from the LA Times, via MichaelMoore.com:
May 22nd, 2007 10:23 am
Michael Moore hopes 'Sicko' disgusts you
The documentary filmmaker wants Americans to change the healthcare system.By John Horn / Los Angeles Times
CANNES, FRANCE — Michael Moore and his movies have always been hard to miss. But with "Sicko," his acidic new documentary about healthcare, there's suddenly less of the filmmaker and his usual methods.
Not wanting the limelight, Moore is forgoing the competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival, where he won the top prize with 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11." In "Sicko," he isn't chasing down insurance and pharmaceutical executives for confrontational interviews. The famously outsized filmmaker, having spent several years studying healthcare, even has lost 25 pounds — "One way to fight the system," he says, "is to take better care of yourself." But what's most striking about "Sicko" is that Moore's current target is much harder to pinpoint.
Whereas the foils of his earlier films were obvious — General Motors in "Roger & Me," the gun industry in "Bowling for Columbine," the Bush administration in "Fahrenheit 9/11" — the ultimate protagonist in "Sicko," opening June 29, is American indifference.
"To me there is a big confrontation in this movie," Moore said in an interview. "Because I am confronting the American audience with a question: 'Who are we, and what has happened to our soul?' To me, that's maybe more confrontation than going after the CEO of Aetna or the CEO of Pfizer." Moore believes the country unthinkingly settles for substandard and ruinously expensive medical treatment, especially when compared with countries that have universal healthcare.
Although the film is filled with terrible medical outcomes — the movie opens with an uninsured carpenter with severed digits who must decide if he wants doctors to reattach his ring finger for $12,000 or his middle finger for $60,000 — "Sicko's" central thrust is to hold up models of superior, government-provided care in France, Canada and (in a twist that has landed Moore in hot water with the U.S. Treasury Department) Cuba.
"I don't have to convince the American public that there is something wrong with our healthcare system," said Moore. "That's why I don't spend a lot of time in the film on the healthcare horror stories. I'm hoping that the American people, when they see this film, will say, 'You know, there is a better way, and maybe we should look at what they are doing in some of these other countries.' " ......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9824
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