15.) SiCKO doesn't pull any punches when it comes to Emotional Impact.
Moore lets people tell their personal stories and we can collective empathize with the traumas and horror stories of dealing w/ profit-driven health care. I cried more than once during the film, and I didn't feel like I was manipulated into it. I was authentically moved and outraged. I don't know what the best solution to healthcare will be, but my takeaway from Moore's film is that I'm convinced something needs to happen about it.
14.) SiCKO felt like a real journey of exploration and learning.
Health care is a complicated and depressing topic. Moore manages to get you to challenge your own assumptions about the way things are and they way things could be. It didn't feel pre-planned or scripted, but a real serendipitous unfolding of the story. He let the stories find him rather than him trying to manufacture them with stunts (minus the trip to Cuba of course).
13.) Moore provided a lot of historical, economic and political context in SiCKO
Moore inspires a sense of curiosity about health care and how Americans got ourselves into this current health care mess. Nixon's support of the privatization of health care sold as a improvement when they knew they were gutting it was a brilliant find. There were also some other archival gems with the AMA footage bashing government healthcare, Socialist propaganda clips, and tons of other ephemeral and campy archival b-roll. Moore also follows the money, which usually goes straight to the seeds of political and corporate corruption. Uncovering all of the connections between the monied interests and the policy makers is always worthwhile since it is one of the best explanations of past and future behavior.
12.) Moore showed us, and didn't just tell us.
Moore has a history of getting on his soap box and preaching, but here he just let the facts and stories tell the story. No need to embellish the personal horror stories with a flashy arsenal of tricks and stunts. Text and audio can only go so far as communication mediums. I learned a lot more about the state of Health insurance by watching SiCKO than I have from consuming any other type of media about it. The first-person testimonials of former HMOs employees describing their profit strategies through denying coverage really puts into perspective where their priorities are.
11.) Moore is a master of finding Visual Metaphors
Moore displayed a panoply of medical nightmares with everything from getting fingers chopped off to other potentially preventable outcomes like losing a baby, losing a spouse, dying of a terminal illnesses, and losing your home due to medical bills. Moore also showed US "enemy" & communist Cuba giving health care to 9/11 rescue workers, and it strikes a deep nerve because it represents so much more than just what we're seeing on screen. Moore is a master of capturing boiling complex issues down to these powerful visual metaphors that are seamlessly integrated into the film.
10.) Moore continues to bring documentaries into the Mainstream
Whatever you think of Michael Moore, you can't deny that he's helped shepherd documentary filmmaking from the isolated desserts of film festivals, PBS stations and university libraries into a profitable, mainstream enterprise. He has a very distinct blend of humor, commentary, stunts and facts that make hard truths a lot easier to swallow. In the same way that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have re-invented political commentary, Moore has redesigned and innovated a powerful form of socially conscious media -- one that is able to communicate an amazing amount of information into a film in way that is very efficiently compressed. The fact that documentaries can be shown next to summer blockbusters shows me that documentaries have come a long way in the last 5-10 years.
9.) Moore has a strong Point-Of-View and he communicates it with a passion
Some of the best journalistic work comes from having strong opinions and perspectives on an issue -- especially if it is a contrarian one in a sea of status quo. Moore has certainly pushed the boundaries of documentary filmmaking in the sense that he's more of an editorialist rather than investigative journalist. He certainly borrows from both styles, but at the core Moore is trying to persuade his audience of a particular political solution -- in this case Universal Health Care. So is his approach perfect? No. Moore is still a polarizing figure and the language of film is itself incomplete since information has to be edited and put into a narrative form where distortions will inevitably happen. I personally think interactive multimedia has the potential to fill some of these gaps, and that the Internet medium is much better suited to conveying the fractal-like landscape of truth. But on the whole, I think Moore is able to communicate a lot of essential truths even with all the tricks and artistry that linear documentary films provide for. Many of his critics continue to deconstruct his technical and stylistic flaws while minimizing the gestalt of his arguments. I'd love to see more of a focus on the common ground and cooperation towards common solutions.
8.) SiCKO inspires a sense of hope amidst the current dismal state of the health care system
American health care is a f'd up -- rotten to the core. Other countries have gotten it right, and we can get it right too with the right political leadership and a real bi-partisan and cooperative effort. It's going to take the destruction of a number of entrenched business models, but profiting on death is pretty bad karma and a poor design for running a society. Being able to see how what type of treatment people receive with socialized health care from everywhere from Canada to Britain to France to Cuba really shows what's possible beyond what we have here in the states.
