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To read more about Episode 192, visit the main episode page.
Michael Moore [00:00:01] This is Michael Moore, and this is Rumble. My guest today, Raoul Peck, he’s a director, screenwriter, producer. He was born in Haiti and has lived in the Congo, the United States, France, Germany. He is, in a sense, I hope he doesn’t mind me saying this, a brother in arms because I for years, for decades, I’ve looked for documentaries that that I would feel, well, you know, there’s somebody, we’re on the same page, so to speak, and that we see the world maybe in a similar way. And that is to me, Raoul Peck. He also makes scripted films, “The Man by the Shore,” “Lumumba,” “Sometimes in April.” And of course, “The Young Karl Marx,” which you have to see. Nobody’s made a film, actually, I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen, like a Hollywood-type movie made just on Karl Marx. But if you want to see a movie that portrays the early years, how did he become Karl Marx, Raoul has made this film. His documentaries, though, include “Haiti,” “The Silence of the Dogs,” “The Prophet and Nothing But.” And his 2016 masterpiece, “I Am Not Your Negro,” which won the BAFTA award in the UK and was nominated for an Oscar here in the U.S.
Michael Moore [00:03:05] You all have heard me talk about “I Am Not Your Negro” many times on this podcast. I’ve asked him in a polite way that it be required viewing for all listeners of this podcast. And then, as you know, a few months ago, I made a deal so that those of you who listen to this podcast could just click and watch, “I Am Not Your Negro” right now, and tens of thousands of you did that, and it was very powerful. And the feedback from all of you who had, you know, this film that came to your town or you’d missed it, to see it on PBS, whatever, you agreed with me that this is one of the great documentaries ever made. And so, you know, if you haven’t, if you don’t know what we’re talking about, “I Am Not Your Negro,” Raoul Peck uses sort of an unfinished manuscript. It was actually, I think, what Baldwin had written to his agent about the next book that he wanted to write. And then it was not finished and he passed away.
Michael Moore [00:04:13] So Raoul Peck got permission from Baldwin’s family to use his final writings to create a film. They would end up not necessarily being a book, but they would be a film called “I Am Not Your Negro,” which is a line from Baldwin. And then Raoul hired Samuel L. Jackson to be the voice of James Baldwin. Five minutes into the film you’re not thinking that’s Samuel L. Jackson. It does what you hope every great film does. It completely takes you out of the so-called reality that we’re in and transports us to a different place. And you believe for the next 90 minutes, you are listening to James Baldwin. James Baldwin is in the room with you, and it’s again, if you haven’t seen it, my friends, please, it’s easy to find. You can find it on PBS On Demand.
Michael Moore [00:05:07] You can get it on iTunes. You can just type it in, “I Am Not Your Negro” and you’ll have four or five choices of how you can see this film and teachers you will instantly be thinking, How soon can I show this to my students? So that’s that. But Raoul is here today not to discuss that film, though I would be happy to talk about it more. But my friends, he has outdone himself here in 2021 with a radical and powerful almost four hour long documentary. I know, don’t worry, you watch it in four parts. It’s like four chapters. And each of them are around an hour long. Each of them is their own piece. And yet they are part of the greater whole of a documentary entitled “Exterminate All the Brutes.” It’s a line from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” We’ll talk about that in a bit. It’s on HBO right now. It’s on HBO Max, it’s on HBO On Demand, I think, for a little while longer.
Michael Moore [00:06:19] So either of those HBOs, you can find it on. If you don’t have HBO, I’ll ask Raoul where else you can watch “Exterminate All The Brutes.” Raoul has taken on the monumental task of exploring what he describes as the three key words that summarize the history of humanity: civilization, colonization and extermination. And again, I don’t want to sound like a teacher here again, saying this is a required viewing, but my friends, I can’t ask you enough, if you have time, especially on this holiday weekend, to watch “Exterminate All The Brutes” on HBO, if you have access to that, because here’s why and we’re ending, you know, this is the week here we’re ending the first year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, so fortunately, this conversation is still on our minds a lot. But every time that, you know, you hear, I hear somebody say, Well, you know, it’s time for a national conversation on race. Or we need to come together and heal or any of the other usual flim flam that we hear on the news by the pundits. Well, my friends, for me, that national conversation should start with all of us screening “Exterminate All The Brutes.” Yes. This series, this documentary, this four part documentary is that important. So please welcome to Rumble from Paris, France tonight, Raoul Peck. Raoul, thank you so much for coming on Rumble.
Raoul Peck [00:08:01] Well, my pleasure, Michael. It’s been a long time since we talked.
Michael Moore [00:08:06] Yes, too long.
Raoul Peck [00:08:07] Thank you for these nice words, and I should return the compliment to you.
Michael Moore [00:08:13] Not until I’ve earned it, but thank
Raoul Peck [00:08:15] You’ve heard that much of it already.
Michael Moore [00:08:17] Well, thank you. Thank you for that. But I, as I was telling you just before we went on that when I watch your films, I personally feel less alone in the world. And it’s such a gift, these movies that you have made and you’ve been making them for quite some time now. But these last two that people currently, especially younger people, might be familiar with, “I Am Not Your Negro” and now “Exterminate All The Brutes.” You go from, you know, essentially using James Baldwin’s words, his story, his worldview to in this film, these are your words. This is essentially your story or greater story of humanity that you’re telling. But through your lens, your words, your voice and we hear you.
