Outfoxing the Conservatives

By Nikki Finke, LA Weekly. Posted July 15, 2004.

He's as creatively talented as Michael Moore and even more of a political activist, but to this point practically unknown by comparison. Now, though, his documentaries are about to become just as controversial as those of Moore. He's Robert Greenwald, the Hollywood movie and television director/producer/provocateur. Unlike Moore, Greenwald stays behind the camera, but suddenly this week his name is everywhere because of the ambush-style release of his latest documentary, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism."

After premiering Tuesday in New York (it's set to debut July 19 in L.A. with a live introduction by Howard Dean), the expose has Dick Cheney's favorite news network snarling at Greenwald, at The New York Times (which, on Sunday, published a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the video), and at its fictitious nemesis, the "biased liberal media." Journalism and political Web sites, not to mention that trade bible, Editor & Publisher, are following the attacks and counter-attacks with undisguised glee. (Except for the Washington Post's media reporter Howard Kurtz, who is not just leaning over backwards but actually tying himself into contortionist knots to take Fox News' side, probably because Kurtz knows he could be accused of conflict of interest since he still has that shameful "Reliable Sources" gig with rival CNN.)

Yet, this is only the start of what will be a hat trick for Greenwald this year.

His 2003 video, "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraqi War," is being expanded into a full-length documentary feature with added footage and global distribution for release in mid-August right before the Republican convention. ("I'll personally offer free tickets to delegates who are bored of listening to canned speeches and happen to be poor," taunts Greenwald.)

In September, Greenwald comes out with the third in his "Un" series of documentaries, "Unconstitutional," which purports to look at how the Bush administration has cynically used the 9/11 tragedy to erode civil rights and quash dissent. Meanwhile, his first installment, "Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election," is praised as a video primer on the precise mechanisms used by the Republicans to steal the White House.

"Doing these documentaries has just taken my faith in movie-making to a whole other level," he tells L.A. Weekly, "because when you make a film that doesn't put people to sleep, the response is extraordinary."

All well and good, but the question remains: Why in the world would someone as successful in the entertainment industry as Greenwald jeopardize everything he has worked so hard to build – his career, his reputation, his finances – to dabble in the dirt-poor field of documentary-making? And not just in can't-lose, do-good documentaries on say, American Indians or Holocaust victims – but down-and-dirty, let's-get-those-sons-a-bitches, provocative-on-purpose-and-to-the-max documentaries.

After all, this is no newcomer like Moore who, when he burst on the scene with the anti-corporate Roger & Me, had everything to gain and nothing to lose. By contrast, Greenwald easily could have – and still can – become blackballed by the Big Media networks and studios whose bottom lines depend upon toeing the lines drawn by the FCC, the FTC and the Bush administration. He'd already run afoul of Wal-Mart, the world's single biggest seller of show-biz product, when the chain giant's supplier refused to carry "Uncovered." That is, until a big stink was made about Wal-Mart stocking videos of Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film, "Triumph of the Will." So the supplier buckled and bought 2,000 copies of "Uncovered" to sell online.

"By doing this, I've saved all this time in therapy," jokes Greenwald, who'll be 59 in August and is the father of four. He's only half-joking.

Born and raised in Manhattan, educated at Antioch College and the New School for Social Research, Greenwald came from a family of psychologists: his father, his mother, even his brother and sister. "I was the only one who went to the other side," he laughs. After setting up a career in New York theater, Greenwald moved to Los Angeles 25 years ago and transitioned into directing at the Mark Taper Forum. Though some of the plays had political messages, he was a long way from thinking of himself as a full-fledged activist.

"Yes, I had been working with prisoners in New York and out here, but I wasn't particularly politically involved then. And, while I certainly cared, what I did wasn't taking 80, 90 percent of my time," Greenwald says. "Then two things kicked me into this next gear."

First was the death of his father, who had been part of the civil rights, anti-war and labor movements and who had been following in the footsteps of his father, who'd been an organizer for the barbers' union. "So, that got passed down. And I consciously wanted to take some of the best things my father gave me and build on them," Greenwald explains. "One was a commitment to social justice. It wasn't like orthodoxy or a specific political agenda. It was just an assumption that if you're able to, you work for social justice for everyone, not just yourself."

Nikki Finke writes for LA Weekly.

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