Film festival producer Matt Dentler of South by Southwest said "Dissent" was chosen to premiere in Austin because it provoked such enormous debate among programmers. It raised valid questions about Moore, he said, who, by virtue of his celebrity, deserves close scrutiny.
"You're talking about the most successful -- award for award, dollar for dollar -- nonfiction filmmaker of all time," said Dentler. "There's a certain amount of responsibility that goes along with that."
Not all viewers on board
BUT Melnyk and Caine soon found that roughly a third of U.S. audiences who watched screenings of "Dissent" were ambivalent about its accusations. Some berated the filmmakers for unfairly dissecting Moore. At the Austin screening some critics accused them of the same bold maneuvers Moore pioneered. Others argued that as long as Moore's films serve a greater good, who cares what he fabricates?
"The slippages and falsehoods amongst Moore's films are unfortunate," an uncredited IFC blogger wrote, "but not a stunning revelation in these days of reality show techniques."
Among the film's charges is that Moore fabricated the premise of "Roger & Me," a documentary that set new commercial and creative standards for the genre. The film follows Moore's unsuccessful quest to confront the chief executive of General Motors, Roger Smith, on layoffs at the Flint auto manufacturing plant. But "Dissent" reports that Moore spoke to him twice, in 1987 and 1988.
After a June 16 screening of "Sicko" in Bellaire, Mich., Moore told the Associated Press that he had "a good five minutes of back-and forth" with Smith about a company tax abatement at a 1987 shareholders' meeting. But, he said, that was before he began working on "Roger & Me" and had nothing to do with the film.
"If I'd gotten an interview with him, why wouldn't I put it in the film?" Moore said. "Any exchange with Roger Smith would have been valuable."
Moore's former colleague Jim Musselman, who at the time was working with Moore on a Ralph Nader campaign to save auto plant jobs, said in "Dissent" that he was sitting next to Moore when the filmmaker questioned Smith during the stockholders meeting in 1987. Musselman told the filmmakers that Moore recut that footage to make it appear as though Smith ignored his questions and switched off Moore's microphone. Musselman also said he was present when Moore sat down with Smith in 1988 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York for a 15-minute, one-on-one Q&A.