Raoul Peck [00:09:09] Well, it’s a mixture, if I may interrupt. Because I did that work on the shoulder of three great historians and scholars, one being Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. The other is Sven Lindqvist, of course, who wrote that wonderful book and used the title “Exterminate All the Brutes.” And the third one being Michel-Rolph Trouillot, a Haitian-American scholar, who wrote an incredible book as well with the title “Silencing the Past,” which is the story of how history has muted the incredible Haitian Revolution who basically stopped slavery on the American continent. And so out of that, of course, I had to bring my own story in it. I didn’t want to do a didactic film and I had to, you know, use those three major books and swallow them and make them mine and then make a film that would be totally and without any censorship of myself, self-censorship, to tell the whole story from my point of view and hold no punch, you know. Because for me, it had to be the definitive story or deconstruction of Eurocentric narrative.
Michael Moore [00:10:43] Well, you do pull no punch. And I know how hard this is, and it must have been hard for you because you knew as you were showing different scenes, saying different things you say in this film, that this is going to be uncomfortable viewing for a lot of people. And when I tell people that this film is, it’s sort of like the DNA of white supremacy, he doesn’t just take it back to the beginning of this country in 1776, and he doesn’t just take it back to 1492. He goes back as far as from what I can remember now as the Crusades a thousand years ago. This thought-poem essentially, this four hour thought-poem, this essay weaves in and out from from the past to the present, and I’ve never seen this idea presented in this manner.
Michael Moore [00:11:43] And while Raoul, you bring up people who are not white that commit these acts of awful violence and this and that or whatever, but there is no false equivalency here. This is an examination of white European behavior for a thousand years and the fact that we would end up on a street corner in Minneapolis, Minnesota from these scenes from the Crusades, it’s just so powerful. And you must have thought while you were making this, Oh, Jesus this is going to upset some people and by some people, that’s a euphemism for white people.
Raoul Peck [00:12:21] Yeah, well, you can’t really think like this, because the film is personal. But it is also somehow my own story and I feel I’ve been living all my life with that story inside. It’s the story of your daily life, basically. So at one point, you know, you can’t just continue to stay polite. You can’t continue to try to explain, you can’t continue to hope that somebody will listen to what has been so obvious for many centuries. And I just knew that there was no way that I could, you know, for me, it was not about what people will say. You know the question, as you know, Michael, in this industry, the question was: where will I be able to make it and will I have the freedom I need to tell that story without any censorship?
Michael Moore [00:13:24] Yeah, but yes, because as I’m watching it, I’m thinking, how did he get this made? How did he get the money for this? And HBO, I mean, I would say is a more liberal minded network. I mean, they will have a lot of things that you can’t see in other networks. And yet, I’m thinking, how did you even get this on HBO? And then at some point near the end of the film, you just say it out loud that you realize I’m sort of quoting here, that it’s almost a miracle that this film is even being made. Explain that to people who are listening.
Raoul Peck [00:13:58] Not almost. It’s a total miracle.
Michael Moore [00:14:00] I pulled the punch on that. I’m sorry. And by the way, a week ago today on my podcast, I asked all my listeners. I gave them a week to watch a four hour documentary. It’s probably three hours and 45 minutes or whatever the total length is. But they’ve had a week, so a lot of people listening to this have watched it now, but I’m just curious. Yes, explain, though, because they’re thinking the same thing. How did you get away with saying these things? How did this get made?
Raoul Peck [00:14:32] You know, it’s an addition of several circumstances. One being and that’s also the result of a very personal relationship that I had. You know, we tend to see the studios of Hollywood, like Big Brother, you know. But it doesn’t say everything, you know, you have to find out, you have to find a moment where the machine is eventually weaker or when the powers don’t look at whatever you’re doing or they don’t even know you exist, you know, and we live in such a time right now. You know, there is an extraordinary avalanche of money right now on the field. You know, they are all trying to get as much as possible. You know, it’s a global competition, you know, and by the way, American companies only. So my story starts a little bit before. After, “I Am Not Your Negro,” you know, usually everybody invites you to have a word, to ask you, you know, what will be your next project? You know, basically, it’s a business, and they see that the film did make money. So it’s part of the business to, you know, invite you, and…
Michael Moore [00:16:03] It was nominated for an Academy Award. So that’s very attractive.
Raoul Peck [00:16:07] And we did very well theatrically as well. But then in those meetings, you know, there were people, you know, because I’m old enough now and I’ve been, you know, I survive so many years in this industry, so I grew up with certain people. And one of them was the former president of HBO, with whom I did this incredible film that was also for me, one of the films I like so much is “Sometimes In April” about the genocide in Rwanda. And at the time, the communication director of HBO was, you know, Richard Plepler. You know, we did a great job in making this film available to a wider audience. And I remember he was key to allow the film to be seen. You know, they gave it to PBS for national airing. So that as much people as possible could watch the film. So out of that, you know, you develop a sort of friendship. You know, we used to email each other over the years. And so Richard was one of the people I met after “I Am Not Your Negro. And you know, he started by almost cursing me for ten minutes saying, How come you didn’t do it with HBO?
