Michael Moore’s 13 Rules for

Making Documentary Films

www.indiewire.com
18 mins read

Michael Moore's 13 Rules for Making

Documentary Films
With Moore’s permission, below you can find his keynote in its
entirety:

1. My number one guiding principle in

making documentary films is essentially
the “Fight Club” Rule.
What is the first rule of “Fight Club”? The first rule of “Fight Club” is:
“Don’t talk about ‘Fight Club.'” The first rule of documentaries is:
Don’t make a documentary — make a MOVIE. Stop making
documentaries. Start making movies. You’ve chosen this art form —
the cinema, this incredible, wonderful art form, to tell your story. You
didn’t have to do that.

If you want to make a political speech, you can join a party, you can
hold a rally. If you want to give a sermon, you can go to the seminary,
you can be a preacher. If you want to give a lecture, you can be a
teacher. But you’ve not chosen any of those professions. You have
chosen to be filmmakers and to use the form of Cinema. So make a
MOVIE. This word “documentarian” — I am here today to declare that
word dead. That word is never to be used again. We are not
documentarians, we are filmmakers. Scorsese does not call himself a
“fictionatarian.” So why do we make up a word for ourselves? We do
not need to ghettoize ourselves. We are already in the ghetto. We do
not need to build a bigger ghetto. You are filmmakers. Make a film,
make a movie. People love going to the movies. It’s a great
American/Canadian tradition, going to the movies. Why wouldn’t you
want to make a *movie*? Because if you made a *movie*, people
might actually go see your documentary!

Seriously, if you have a hard time calling yourself simply a

“filmmaker,” then why are you in this business? Many of you will say,
“Well, I make documentaries because I think people should know
about global warming! They should know about the War of 1812! The
public must be taught to use forks, not knives!! This is why I make
documentaries!” Oh, you do, do you? Listen to yourselves. You sound
like a scold. Like you’re Mother Superior with a wooden ruler in your
hand. “I Am The One Who Knows All And Must Impart My Wisdom To
The Masses Or At Least To Those who Watch PBS!”
Really? Oh, now I get it. This is why tens of millions flock to the
theaters each week to watch documentaries — because they are just
dying to be told what to do and how to behave. At that point, you
aren’t even documentarians — you’re Baptist preachers.

And the audience, the people who’ve worked hard all week — it’s
Friday night, and they want to go to the movies. They want the lights
to go down and be taken somewhere. They don’t care whether you
make them cry, whether you make them laugh, whether you even
challenge them to think — but damn it, they don’t want to be lectured,
they don’t want to see our invisible wagging finger popping out of the
screen. They want to be entertained.

READ MORE: Making a Living as a Documentary Filmmaker is Harder

Than Ever

And there, I said it — the big dirty word of documentary filmmaking.

Entertained. “Oh no, what have I done?! I made an entertaining
documentary! Oh please forgive me for cheapening my story by
adhering to the tenets of entertainment! DAMN YOU,
ENTERTAINMENT!”
When Kevin Rafferty and his brother made “The Atomic Cafe” in
1982, this is where the light bulb first went off for me. They compiled
all these clips from all the scare movies of the Cold War era, the “duck
and cover” films. “The Atomic Cafe” was such a funny film — yet it
was about the end of the world, it was about us blowing ourselves up
— and audiences laughed hysterically throughout it.

But the laughter served a much greater purpose. Laughter is a way,

first of all, to alleviate the pain of what you know to be the truth. And
if we’re trying to be truth tellers as filmmakers, then for God’s sake,
what is wrong with giving the audience a spoonful of sugar to help
the medicine go down? It’s hard enough for people to have to think
about these issues and grapple with them, and there’s absolutely
nothing wrong with letting them laugh, because laughter is cathartic.

Also, I don’t want people leaving the theater depressed after my

movies. I want them angry. Depressed is a passive emotion. Anger is
active. Anger will mean that maybe 5 percent, 10 percent of that
audience will get up and say, “I gotta do something. I’m going to tell
others about this. I’m going to go look up more about this on the
Internet. I’m gonna join a group and fight this!”

