If there is a god of cinema, he may look a lot like Michael Moore, the pudgy, squinty-eyed film director with the ubiquitous baseball cap who shot to international prominence a decade ago with Roger and Me.
At least that's what James Motluk probably thinks. In the fall of 1997, Motluk was looking for money to complete a scabrous documentary on Ontario Premier Mike Harris and some of the consequences of his Common Sense Revolution. Moore, who had grossed close to $10-million with Roger and Me,was in Toronto at the time to attend its international film festival, where he was showing his latest, The Big One,a look at the growing gap between rich and poor in Bill Clinton's America.
"I approached Michael in this hotel," Motluk explained, "and very quickly pitched my project to him. He sort of looked uncomfortable and then slowly backed away from me into an elevator and then the doors closed. Imagine my surprise the next day, when I heard this voice yell, 'Hey you!' in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel. 'I've been thinking about your movie all night!' "
Negotiations ensued and eventually Motluk received the money from Moore's New York-based Center for Alternative Media, which Moore had set up using royalties from Roger and Me,to finish postproduction work on what is now known as Life Under Mike.
Last Friday, Torontonians had a chance to see the results of Moore's generosity and Motluk's enterprise at the Bloor Cinema (future screenings have yet to be announced). Moore, as it turns out, wasn't Motluk's only benefactor. He also managed to acquire permission to use Bob Dylan's cryptic Man of Peace and Bruce Springsteen's The Ghost of Tom Joad as songs in the film. These songs, which Motluk uses to underline footage of a vainglorious Harris and pockets of poverty in Toronto, would ordinarily cost thousands of dollars for copyright clearance. But, undaunted by the jeering rejections of music companies that administer the rights, Motluk contacted the artists directly and received permission to use their music. For free.
Motluk, a Trent University philosophy graduate, hit upon the idea for Life Under Mike in 1996. No stranger to the Hollywood North system -- he's made a pay-TV comedy called Nasty Burgers and worked as a story editor on CBC-TV's Anne of Avonlea -- he was troubled by the human indignities, suffering and homelessness that seemed to be becoming a normative part of the Toronto milieu.
Like many of children of the Sixties, he found himself remembering -- and wondering about -- the sense of community that previous governments saw as their role to cultivate. Take the optimistic Ontario anthem, A Place to Stand, A Place to Grow. It wascommissioned by the Conservative government of John Robarts for the Ontario pavilion at Montreal's Expo 67. Since it's hard to imagine Harris's Tories sponsoring or inspiring something similar, Motluk uses it as an ironic counterpoint in the film to illustrate the social shift toward callousness taking place today.
Perhaps the most exceptional thing about Life Under Mike is that it exists at all. It is virtually impossible to make a film in this country without government funding. Moreover, to secure that funding, rigorous control is often exercised over the proposed content of both non-fiction and dramatic scripts. While it seems there is plenty of room in the archives for works of personal experience or distant issues -- say, a film about the abuses suffered by the citizens of Mexico or Peru -- rarely are Canadians permitted a tough, unforgiving look at some of the skeletons stacked in their own closets.
In a country with relatively little corporate or government support for homegrown made-for-TV projects, the pre- Blair Witch Motluk decided to shoot his documentary the cheapest way possible, using a Sony Digital VX 1000.
"I like the fact that the camera was small, and non-intrusive." With it, he caught his subjects in their "natural habitats" -- a native person sleeping on an outside heating grate, a volunteer worker at a food bank, squatters in abandoned buildings or cardboard boxes or tucked under bridges, antipoverty activists, politicians. There's even an interview with the Canadian-born, Harvard-based economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who tells him that "a rich country like Canada or the U.S. should not make the cruel error of allowing people to starve."
True to the spirit of both Moore's Roger and Me and the name of his own production company (Guerrilla Films), Motluk tried to ambush Premier Harris three times for the film, including once on a golf course (the premier escapes in his golf cart). On another, derailed occasion, he finds himself talking to Harris's caterers about the delicacies being served at a Conservative Party dinner, which serve as a nice counterpoint to the standard fare of food banks.
Motluk refuses to say how much the 47-minute Life Under Mike cost, although it's probably less than $100,000. He acknowledges some funding was provided by labour organizations such as the Canadian Auto Workers and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, but stresses they had no editorial input.
"This is not union propaganda. I just wanted to know when we stopped being citizens and turned into cold, uncaring shareholders in a country. It is not an anti-Conservative film. For example, I liked the Bill Davis government, which was a kinder, gentler government.
"This has been a deeply personal journey. It is about my search for the missing sense of citizenship and community we used to know and the reclamation of my moral authority as an individual."
For more information: home.primus.ca/~guerrillafilms