Raoul Peck [00:17:40] But you know, Richard, yeah, you know how the system is, and I needed my total freedom to make that film. You know, I needed to produce it myself, I needed to have the time necessary to find the film. It was not, you know, a product. It was a film that I knew I couldn’t miss. It had to be the greatest film about Baldwin, and it had to be Baldwin in essence. So I needed the time to find it, you know, and I told you before, it took me 10 years to make. So I would never, you know, and no studio would accept you working on a project for 10 years or so. So of course, he understood. And then he asked me, So what’s next? And I told him, and I was really truthful. I say, You know what? I’m very tired. I’m exhausted. And I went throughout the world with the film and I’m thinking about something to do. But what I need is time and somebody to develop and to pay to do some research for me.
Raoul Peck [00:18:49] But mostly time and freedom. And his response was, Well, you can have all that. And that was it.
Michael Moore [00:18:59] Wow.
Raoul Peck [00:18:59] Once we had decided that, you know, he gave the necessary order that for the contract, et cetera, and by the time, you know, within a month or two, I had a three year deal with HBO and then Sven Lindqvist’s book got my attention. And I knew, OK, there is something there to do that could make an incredible film. Because it really connects to everything I’ve been working on for the last 40 years, you know. And the thing is, during that time, you know, this famous merger between AT&T and, you know, HBO. Well, this big merger that took two years to be negotiated because Donald Trump didn’t want this merger.
Michael Moore [00:19:54] Right, the merger between Time Warner and AT&T.
Raoul Peck [00:19:59] And so Richard left when the merger was finally agreed, but the film was already on the rails. So in fact, nobody was really involved really in that field besides Richard and two or three more people, who also are people I really trust and who trust me. And it was like a sort of Raoul project and let Raoul do. So the whole network basically, you know, even protected me, you know, and let me work.
Michael Moore [00:20:40] So no interference?
Raoul Peck [00:20:41] No interference. And I was already into a second draft. So it’s really a total exception. You know, that never happened before and will probably never happen again.
Michael Moore [00:20:58] Yeah, I was going to say that once AT&T, which then became the owners of HBO, saw your final cut, can you tell us what happened then?
Raoul Peck [00:21:10] You know, the thing is, when you do that, you know you better come up with a great film. Because at the end of the day, you know, censorship is not the first thing that comes to their head. What comes to their head is will people watch the film or is it a great film? Yeah, that’s the first question that needed to be answered. You know, I’m pretty sure if I had done something that was totally unwatchable, that people would not understand. So it’s politically more radical, of course, but I don’t think the studios, sometimes they are in the business of making stuff that can be seen. You know, they want success. And once in a while, of course, you know, a film like mine justifies the fact that, well, the system is just, you know, the system.
Raoul Peck [00:22:21] When you come up with something great, you know, you will be able to do it. But the fact of the matter is that I really did have the freedom and nobody was watching over my shoulder all the time. And I was producing as well. And I had a great staff and people at HBO also. There are people who really know documentaries, who really did their homework. And again, I was not coming in with something totally crazy. You know, it was, by the way, we had people doing fact-checking all the time. You know, HBO did its own fact-checking. So it’s not like there is a risk to do something that is totally unacceptable. It’s just history. You know, that’s the crazy thing. You know, I’m not revealing anything new. It’s just the way I put it together that makes it lethal. If you take every other piece, and that’s one of the problems we face today with so many, you know, internet devices, with so many screens everywhere, is that history is pieces in little bits and each part of the population or each jar or each political party, there is a…
Michael Moore [00:23:54] Right.
Raoul Peck [00:23:55] So everybody’s going to take their piece and run with it. What this film does is to connect the dots. You know, it’s like you’re creating a bomb and you’re leaking all the trends to make it explode. That’s what I did.
Michael Moore [00:24:16] Wow, that’s a good way to put it, because that is how it feels when you’re watching this. And you’re sort of on the edge of your seat with this. You also weave in, though, like you said, your own personal story and your family’s story. Anybody watching this, it’s very clear, obviously, as you say this, I’m speaking to you, I’m a Black man on this planet and you know mentioned the Haitian Revolution, how it’s completely, no American kid is taught about the Haitian Revolution while growing up. And when we talk about the great revolutions of the late 18th century, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, there’s always the third revolution that’s left out, that had such amazing impact in terms of a country that was essentially a slave state, complete slave state and that rose up, rose up against the Europeans and…
Raoul Peck [00:25:13] Changed the history of the United States as well.
Michael Moore [00:25:16] For the United States, yes.
Raoul Peck [00:25:17] Yes, without the, you know, the fight against Napoleon and without Napoleon losing his whole army in Haiti, you know, that’s why he had to sell the Louisiana Purchase. He had to sell all the French properties on the continent. And by selling this to Jefferson, they basically doubled the power of the 13 states that existed before. Right. So they were unable to conquer further territories. Of, you know, ancient territories basically and continue until they had annihilated the whole country and taken it over. So this moment of the Haitian Revolution, which also enabled the rest of Latin America to free itself from colonization.
Raoul Peck [00:26:18] Because that’s the same, you have to imagine there are only two countries that are independent on the whole continent, north and south. The first one is the United States of America and the other one is the Republic of Haiti. OK? And everything else is colonized. And so Haiti became the equivalent of Cuba in the 50s. You know, most revolutionaries became friends of Haiti. Simon Bolivar came twice to Haiti to get weapons, men, money. Basically, the Haitian leadership chose between Bolivar and this other one, I’m forgetting, who were both fighting for the independence of the countries, of basically Venezuela. And the Haitians told them, you know, you better, unite, because that’s the only way you’re going to win. And that’s what happened. And so you saw over the next decades, every single country in Latin America becoming independent. So that’s the influence of the Haitian Revolution. It exploded the whole continent.
