues. "Wherever you're going, you're seeing the discussion happening," he said. "That's the healthiest thing."
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