Roger & Me (1989)

Michael Moore: Self

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Quotes 

• Michael Moore : [voice-over]  Well, the million tourists never came to Flint. The Hyatt went bankrupt and was put up for sale, Waterstreet Pavillion saw most of its stores go out of business, and only six months after opening, Autoworld closed due to a lack of visitors. I guess it was like expecting a million people a year to go to New Jersey to Chemicalworld, or a million people going to Valdez, Alaska for Exxonworld. Some people just don't like to celebrate human tragedy while on vacation.

• [last lines] 

  Michael Moore : [voice-over]  Well, I failed to bring Roger to Flint. As we neared the end of the twentieth century, the rich were richer, the poor, poorer. And people everywhere now had a lot less lint, thanks to the lint rollers made in my hometown. It was truly the dawn of a new era.

• Michael Moore : [after massive layoffs]  Meanwhile, the more fortunate in Flint were holding their annual Great Gatsby party at the home of one of GM's founding families. To show that they weren't totally insensitive to the plight of others, they hired local people to be human statues at the party.

• Michael Moore : [voice-over]  Although most people in Flint were now too poor to afford a room at the Hyatt, the hotel allowed the public on opening day to ride the city's only escalator.

• Michael Moore : [voice-over]  So this was GM chairman Roger Smith. And he appeared to have a brilliant plan: First, close 11 factories in the U.S., then open 11 in Mexico where you pay the workers 70 cents an hour. Then, use the money you've saved by building cars in Mexico to take over other companies, preferably high-tech firms and weapons manufacturers. Next, tell the union you're broke and they happily agree to give back a couple billion dollars in wage cuts. You then take that money from the workers, and eliminate their jobs by building more foreign factories. Roger Smith was a true genius.

• [first lines] 

  Michael Moore : I was kind of a strange child. My parents knew early on that something must have been wrong with me. I crawled backwards until I was two... It all began when my mother didn't show up at my first birthday party, 'cause she was off having my sister, and dad tried to cheer me up by letting me eat the whole cake. I knew then, there had to be more to life than this.

• Michael Moore : [voice-over]  It turned that the guy Deputy Fred was evicting had gone to my high school. His name was James Bond, and as if that hadn't caused him enough grief, he was now being thrown out of his home.

• Michael Moore : [voice-over]  My favorite was the exhibit sponsored by General Motors: a puppet auto worker singing a love song to the robot replacing him on the assembly line. The song was called "Me and My Buddy".

• Michael Moore : How does it feel driving through Flint Michigan today and so many people being laid off...so many plants being shut down?

  Kaye Lani Rae Rafko : How does it feel? I feel like a big supporter. That's how. Does it matter of what?

• Michael Moore : Mr. Smith, we just came down from Flint where we filmed a family being evicted from their home the day before Christmas Eve. A family that used to work in the GM factory. Would you be willing to come up with us to see what the situation is like in Flint, so that people...

  Roger Smith : [cutting him off]  I've been to Flint, and I'm sorry for those people, but I don't know anything about it, but you'd have to...

  Michael Moore : Families being evicted from their homes on Christmas Eve.

  Roger Smith : Well, I'm... listen, I'm sure General Motors didn't evict them. So, you'd have to go talk to their landlords.

  Michael Moore : They used to work for General Motors, and now they don't work there anymore.

  Roger Smith : Well... I'm sorry about that. What do you want me to do about it?

  Michael Moore : Could you come up to Flint with us? Just for a few hours to look at the place to see what...

  Roger Smith : [as he walks away]  I cannot come to Flint. I'm sorry.

• Michael Moore : [voice-over]  With higher unemployment creating more crime in Flint, General Motors and the United Auto Workers Union came up with a novel idea: train the ex-auto workers to be prison guards and give them jobs in the jails now filling up with their former line mates.

• [a PR man at the GM headquarters has asked Moore for some credentials] 

  Michael Moore : [voice-over]  Of course I was having a hard time finding my business card because I don't have any business cards. So I gave Mr. Slaughter my discount pass to Chuck E. Cheese but he said that wouldn't get me in to see Mr. Smith.

• Michael Moore : What about questions like "How heavy are your wife's breasts?"?

  Bob Eubanks : I never ask that question, I will say "How much does your wife's chest weigh?".

• Michael Moore : [Fred reveals that he worked in a factory for 17 years]  Why did you quit?

  Deputy Fred Ross : Got tired of the system. It was like a prison to me, so I quit.

  Michael Moore : It was like a prison?

  Deputy Fred Ross : Yep. That factory played tricks on your mind.

• Michael Moore : [voice-over]  More factories had closed and I began to see the effect this was having on my friends. Ben was the auto worker who I'd put on the cover of that magazine in San Francisco. He'd been laid off five times in five years from GM and, expecting be laid off again, he cracked one night while working on the assembly line. He was now shooting hoop at the local mental health center.

  Ben Hamper : I just couldn't take it. I told the guy next to me "Tell the foreman, you know, I'm sick to my stomach, I don't give a shit what you tell him." I grabbed my coat and I flew out the door, passed the guards, jumped into my car, got onto Bristol Road and was flying toward my apartment. And I turned on the radio, hoping that might cheer me up. I got tears coming out of my eyes and I strike right into the middle of Wouldn't It Be Nice by The Beach Boys. And I'm thinking ''What a horrible, horrible song to have to hear in the midst of this panic attack.'' A song that usually I would get a groove going with. So, I'm trying to sing the lyrics and I've got an apple in my throat. "Maybe if we wish and hope and think and pray, it might come true..." And I'm trying to rationalize with those lyrics, trying to think "Wouldn't it be nice?" And it just wasn't working.