Michael Moore [00:27:43] And the new country of the United States, seeing this revolution that began in 1790, the Haitian Revolution, so George Washington is elected the year before that. So in other words, the Haitian Revolution happens at the beginning of this country as a legal nation. But the fear of God, that the Haitian Revolution put into the people in the United States, especially the Masters, the owners. They were so frightened. What if one of the slaves rose up and as they were, slave uprisings and rebellions began, and started and continued, it was the primary foundation for the creation of laws against people who were Black.
Michael Moore [00:28:40] And that even if you read the history, we were all talking about defunding the police or whatever with the police in the past year. Well, read the history of the police in the United States before there was even a police department. Which was in New York City in 1845, the first 70-80 years of this country when we didn’t have police forces. What we had were these slaves. It was a militia and the slave patrols.
Raoul Peck [00:29:06] Yeah.
Michael Moore [00:29:06] And then Congress passing a law saying that these armed slave patrols could enter the northern non-slave states just to find, capture, and return people who had essentially made their way to freedom. And if you go back and read the press at that time in the United States, late 1700s, 1800s, Haiti is mentioned continuously. And it was, I am certain, an inspiration to the slaves.
Raoul Peck [00:29:41] You have to realize the last days of the revolution in Haiti, when Napoleon’s army was totally annihilated, it was like the last you remember those last helicopters leaving Saigon. Those images?
Michael Moore [00:29:59] Yes.
Raoul Peck [00:29:59] It was exactly like this. French people, colonizers, soldiers, remaining officers, you know, you had officers hiding as women trying to take the last ship. And imagine those ships arriving in Philadelphia, in Atlanta, in all those, you know, coastal cities with people, you know, some of them totally wounded, some of them had brought some of their slaves with them. That vision, you know, was terrifying. And if you read the press on that, it was like, Oh my God, what happened there? You know, the world is totally changing. And what would happen if it happened here as well on the continent? You know, so that’s, and of course, Haiti was totally boycotted, boycotted both by the United States, of course, who recognized Haiti almost 60 years later. You know, 60 years later. France took at least 30-30 years. And Haiti has to pay a ransom.
Michael Moore [00:31:15] Mm hmm.
Raoul Peck [00:31:15] You know, supposedly to reimburse the colonizers for what they have lost. And of course, as usual, you know, you don’t reimburse the slaves for their unpaid labor. And Haiti had the, you know, the things that would happen in those days, you know, if you had ships, you know, that’s also a storyline in the series. You know, the evolution of armament throughout the ages. In that time, both were on the coast. You know, because that’s the best way to transfer merchandise. And so it was enough that a German ship or an American ship or French ship or Spanish ship comes in the bay and says, you know, if you don’t deliver so much money, we will bomb. And a small and newly independent Haiti didn’t have the means to resist. They could fight, you know, against soldiers on the ground. But, you know, beside a few ships, they had no way to fight an armada. So basically the president of Haiti of that time, you know, had to negotiate with France and we paid around 28 billion of today’s dollars to France.
Raoul Peck [00:32:48] And you know, the craziest thing, because people sometimes ask, you know, why is Haiti so poor? Well, it’s so poor because we had to pay. And they strangle us economically. They didn’t want this nation to become a real republic and it couldn’t become viable. And, you know, when we finish paying that around the second half of the 1950s, around 1957, to basically New York City bank. That’s when Haiti finished paying that debt.
Michael Moore [00:33:23] Wow, wow.
Raoul Peck [00:33:25] Because you know how it happened, France wanted the money in, I think it was in two of three parts, but what you do as a country, you borrow the money from banks. And one of the banks that had the last money was the national Citibank in New York. And we finished paying around 1957, after the Second World War. Can you imagine?
Michael Moore [00:33:56] Yeah. After tens of thousands of people gave their lives to liberate France from the Nazis, oh, by the way, now we want Haiti to go broke again to pay back France for what? For, you know, it should be the other way around. The reparations that were owed to the descendants of these slaves. Let me let me ask you this. So you divided the film up into four chapters, as I call it, four parts and each part has its own title. I’d like to start with the first chapter, part one. And it’s called, The Disturbing Confidence of Ignorance. Explain both what that means and what this first section of the film…
Raoul Peck [00:34:44] As far as the title is concerned, what I was referring to is this lack of or this arrogance of people who have been teaching us for so many hundred years who we were supposed to be, what was the way the world needs to be to be ruled. And saying the superiority of race. And in fact, you realize that they don’t even know their own history. You know, it’s not only that some of them hide that part of history, but we are dealing with real ignorance. Look at the recent example. And maybe that’s a question you can answer. You know, when Rick Santorum, can say there was nothing when we came here. And he is a former presidential candidate. And you basically said, that’s why I use the word ignorance. You basically say that the hundred million Native Americana, who lived in the north and south of the continent, did not exist. You know, if a hundred million people live on this territory, that means there were nations.
