Cast

Michael Moore, Thora Birch, William Black, Baron Hill, Marcy Kaptur, Wallace Shawn, Elizabeth Warren

awards

Venice IFF 2009 – Little Golden Lion, Open Prize, Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards 2009 – best documentary

Film description

Michael Moore brings his z typical incisiveness, passion, and courage to a trauma faced by his countrymen. In Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore asks what price America pays for its love of capitalism, which once seemed an important component of the American dream now twisted into a nightmare.

This, Moore’s most personal film and magnum opus, is a knee-jerk reaction dedicated to the lives of people whose lives have crumbled, sacrificed to the global financial crisis due to the crushing influence of huge corporations. Moore is not afraid to go big: he calls capitalism an evil that cannot be regulated – it must be replaced with a system that is good for all, that is what democracy is about. According to Moore, corporations and mutual funds gambling with investors’ money represent that evil. The film exposes the danger flowing from the close relations between the worlds of finance and politics. In his view, encouraging regular Americans to buy highly mortgaged homes and corporate manipulations led to the crisis and resulting unemployment.

Moore calls his films committed journalism. I don’t want to live in this kind of country, but I will not abandon it, he says. Critics accuse him of populism that leads not to grass-roots revolution, but box-office dollars – which makes Moore one of the characters of this love story.

Agnieszka Szeffel