Roger & Me

Movie
German title	Roger and me
Original title	Roger & Me
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	1989
length	91 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Michael Moore
script	Michael Moore
production	Michael Moore
camera	Chris Beaver , John Prusak , Kevin Rafferty , Bruce Schermer
cut	Jennifer Beman , Wendey Stanzler
occupation
Michael Moore Roger B. Smith

Roger & Me is a 1989 documentary directed by Michael Moore .

action

In the film, Michael Moore documents his three-year endeavor to get an interview with Roger Smith , then CEO of General Motors (GM), which he made for the closure of several GM factories in his hometown of Flint, Michigan, and the resulting loss of 30,000 jobs. In addition, Moore impressively documents the desperate and ultimately unsuccessful struggle of the residents of Flint against the decline of the city after what is by far the most important local employer has closed its doors.

Using various individual fates, the film shows how things continued after a wave of plant closings in Flint. Among other things, Michael Moore goes into the fact that some former car mechanics have found jobs as prison guards and reunited former colleagues here who were serving prison terms for criminal offenses. Michael Moore also documents the unsuccessful attempt to set up a tourism industry in Flint.

Michael Moore accompanies the city sheriff, who has to perform a lot of evictions. Even on Christmas Eve, the sheriff cannot take a break due to the tight deadlines. The film ends with Michael Moore showing evictions at Christmas and recording Roger Smith's Christmas address.

Cinematic addendum: Pets or Meat

In 1992, Michael Moore released a 23-minute short film entitled Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint (something like: Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint ). It takes up some of the threads from Roger & Me , revisits people, and describes the situation in the city of Flint after three more years. It becomes clear that, even after years, irreparable damage was caused by the plant closings, but that there is also hope for some, not least because of Moore's Roger & Me : The successful film had put the city and the problem at the center of public interest. Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint was shown nationwide on the American television network PBS .

Prices

• Best Picture, 1989, Vancouver Film Festival
• Best Documentary, 1989, New York Film Critics Circle Award
• Best Documentary, 1989, National Society of Film Critics
• Best Film, 1989, Toronto International Film Festival
• Best Picture, 1989, Chicago Film Festival
• Best Documentary, 1989, Los Angeles Film Critics Association
• Silver Dove, 1989, 32nd Leipzig International Documentary and Short Film Week
• Best Documentation, 1989, National Board of Review
• Audience Award, 1990, Berlinale
• Inclusion in the National Film Registry , 2013

reception

Three years after Roger & Me appeared , Premiere Magazine revealed that the documentary's running gag , Moore's futile attempt to interview General Motors chairman Roger Smith, was based on a blatant misrepresentation. Moore conducted a lengthy interview with Roger Smith in May 1987, but decided not to use the interview in the film. This is also one of the subjects of the Canadian documentation Manufacturing Dissent (2007), which is about Michael Moore and his working methods. A second interview by Moore with Smith is even reported there, in January 1988 in New York.

literature

• Bernstein, Matthew: Documentaphobia and Mixed Modes. Michael Moore's Roger and Me In: Grant, Barry Keith; Sloniowski, Jeannette (Ed.) 2002: Documenting the documentary. Close readings of documentary film and video. Pp. 397-415, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, ISBN 0-8143-2639-0

Web links

• Official website of Roger & Me (English)
• Table of contents
• Roger & Me in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://imdb.com/title/tt0961117/
2. ↑ http://film.guardian.co.uk/apnews/story/0,,-6473551,00.html (page no longer available)