Raoul Peck [00:36:20] They had their own system of government, their own culture. They had wars, sometimes among each other, but they were the real inhabitants of the whole territory. So you come there and then pretend a few hundred years later that there was nobody. Well, then you have to explain how we come from 100 million to nobody. Cause what happened is in 100 years, 90 percent of them died. So it’s either you’re telling me that story, so I can understand your expectation or your hope of a dream, you know, this famous, dream country, which is America. And so it can only be a dream if you put everything on the table.
Raoul Peck [00:37:22] You know, we cannot hide anything anymore. And whether it’s about the Native American Genocide, whether it’s about slavery. You know, as in the film, the slave bodies, human bodies were used as collateral. You could go to a bank and say I owe one, two, five, one hundred slaves and with that, I want to borrow money. And the bank would give you the money.
Michael Moore [00:37:56] Hmm.
Raoul Peck [00:37:57] That’s reality. That’s not a game, that’s people’s lives. So for me, that kind of ignorance is borderline criminal, you know? In fact, that’s a phrase of Baldwin. He calls it criminal. It’s not ignorance anymore.
Michael Moore [00:38:18] It’s not ignorance. No, because we…
Raoul Peck [00:38:22] So that’s the story behind that particular title. And the first episode was important, too, because it was important to touch on this idea of the dream. The dream, in fact, that every single US president talks about in his first speech when he gets to the presidency.
Michael Moore [00:38:42] But as you say, it’s all based on a lie. The lie begins when we’re in fifth grade reading in our history book that Columbus discovered America. And as you just said, discovered what? Like all of a sudden he just landed and there was just this empty….
Raoul Peck [00:38:59] You know, that’s why, you have seen this joke in episode four. A guy walks into a bar and says, Well, I own that bar now, and I’m going to call it Espanola Lounge.
Michael Moore [00:39:17] Mm-Hmm.
Raoul Peck [00:39:18] And all the patrons are looking at the guy and saying, What the heck, who are you? And that’s exactly what happened. You know, some guys comes in your living room and say, You know what, this is mine now. And that’s the scene we also have at the beginning of episode two, where we shot it in the way, from the point of view of the native, you know, seeing those guys coming in on a big boat.
Michael Moore [00:39:51] Oh, that’s a great shot.
Michael Moore [00:39:54] Coming to the shore before you had Columbus. Many others. So I think that occurrence happened a few times, you know, and by the way, in the film, I don’t specifically identify Christopher Columbus in that. For me, it’s just how they used to…
Michael Moore [00:40:16] For me as a viewer of the film, though, I’m sitting there going, OK, you guys put the word out. Trouble, trouble is coming ashore. Stop this now. This isn’t going to end well.
Raoul Peck [00:40:29] Yeah, but even that, I’m not even, you remember this incredible story of this young pastor who wanted to go on an island where people live that have never seen the modern world? And then he was killed on the beach and, you know, arriving. You remember those images. There are few images of them, you know? And if you put yourself in the place of those people, you know, any nation, any human being, any village really thinks they’re the center of the world. That’s how we are, you know, so I tried to be in that place of mind because when you see, as you say, well, there comes danger, they have no clue that it’s danger. Because you are the center of the world.
Raoul Peck [00:41:29] You’re basically watching somebody coming to your house, right? You don’t know yet what it’s going to be…And you know, that’s why they help those people, they give them food. They help them, you know. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz was one of the people who explained that also. You would have no forests, you would have to build your own roads. There would be no roads, et cetera, et cetera. But that nature was already controlled by the Native Americans, they had already, they were already in communion with that world.
Michael Moore [00:42:21] They had their own infrastructure.
Raoul Peck [00:42:23] Yes. So without that help, no pilgrim could have stayed. They would not have survived. They were not equipped for it.
Michael Moore [00:42:33] So your second chapter is entitled Who The fuck Is Columbus?
Raoul Peck [00:42:38] Well, that’s exactly that. What we were just speaking about. You know, it’s like, Where did you get that idea that this land is yours? You know, we have been living here for centuries. You know, and so it’s something I try to do in every single episode. To always go back to the core story and to reverse the kind of almost psychological way of seeing history, you know, because that’s what the Eurocentric history and mindset does to you. It imposes itself as the center of everything. So whoever is the other is hailed either as savage, or somebody you will educate or somebody you will civilize. But for sure, we are the center of the world and the whole perspective is from the other side. I definitely put myself on the other side.
Raoul Peck [00:43:46] And the way I filmed everything, the way I filmed the narrative, the script, but if you watch where the camera is placed, it’s never from the point of view of the Spanish, it’s always from the point of view of the native. And this is something I try to do constantly. Well, you know, to establish the perspective. Who is watching, who is in the interior, who is in the exterior, you know? Because it’s that knowledge or that, you know, that propaganda or that way we were educated, all of us, you know, it’s so deep that we don’t even think about it. You know, we take it as natural to see the world the way it is. And having traveled throughout the world, you know, it’s this feeling that is very strange.
Raoul Peck [00:44:50] I remember going to Australia, you know, and even watching the news or watching The Weather Channel, suddenly the map that you’re watching is Australia basically. And a little bit of Japan and New Zealand, et cetera. But you don’t see Europe, you don’t see Africa, you don’t see America. But if you live on this side of the world, that’s you know, that’s the only thing you see. And it’s a very strange feeling to say, Oh my God, I have been totally wrong because somebody who grew up in Australia, this is his world and this is the center of the world.