7.) I don't agree with all of the solutions suggested in SiCKO, but I'm ecstatic that he's started a National dialogue about it.
I don't think that any one government heath care systems featured in Moore's film has found all of the answers for how to heal people in an integral fashion. I personally believe that a key component to healing is taking the personal responsibility to eat proper nutrition, exercise, and do as much preventative health practices as possible. Having government institutions that can support this is definitely worthwhile. But having socialized medicine on top of a Fast Food nation where instant gratification is of utmost importance will not result in any type of Utopian society any time soon. There are some reductionistic assumptions to our Western medical model which may be fundamentally flawed, and some of these flaws are going to obviously trickle into some of Moore's health care arguments. However, I think that the film is an incredibly effective launching point for discussing and debating this issue further, which can a lot of amazingly positive ripple effects. I wholeheartedly agree that removing the profit-motive from health care should be the first prong in a multi-pronged strategy. I don't know the best way to get from A to B (i.e. whether Universal Health Care is a first step), but I totally agree that we need to move away from A.
6.) Moore draws out a lot of candid non-verbal reactions from interviewees
One thing not to be overlooked is how Moore's line of questioning is often designed to evoke certain emotional and body language reactions from the interviewees. Moore is great at following a line of questioning as if he has the intelligence of a child. The questions are downright inane in some cases because you know that he already knows the answer. That doesn't matter though. The whole point is that he's able to evoke some interesting and surprising reactions from his interview subjects -- both verbal and non-verbal. So the lesson is to not always be so logical in your line of questioning because there's nothing like a WTF? reaction to illuminate the absurdity of a group think premise.
5.) Moore shines a Spotlight on Our Collective Shadow
Moore is able to bring light to the darkness of our society. Whether it's how we medically treat the lower working class and poorest of the poor or how power and greed continues to corrupt our economic and political system. Moore serves as a mirror of our society. Sometimes we don't want to look at certain parts of our collective body. But we're all interconnected and so it's vitally important to bear witness to the imbalances in our ecosystem and that we restore harmony where we can.
4.) Moore isn't afraid to speak truth to power
It is awfully damn refreshing feeling to hear truth spoken to power. Those truths resonate through my body, and rekindles the fire in my own belly to "Serve the Truth" and "Defy the Lie" -- as the Dharma Punx sticker on my laptop reminds me. Moore is going after some of the bedrocks of our American economy, and he serves as a canary in the coal mine trying to bring some attention to the fundamental flaws in our society's foundation. Where are our priorities at when we're spending trillions of dollars on wars in contrast to Cuba which invests so much of their limited resources to the health and well-being of their citizens?
3.) Moore is able to chip away at years of government propaganda
Moore tackles taboo topics like socialized medicine, the demonization of Cuba, and inherent skepticism about everything from France's work benefit culture to government-run healthcare. Moore is deconstructing the Matrix of half-truths that our government has propagated for so many years. The best propaganda always has some grains of truth to it, and Moore doesn't always remind us of the totalitarian dark sides of socialism and communism -- but at the same time he is able to humanize the French, Cubans and government doctors who are working within socialized health care systems that are functional.
2.) Tony Benn's insights for maintaining control over a democracy.
Some of the more poignant moments of the film from the interviews with British politician Tony Benn. His comments about controlling societies through fear and demoralization were particularly insightful. This illuminated potentially sinister motive for why politicians may be indifferent towards empowering citizens with the structural resources that they need to become healthy and active citizens. It is a lot easier to control a population when they're enslaved by their own debts and fears of living through a medical nightmare without health insurance.
1.) There are a number of powerful contemplative moments within the film.
There is a point in the film where Moore asks, "Who are we?" and "What have we become?" He makes us question who we are and where our priorities lay. When we live in the Bubble of American culture, then sometimes we forget that other countries have different worldviews and values. What hit me hard was seeing how much vacation the French were allotted each year. I myself tend to get sucked into a workaholic American culture, and learning to take time to relax, have fun and enjoy life is so vitally important.
So in conclusion, SiCKO changed me. It moved something in me like An Inconvenient Truth did. Solutions to this problem are worth finding, and I have a feeling that Jen and I will be exploring some of these solutions in a number of different ways with our life's work. People deserve to have the resources available to heal themselves -- whatever those resources may be and whatever that may look like -- it's a fundamental human right that I'm grateful to Michael Moore for shining a huge spotlight onto it. He's broken a huge taboo, and now lets see where we can take it from here.