Book Review: Readings

Michael Moore: A Biography

by Emily Schultz

ECW Press, 245 pp., $24.95

The cover of Michael Moore: A Biography features a rather revealing photograph of the provocateur. He squints into the camera from behind his cheap-looking everyman frames with his huge hands held up in front of his face. A passing glance might mistake this as a posed image of the director framing a shot, but a second look reveals that Moore is actually attempting to deflect the camera's gaze. This image is actually quite a fitting metaphor for the dimensions of this biography, as author Emily Schultz seems more committed to delineating the boundaries of "Michael Moore" the persona rather than Michael Moore the person.

Schultz's organization is fairly straightforward, moving chronologically, beginning with his nascent muckraking tendencies as the youngest person ever elected to public office in the city of Flint, Mich. A failed stint at Mother Jones and on staff for Ralph Nader followed a decade of self-publishing the Michigan Voice, which Schultz attempts to report on impartially, but her exegesis is clouded with seemingly unrelated digressions (or, at the very least, poorly connected ideas) that do nothing to enrich her discussion. However, Schultz's concern with how public figures "begin to self-edit" becomes more interesting in the final quarter of the book, as Moore's troubled star begins to rise with the successes of his documentaries Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11. She captures this phenomenon perfectly when she describes Moore's rationale for his fiery, polarizing Oscar acceptance speech: "I'm Michael Moore. What else was I going to do?"

And there's the rub. Because she has none of her own interviews with Moore from which to build her biography, Schultz has had to piece together her text using Moore's words on DVD and in previously published interviews with her subject, as well as anecdotes from former colleagues and employees. The resulting character is ultimately likened to a contemporary Citizen Kane. We don't yet know what Moore's "Rosebud" will be – currently, he's at work on a film about the health care industry – and this biography, while an interesting enough read, doesn't offer up any clues. Which is probably exactly as he would like it.