Michael Moore [00:45:47] Mm-Hmm.
Raoul Peck [00:45:48] It doesn’t need the permission of the US. It doesn’t need permission of Britain for anything. This is his world. Of course, they did their own colonization against the natives of Australia as well. You know, but it’s interesting to push into a different perspective and see how to push into the exterior and totally reframe everything. Reframe the story.
Michael Moore [00:46:17] I was watching a documentary on the Black Panthers that Agnes Varda did back in 1968. It was on for some reason on TV this week, and she points out and the Black Panthers point out they do not refer to where they live in, Oakland or Detroit, or whatever as the inner city or the ghetto or whatever. They refer to it as the colonies, that they’re living in American colonies, they’ve been colonized. And it was very powerful to hear this perspective from 1968 and sad to think of how that essentially is what is still going on. But we’ve gussied it up with nicer terms and names.
Raoul Peck [00:47:06] But there is something new happening and that’s an incredible moment for me each time when somebody speaks up in front of an audience and says, I am speaking here from the ground of the nation of so and so. You know, to reclaim the name this way, to reclaim the ground, even if it’s symbolic, it’s important.
Michael Moore [00:47:32] No, any film festival I go to now, they always make it a point to begin each film, saying, We are using the land of…of the tribe.
Raoul Peck [00:47:45] Exactly. That’s incredibly important.
Michael Moore [00:47:48] Yes.
Raoul Peck [00:47:49] And you know, naming is power.
Michael Moore [00:47:52] Yeah.
Raoul Peck [00:47:52] That’s real, you know. And that’s why, you know, changing the name sometimes and at least reflecting on the names, why is it this way and what was there before. Because I just came afterwards. Who was there before me? That’s the minimum that we can do.
Michael Moore [00:48:19] You talk about the bright colors of fascism and the importance that fascism plays for, especially for white society, to maintain control. Talk a little bit about that.
Michael Moore [00:48:32] The fourth episode about, you know, it was a way for me to reconnect today’s fight and today’s fight everywhere, not only in America, not only in Germany, but everywhere. You know, you can see we are living in a sort of decadence of the Western gaze. Of the Western powerful machine and its capitalism, but in a huge global transformation, you know, and that’s why some people are scared. You know, they are scared because they feel that something is changing. They don’t know what it is, but they feel threatened. You know, and you feel it through the violence that it creates. You feel how threatened they feel, you know? And so many other voices are being heard. So it’s confusing for a lot of people, who most of their life didn’t have to question anything. You know, I have a sentence in the film that says, Superiority makes you fragile. You know, that’s exactly what I mean. You know, the fact that you never had to think about it. This makes you fragile in a world that is transforming itself very, very fast.
Michael Moore [00:50:05] So then, white supremacy, is it possible that ultimately it’s not going to end well for the white supremacists? That ultimately the people will rise up. They will not tolerate this behavior. Or is it, that they have enough weapons and they have enough wherewithal and a lack of conscience and whatever, they will be the ones who reign supreme.
Raoul Peck [00:50:33] I have another way to look at it. You know, saying that we have…is a sense of what we call, you know, for the lack of a better name, democracy, OK? And we see that democracy can be used in different ways. And sometimes, you know, it has the name of democracy and it’s a dictatorship. But still, let’s agree that theoretically, it is formed, it’s a way for people to agree to something, you know. And I can’t make any predictions, you know, what I see and learn from history is that the first civilization can disappear, that’s a fact throughout, you know, human history. Throughout those 6000-7000 years since human beings started creating nations and villages, some civilization has disappeared. So that’s a fact. So we have to put that on the table.
Raoul Peck [00:51:48] The second thing is whatever the war is, whatever the struggle, whatever the number of people that you’re killing, there is always a moment where you have to sit around a table and talk. You know, there is not just such a thing of total annihilation. You know, there are very, very few and and there have been ways of, you know, people wanting revenge, people wanting to straighten the history. So with those facts for me is: the future is not written yet. We are in that transformation. But the ultimate result will depend on how much we’re capable of creating allies, to think and to find solutions and to fight back. You know, it’s a number of the things that we need to make, because it’s not going to happen alone.
Raoul Peck [00:53:00] You know, we are in this machine that we call capitalism, where there are no conductors. You know, it’s basically reign. And now that capitalism is basically financial and numerical, you can speculate with money, electronically and quickly. So this global offensive is going on. So the question is, are we human beings, nations, Democrats, capable of stopping that. And stopping it means aggressively finding a solution, going on the streets, meeting together, creating solutions. That’s what, you know, when we look at the history of the working world, you know, everything we have today is the result of fighting. The unions, Social Security, I’m basically talking about Europe, at least, you know, all those where…You know, the civil rights movement is another perfect example.
Raoul Peck [00:54:27] You know, nobody handed civil rights laws to us. People died for it, you know? So the future is as well a matter of are we willing and capable to fight, besides just sending tweets because you don’t make changes by Twitter alone? You know, you need boots on the ground as the military says, you know, and it takes time. One extraordinary lesson we can learn is from what Stacey Abrams and all her companions did in Georgia. People should learn from that, because that’s the way to go. They took, you know, people see the result and think that it happened in one day. No, they have been working on it for at least 10 years. It was 10 years of hard work, per house, per person. They had to convince people, they had to really educate people. And they had to lose sometimes. And so that’s the price we will have to pay, that we need to pay, if we really want changes. And so unfortunately, we lost voters, we lost that knowledge along the way, and the way we are so distracted today doesn’t help much either.