READ MORE: The Challenges of Toronto’s Documentary Market

Or, in the case of Quentin Tarantino, who was the president of the
jury at Cannes when the jury gave “Fahrenheit 9/11” the Palme d’Or,
he said to me at the dinner afterwards, “I’ve got to tell you what your
film really did for me. I’ve never voted in my life, in fact, I’ve never
even registered to vote — but the first thing I’m going to do when I
get back to L.A. is register to vote.” And I said, “Wow, what you just
said to me is more important than this Palme d’Or. Because if what
you’re going to do is multiplied by another million or 10 million
people who see this film — man oh man. I will feel great that I have
lived this long to make this movie and see this happen.”

I think it’s the humor that gets people there. Satire used to be a great
way to make a political statement, but a while back the Left lost its
sense of humor, and then you weren’t supposed to be funny anymore.
When I had my TV show, on the first day in the writer’s room, I said,
“Let’s write down the list of all the things that you’re not supposed to
be funny about, and then we’re going to do stories that use humor to
say the things we want to say about each of those issues.”

So we made a list: the Holocaust, AIDS, child abuse. I know what

you’re thinking — let’s make a funny film about child abuse?
Seriously? What are you talking about? Well, of course we’re not
making a “funny” film about child abuse — but if humor can be used
in a devastating fashion to shake people out of their seats and do
something, well, it will be worth it. Humor can be devastating.
Humor, ridicule, can be a very sharp edged sword to go after those in
power, to go after those who are hurting others.

I don’t understand why more people don’t do this — use humor in

their documentaries. I also don’t understand why so many
documentary filmmakers think that the politics or the message of
their films is the top priority, rather than the art of cinema, and
making a good crackerjack of a movie. The art of the movie is more
important to me than the politics. Yeah, you heard me say that. The
politics is secondary. The art is first. Why? Because if I make a shitty
film, the politics aren’t going to get through to anyone. If I ignore the
art, if I have not respected the concept of cinema, and if I haven’t
understood why people love to go to the movies, nobody is going to
hear a damn word about the politics and nothing is going to change.
So the art has to come first. It has to be a movie first, not a
documentary.

2. Don’t tell me shit I already know.

I don’t go to those kinds of documentaries, the ones that think I’m
ignorant. Don’t tell me that nuclear power is bad. I know it’s bad. I’m
not going to give up two hours of my life to have you tell me it’s bad.
All right? Seriously, I don’t want to hear anything I already know. I
don’t like watching a movie where the filmmakers obviously thinks
they’re the first people to discover something might be wrong with
genetically modified foods. You think that you’re the only one who
knows that? Your failure to trust that there are actually quite a few
smart people out there is the reason people are not going to come see
your documentary. Oh, I see — you made the movie because there are
so many people who DON’T know about genetically modified foods.
And you’re right. There are. And they just can’t wait to give up their
Saturday to learn about it.

Now look, I realize that in America — 310 million people – there are a
lot of stone cold idiots, a lot of stupid people among us. In fact, I will
grant you that there’s a good 100 million idiot, stupid, ignorant
Americans. And, yes, that’s a lot of stupidity to be surrounded by. But
that also means that there are 210 million Americans who AREN’T
stupid, who have a brain, or at least half a brain. Don’t worry about
those other people. Instead, focus on the majority — they’re the ones
who are going to make change happen anyway. But don’t tell them
stuff they already know. Take them someplace they haven’t been.
Show them something they’ve never seen.

READ MORE: The Downside of Measuring the Social Impact of

Documentaries

When we were making “Roger & Me,” I asked the Deputy Sheriff who
was evicting the family on Christmas Eve, taking down their
Christmas tree and putting it and the kids’ Christmas presents out on
the curb, I asked, “Do you do this on Christmas Eve every year?” And
he said, “Oh, I do four or five every Christmas.” I said, “How come
I’ve never seen this?” And he said, “I don’t know, I do it all over town
in broad daylight.” There are four TV stations in Flint, all with news
departments. Why have I never seen this on Christmas Eve or
Christmas Day? Instead, I get the same goddamn three stories on
Christmas every year: the Pope said midnight mass last night.
Shocker! The weatherman on the 11 o’clock news is tracking Santa’s
sleigh as it crosses Canada. He’s always over Canada. And maybe if
there is a political story, it’s about the ACLU wanting the nativity
statues taken off the lawn of City Hall. Aren’t those the three
Christmas stories, year in and year out, on the local news? I never
saw in all my years in Flint a family’s Christmas tree, in the presence
of their children, being tossed to the curb because their parents are
$150 behind on their rent. And I think that is a crime. And that’s our
job, to show people things that they are not being shown. Don’t tell
them the things they already know.

