Michael Moore's New Diagnosis

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b>TIME: Your movie paints an almost utopian picture of the Canadian system. You do show some American critics arguing that there can be long waits for treatments north of the border, and you refute them simply by interviewing a handful of happy, satisfied Canadians. Pretty unscientific, no?

Michael Moore: Canadians as a whole are pretty happy with their system. Yes, it’s a flawed system, and the main flaw is that it’s underfunded. The [in-depth] answers exist in articles and essays, and I’ll have them up on my website.

TIME: You also speak rhapsodically about the French and Cuban systems and travel to Cuba, where you interview Che Guevara’s daughter. France, Cuba, Che. Are you going out of your way to annoy the right?

Michael Moore: I give people more credit than the media and the political machine running this country do. The story line is: France, bad; France, cowards. What crime did France commit? We wouldn’t have had this country without their support in the Revolution. They gave us that statue that sits out in New York Harbor. They responded immediately after 9/11. And they remain eternally grateful for what we did during World War II.

As for Cuba, yes, when I’ve got a film crew there, they’re going to show us their best. But there’s a reason the World Health Organization ranks their health-care system [among] the best in the Third World and that people from Latin America come there for their health care. There’s also a reason Cubans live on average a month longer than we do. I’m not trumpeting Castro or his regime. I just want to say to fellow Americans, “C’mon, we’re the United States! If they can do this, we can do it.�

TIME: What was the hardest thing about making this movie?

Michael Moore: Getting insurance. How do you convince an insurance company to insure a film about insurance? I finally found this guy who’s got a little company out in Kansas City. I think he’s the only Democrat who owns an insurance company.

TIME: Do you think people will accuse the movie of inaccuracy?

Michael Moore: I offered $10,000 to anybody who could find a single fact in Fahrenheit 9/11 that was wrong.

TIME: Have you had to pay anything?

Michael Moore: No, of course not. Every fact in my films is true. And yet how often do I have to read over and over again about supposed falsehoods? The opinions in the film are mine. They may not be true, but I think they are.

TIME: How do you entertain people at the same time you’re trying to get them to think about hard things?

Michael Moore: When I’m shooting a movie, I’m always in an invisible theater seat. I respect the fact that people have worked hard all week and want to go to the movies on the weekend and be entertained. But the struggle for me does not come between politics and entertainment, because I know that if I succeed in making an entertaining and funny or sad film, that the things I want to say politically will come through very strong. If there ever is a struggle, making a good movie will always supersede the need to be noble.

TIME: Yet you don’t shy from showing some pretty stark scenes in your movies. Anything you’ve ever decided to cut because it was just too unsettling?

Michael Moore: In Bowling for Columbine, we used the videotape in the cafeteria, but I’m not going to show students being killed. In Fahrenheit 9/11, I felt that the media had shown the images of the planes flying into the towers more than enough, so the screen goes black for over a minute during the attack. So I’m always thinking about this sort of thing.

TIME: After taking aim at so many big targets, who do you plan to go after next?

Michael Moore: I don’t know. I’m going to wait and see how people respond to this. After that, I think it’s time for a romantic comedy