Michael Moore [00:56:02] 20 to 30 million Americans in the streets last summer and fall was something that had never happened in this country before. And I think that my hope is, as you say, these boots on the ground. When people realize we’re not going to affect change simply by writing to our members of Congress or tweeting or [going on] Facebook.
Raoul Peck [00:56:25] Yeah.
Michael Moore [00:56:25] But I think you should do those things.
Raoul Peck [00:56:28] I mean no that’s good.
Michael Moore [00:56:29] But that is not enough. Because this is a big fight. And I said after the election, especially after Georgia, I said, OK, everybody listening. We need a Stacey Abrams in every state. If that’s you, if that’s you, listen…
Raoul Peck [00:56:45] In every street.
Raoul Peck [00:56:45] Every neighborhood. That’s how they started. They started in neighborhoods. You know, that’s right. And if I may, another great example that people will understand. You know, I remember very well the whole movement that elected President Obama. I swear to God I thought, Everybody would continue with that same level of organization, once Obama is president. And in fact, that’s not what happened.
Michael Moore [00:57:22] Right.
Raoul Peck [00:57:22] Obama was elected and everybody went home. And so what is the, you know, I think people sometimes don’t understand how democracy works. Democracy has become a conservative term. So you have it, you go to the election, you elect somebody, and then you can go home. No, democracy is a fact of every day. So if we had managed to put 500,000 people in the streets every day in different corners of the Republic, then you put pressure on the whole system, you put pressure on the Senators and elected officials, on everything, and then you entertain a discussion. You know, you exchange ideas and then you don’t have a President alone in the White House trying to negotiate. It was already wicked, you know, and we have seen what happened with the health care reform. You know, and that’s something we need to learn from.
Raoul Peck [00:58:32] Change comes because you’re capable of organizing. You know, that’s the history of the country. That’s how the country was capable of advancing further to defend their rights properly.
Michael Moore [00:58:47] You are very powerful when you say early on in the film, speaking of President Obama, you play a portion of an interview with him. And he says:
President Obama [00:59:02] We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power.
Raoul Peck [00:59:12] Well, actually it was. America was born as a colonial power. And this fact is a difficult one to admit for it bears the fatal capacity to disrupt the core story we have been told all these years and the very foundation of this country. It’s not an easy story to tell, because the story still continues today. A story of the search for purity and for a godly kingdom, a story of survival and violence, a search for origin, 400 years after the voyage that is said to have made the nation.
Raoul Peck [00:59:51] That was an important [moment]. Yeah, and that’s really the core of everything else. That’s the core of everything else. And while you were talking, I was thinking, you know, how do I say that to one of the guys or one of the women who were in the capital on January 6th?
Michael Moore [01:00:16] On January 6th, the insurrection.
Raoul Peck [01:00:19] Yeah. Do you think we can have a conversation about that? Because it’s a fact. It’s not about opinion, it’s not about, you know, a political position. It’s just can we sit down and have that conversation? It’s impossible.
Michael Moore [01:00:34] It’s impossible.
Raoul Peck [01:00:35] Yeah. You know, and that’s why I say it [takes] a little capacity to disrupt everything. Because most people do not want, there are people who don’t know…But there is a vast majority who can’t even fathom or can’t even accept the beginning of the sentence. That they would explode, you know? And yeah, but that’s it, you know, and Baldwin had said it so many ways and so many times.
Michael Moore [01:01:11] So how do we deal with them?
Raoul Peck [01:01:12] As long as we don’t put that first and foremost, the elimination of the Native American and second slavery. We cannot talk of the American Dream, right? It’s an impossibility. All you want to say is, well, let’s push out all these people, you know, and let’s make our own little colony. For example, just before the First World War, where the whole eugenics movement wanted to say, Well, let’s start with the white Christian, the gentile American. That was the plan. So as long as you know, as Baldwin says, as long as you know, you’re talking about a dream. But as long as the survivors, Native Americans and Blacks are there, they will write your dream. They will rake it. And that’s the reality.
Raoul Peck [01:02:20] So it’s almost a psychological case of denial. And the more you do not want to see, the more you got to cling to that dream, like a Knicks center. Because it’s like you have gone so far up. And when you look back down, you’re going to fall. Because you are so far out of reality. And it’s scary. You know, sometimes I understand the violence of some of these guys because it goes in their bellies, you know, it’s a question of who they are, who they think they are, who they have been told they are. That’s radical. The thought is, you know, and the only thing I can say to that is, you know, from the side of a Black person, you know, and I hope I speak with all the other Black persons, or Native Americans, welcome to the…because that’s what we have been going through all our life. They have been telling us we don’t exist.
Michael Moore [01:03:41] I know. White people see that video taken by the 17-year-old of George Floyd’s murder and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, it was shocking. I can’t believe it. And then if they’re a little more enlightened, they’ll go, How often does this happen? And I have said to people, my friends, you know, if anybody Black was standing around us right now, they’d either be laughing or angry because they have been watching this, they didn’t have video. Steve Jobs hadn’t put a camera in the phone yet, but they have watched this since 1619 on these shores. This is forever.
Raoul Peck [01:04:30] Forever.