When making “Roger & Me,” I told the staff, the crew, the editors, we
are making a film about the unemployment capital of the U.S. — and
there is not to going to be one shot of the unemployment line in the
film. I am not going to use the same old images that are used week in
and week out. People are numb to these images. They see them over
and over again. We need to show them something that will make
them sit up in their seats saying, Jesus, this is not the America I want
to live in!
3. The modern documentary sadly has
morphed into what looks like a college
lecture, the college lecture mode of telling
a story.
That has to stop. We have to invent a different way, a different kind of
model. I don’t know how to say this, because like I said, I only went
three semesters to college. And one thing I’m grateful for from that is
that I never learned how to write a college essay. I hated school, I
always hated school. It was nothing but regurgitation back to the
teacher of something the teacher said, and then I have to remember it
and write it back down on a piece of paper. The math problem was
never a problem. Somebody else had already solved the problem and
then put it in the math book. The chemistry experiment was not an
experiment. Somebody else already did it, and now they’re making me
do it, but still calling it an experiment. Nothing is an experiment here.
I hated school and the nuns knew it and they felt bad for me. I would
just sit there bored and mad and it didn’t do me much good — except I
ended up making these movies.

4. I don’t like Castor Oil (a foul-tasting

medicine from a hundred years ago). Too
many of your documentaries feel like
medicine.
The people don’t want medicine. If they need medicine, they go to the
doctor. They don’t want medicine in the movie theaters. They want
Goobers, they want popcorn, and they want to see a great movie.
They just spent a lot of money on getting there, on the babysitter, on
the overpriced ticket, on the $9 popcorn. They have spent all this
money. And then they want to go home — it’s Friday night. I have a
little sign on the bulletin board in my editing room. Actually, I have
two signs — one says, “When in doubt, cut me out.”

The other one says, “Remember, people want to go home and have sex
after this movie.” Don’t show them a documentary that is going to kill
their evening! They’ve waited for sex all week. It’s Friday night, and if
they go home and it’s like, “Oh God, that was just horrible…
ugghhhh… I feel just awful…” Well, goodbye fireworks. That’s just not
fair. Don’t do that to your audience. I’m not saying you can’t present
them with a serious subject. I’m just asking that that you do it in a
way that makes them feel full of energy and passion and aroused.
Politically, I mean.

5. The Left is boring.

And it’s why we’ve had a hard time convincing people to maybe think
about some of the things we’re concerned about. Like I said earlier,
we’ve lost our sense of humor and we need to be less boring. We used
to be funny. The Left was funny in the 60s, and then we got really too
damn serious. I don’t think it did us any good.
6. Why don’t more of your films go after
the real villains — and I mean the REAL
villains?
Why aren’t you naming names? Why don’t we have more
documentaries that are going after corporations by name? Why don’t
we have more documentaries going after the Koch Brothers and
naming them by name? Over the last few years, looking at the short
list for the for Best Documentary nominees, something that has really
bothered me is that there are usually only two or three, at the most
four, where the subject matter is about something in the present,
something in the U.S. (something that we are doing as Americans in
America right now), and something that is political, really political,
and edgy and dangerous.

Go back and look at the last few years. There are great documentaries
that are historical, about things that happened in the past. There are
great documentaries about things that are happening in Indonesia or
Palestine — “Five Broken Cameras” is a great example of that — but
there are very few films, especially that are seen by audiences and get
awards — that are about serious political things currently going on in
the United States of America. There will be well-meaning stuff about
global warming, but it will contain all kinds of ways to dance around
the issue so the filmmaker or the network doesn’t get into “trouble.”

