Roger and Me [1989] [DVD] [1990]

Made in 1989, Roger and Me is a loose, smart-alecky documentary directed and narrated by Michael Moore. Here for the first time, the man who won unexpected Oscar glory with Bowling for Columbine exposed audiences to his devastating wit and a working-class pose. When his hometown is devastated by the plant closure of an American corporate giant (making record profits, one should note), the hell-raising political commentator with a prankster streak tries to turn his camera on General Motors Chairman Roger B Smith, the elusive Roger of the title, and the film is loosely structured around Moore's odyssey to track down the bigwig for an interview.

While Moore ambushes his corporate subjects like a blue-collar Geraldo Rivera, a guerrilla interviewer who treasures his comic rebuffs as much as his interviews, his portraits of the colourful characters he meets along the way can be patronising. The famous come off as absurdly out of touch (Anita Bryant appears for some can-do cheerleading, and hometown celebrity Bob Eubanks tells some boorish jokes), and the disenfranchised poor (notably an unemployed woman who sells rabbit meat to make ends meet) all too often appear as buffoons or hicks. But behind his loose play with the facts and snarky attitude is a devastating look at the victims of downsizing in the midst of the 1980s economic boom. This portrait of Reagan's America and the tarnish on the American dream comes down to a simple question: what is corporate America's responsibility to the country's citizens? That's a question no-one at GM wants to answer. --Sean Axmaker

In 1989, Michael Moore, winner of 2002’s Best Documentary Feature Academy Award and Cannes Film Festival Special Jury Prize for Bowling For Columbine, triumphantly burst upon the American moviemaking scene with Roger and Me, a hilarious, penetrating forerunner of the independent film movement.

Moore doggedly and hilariously tried to do what every working stiff dreams of: talk to the man at the top. His efforts to meet General Motors Chairman Roger Smith and persuade him to visit Flint, Michigan, frame a film that uses humour to devastating effect. Roger and Me champions people over profits and slyly lampoons corporate America as it shows how the Flint folks cope with economic setbacks.

• Commentary by Michael Moore
  
• Trailer

DVD Technical Information:

• Audio: 1.0 Mono
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Regular
  
• Colour
  
• Running Time: 87 minutes
  
• Languages: English, French, German
  
• Hearing Impaired: English, German
  
• Subtitles: English, French, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish
  
• Region Code: 2