Someone came up to me last night and said, “Can I say this in my

documentary? Will I get sued?” Yes, you will get sued! I was sued 20
times just on “Roger & Me.” You will be sued. People will be mad at
you. You may become the new poster boy or girl on Fox News. So
what? Why are you making this movie in the first place? There is no
cushy life here. We, as citizens, if we are going to be filmmakers, then
we have to do that job. Take the risk. I tell my crew, “We have to
make this film as if it’s going to be our last job in this business. We
need to make a movie where nobody in a role of authority is ever
going to want to get near us!” Only by embracing that “death wish”
will you be guaranteed the real success you’re hoping for.

7. I think it’s important to make your

films personal.
I don’t mean to put yourself necessarily in the film or in front of the
camera. Some of you, the camera does not like you. Do not go in front
of the camera. And I would count myself as one of those. It was an
accident that I ended up in “Roger & Me,”and I won’t bore you with
that story, but people want to hear the voice of a person. The vast
majority of these documentary films that have had the most success
are the ones with a personal voice. Morgan Spurlock, Al Gore, Bill
Maher, “Gasland,” “Shoah,” etc. I know that most documentary films
stay away from that, most don’t like narration, they just put up a
couple of cards to explain what’s going on, but the audience is
wondering, who is saying this to me?

You know when you see a Scorsese film who is saying it. I knew when
I went to see “Gravity,” because it was made by Alfonso Cuarón, that I
wasn’t going to see a Hollywood movie, even though it was
distributed by Warner Brothers. It was not an American movie. I was
going to see a Mexican movie. He’s a Mexican filmmaker, and if you
have seen his films, including the one Harry Potter that he did that is
so dark, I knew going in that I would not know what was going to
happen in the film. And you didn’t know. If no one ruined it for you,
going in, it was very possible that Alfonso Cuarón could kill both
Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and anybody else in space. He’s a
Mexican filmmaker! And that’s what made “Gravity” to me so exciting
because I didn’t know what was going to happen in the next 10
minutes like I do in most Hollywood movies. You don’t want your
audience to know that either. In “Gasland” when they lit the water on
fire, well, I’d never seen that before! I didn’t see that coming. That’s
when people start telling their friends about it. They tell their friends
at work, “You’ve got to go see this movie.”

8. Point your cameras at the cameras.

Show the people why the mainstream media isn’t telling them what is
going on. You’ve seen this in my films, where I stop filming whatever
it is that’s going on, and I just turn my camera on the press pool. Oh,
that is a pathetic sight, isn’t it? They are all lined up with their
microphones like the guy in “Bowling for Columbine” who is at the
funeral of a 6-year-old, and he’s trying to fix his hair out in front of
the funeral home and he’s yelling at the producer through the
earpiece, and all of a sudden he realizes he’s going live and, bam — it’s
showtime! It really shows you how little they truly care, and how
little REAL information you’re getting about the issue.

9. Books and TV have nonfiction figured

out.
They know the American public loves nonfiction storytelling. But
you’d never know that by looking at the list of movies playing down at
the multiplex tonight. But open up the book review section of the New
York Times this Sunday. There will be three times as many nonfiction
books reviewed as fiction books, three times as many. Nonfiction
books sell huge. Nonfiction television is huge! Look at the ratings. The
top 25 shows every week have a number of nonfiction shows, from
the smarter ones like “60 Minutes,” to stuff like “Dancing with the
Stars.” But there’s also Stephen Colbert. And Jon Stewart, Bill Maher,
and John Oliver.

These are nonfiction shows and they are hugely popular. They use
humor, but they’re doing it in order to tell the truth. Night after night
after night. And that to me makes it a documentary. That makes it
nonfiction. People love to watch Stewart and Colbert. Why don’t you
make films that come from that same spirit? Why wouldn’t you want
the same huge audience they have? Why is it that the American
audience says, I love nonfiction books and I love nonfiction TV — but
there’s no way you’re dragging me into a nonfiction movie! Yet, they
want the truth AND they want to be entertained. Yes, repeat after me,
they want to be entertained! If you can’t accept that you are an
entertainer with your truth, then please get out of the business. We
need teachers. Go be a teacher. Or a preacher. Or manage an eco-
friendly Crate and Barrel.

10. As much as possible, try to film only

the people who disagree with you.
That is what is really interesting. We learn so much more by you
training your camera on the guy from Exxon or General Motors and
getting him to just blab on. Talk to that person who disagrees with
you. I have always found it much more interesting to try to talk to
those in charge. Of course now it’s harder for me to get them to talk
to me, so I have to use a lot of techniques and methods that probably
wouldn’t meet the “standards” of most television networks. But they
do meet my one ethic, which is, this country, this world, exists for the
people, and not the few rich folks who run it. And those rich people in
power have some ‘splainin’ to do.

11. While you are filming a scene for your

documentary, are you getting mad at
what you are seeing?
Are you crying? Are you cracking up so much that you are afraid that
the microphone is going to pick it up? If that is happening while you
are filming it, then there is a very good chance that’s how the
audience is going to respond, too. Trust that. You are the audience,
too. I tell my crew that the audience is “on the crew.” The audience is
part of the film. What is the audience going to think of this film? And
so many times when I’m filming, I find myself thinking, Oh man, I
already know what is going to happen when people watch this! I can
already see it. I am a stand in for that audience. And that’s what you
need to be, too.

12. Less is more. You already know that

one.
Edit. Cut. Make it shorter. Say it with fewer words. Fewer scenes.
Don’t think your shit smells like perfume. It doesn’t. You haven’t
invented the wheel. People get it. People love that you trust that they
have a brain. Even people who aren’t that smart, who don’t know
about the bigger world, they can detect it when you think they are
smart and they can also detect when you think they are stupid. And
they’re not stupid. Not the 220 million. They’re just a little ignorant.
We live in a country where 80 percent of the citizens do not own a
passport. They never leave their homes to see the rest of the world.
They don’t know what is going out there. We have to have a little
empathy for them. They want to come along. They will come along —
if they sense that we respect them for having a brain.

13. Finally… Sound is more important

than picture.
Pay your sound woman or sound man the same as you pay the DP,
especially now with documentaries. Sound carries the story. It’s true
in a fiction film, too. You’ve been in a movie theater where it’s been
out of focus just a little bit or maybe the frame is spilling over onto
the curtain. Nobody gets up, nobody says anything, nobody goes and
tells the projectionist. But if the sound goes out, there is a riot in the
theater, right? But if the picture sucks, or if you had to run because
the police are after you, and the camera is jiggling all over the place,
the audience is not going, “Hey, why is that camera jiggling? Hey, stop
the camera jiggling!” Let’s say you didn’t shoot something entirely in
focus, you had to shoot it really quickly. The audience doesn’t care —
IF the story is strong, AND they can hear it. That’s what they’re
paying attention to. Don’t cheat on the sound. Don’t be cheap with the
sound. It’s so important, the sound, when making a documentary.

Those are my 13 points, I’m sorry this took so long, but I’m very
passionate about this, because I want nonfiction films to be seen by
millions and millions of people. It’s a crime that they aren’t. And for a
long time I blamed the distributors, blamed the studios, blamed the
financiers — and really, we should take just a few moments to blame
ourselves as the filmmakers. Are we making these movies to be seen
in movie theaters? I want to see movies in a movie theater! I don’t
want to watch something on an iPhone. Ever. Now that’s probably just
my age, I understand young people do that. But I tell young people, if
you’re watching “Lawrence of Arabia” on an iPhone, I want to tell you
something — you’re not watching “Lawrence of Arabia.” I don’t know
what to call that, but you’re not watching a movie. The U.S. Postal
Service a few years ago created a Mona Lisa stamp, a 32-cent Mona
Lisa stamp. Spoiler Alert! That wasn’t the Mona Lisa. That was a
stamp, with the Mona Lisa’s likeness on the stamp. So, I’m sorry, you
haven’t ever seen the Mona Lisa. If you want to see the Mona Lisa, get
a frigging passport and find your way to Paris. They like movies
there, too.

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