Michael Moore [01:04:33] And people of color go back to the Muslims of the Crusades. They have been witnesses to this. And we act like we’re just finding out about it in 2020. And I’m like, OK, that’s OK, now that you found out about it, let’s do the work. You know, I’m not going to hold you to the fact that you didn’t know about it for the rest of your life, but you know now. So what are we all going to do about it? And what role do we play in this? How do we succeed? How do we organize?
Raoul Peck [01:05:03] But you see how the craziest thing is that sometimes I look at some white angry guy and you ask him, Why is he so angry? And he’s angry just by something very little, you know. Something he feels was taken away from him. I said, Do you realize if Black people would act like this for everything they have been done to, they would massacre everybody.
Michael Moore [01:05:40] I often thought…
Raoul Peck [01:05:42] I mean, that’s crazy, you know? If I would indulge in my anger, this country would not stand for another day. If all Black people, all minorities, all and I would include the women as well in it, you know, if women would say, you know what, as of today, I’m not willing to take anything from you guys. Anything. No whistle in the streets. No insult. No looking at my back. No, you know, anything. You know, that would be crazy. We are at a very strange place right now and the title The Arrogance of Ignorance is so true for me. It’s devastating, somehow.
Michael Moore [01:06:57] When the Michigan militia, the white Michigan militia, showed up at the state Capitol and then went into the building with all their guns armed, armed and loaded, and nothing happened to them. They shut down the legislators. They sort of ran out because they were frightened. A couple of days later, some Black residents of the state of Michigan decided to do the same thing and showed up at the Capitol, all armed. Can you imagine how that was portrayed? But the two days before it was just militia guys who believe in the Second Amendment. Two days later, Black Michiganders with guns was like, Oh my God. They called in so many police.
Raoul Peck [01:07:46] Yeah, well, that’s a wonder they were not shot down. You know, just coming out of the subway…
Michael Moore [01:07:52] Right, right. Well, what about what about, as you said, with women, who are the majority gender, by the way? And yet only have 25 percent of the elected representatives in our Congress. 75 percent are men who are the minority gender. And what if the majority gender women showed up with semi-automatic weapons on the grounds of the Capitol and said, This is not democracy. If the majority gender has only 25 percent of the legislature, what would that be? I mean, of course, that would be a total freak out. But I’m just saying, I’m so glad you’ve raised this point because I’ve often wondered how lucky, and you know, remember in South Africa, Mandela was let out of prison, the government decides they can’t keep up the apartheid anymore.
Michael Moore [01:08:43] And the fear of all this with white people, [they thought] Black South Africans were going to slit their throats and massacre them for the way they’ve been treated for God knows hundreds of years. And yet that didn’t happen. And nobody could believe it. Nobody could believe it. And the reason why they can’t wait, why a white person can’t believe it is because we know what we would do if you oppressed us for that long. If you killed us and lynched us and did this to our children for this long, do you think you’re going to get away with it? And yet I just marveled at it at the time, in South Africa, the kindness and generosity that forming a commission of reconciliation with the former masters and rulers.
Raoul Peck [01:09:31] Michael, that’s an interesting point. But you know that it was the result of decades of organization. You know, you had a party that was, well, the ANC at the time was incredibly well, yes, organized…
Michael Moore [01:09:48] Before Mandela even went to prison.
Raoul Peck [01:09:49] Yeah. And even from prison, you know, you had groups of people who were highly qualified, who were thinking, you know, how do we get out of this? And it was the result of negotiations. By the way, some of those secret negotiations we still don’t know what was…because people were pushing as well. You know, the American was in it and many very wealthy sectors were in that negotiation. And they came up with that, which is, of course, an incredible way to solve those, you know, decade long abuses and apartheid. And the commission was also a result of that. So it doesn’t happen as a miracle, you know?
Michael Moore [01:10:43] Yeah.
Raoul Peck [01:10:43] It’s always the result of, so many people died, many people are organizing. People have been tortured. People have been killed and they continue. And Mandela is, of course, the symbol of all that. But he didn’t do it alone, you know, or it was really the result of incredible participation at all levels, from the slums to the people in the academy, people in culture, et cetera. And they won that battle.
Michael Moore [01:11:17] And we’re not going to win unless we follow that example. And that it takes all of us, not just…
Raoul Peck [01:11:23] And we can add the example of Israel and Palestine. You know, there is no way to go without the people on both sides sitting around the table. And but right now, you know, with the extremists in power in Israel, there’s no way that can come, you know. And you’re pushing the Palestinians even more and pushing to a desperate reaction. You know, the ambassador’s desperate response to the absurdity of the situation. So it’s easy today to say, well, we’re launching rockets. Yeah, but where did it come from? You know, what do you say to a 12-year-old?
Raoul Peck [01:12:08] Or a 14-year-old that grew up in a camp? But he has no future. And he sees every day, he goes when he goes to school, you know, when he has to go through some sort of roadblocks that he has to show his I.D. that, you know, it’s like a police surveillance all the time in certain parts of those territories. And it’s, of course, some sort of settler colonialism as well. That’s why I recommend to you, by the way, a book for your audience. There’s a book that talks really about that and way better than I can do it. It’s called Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking Of Permanent Minorities from Mahmood Mamdani, who is a great Columbia University scholar and a great friend, by the way. And his book really shows you how different colonies dealt with tha. He talks about the United States of America, South Africa, and he also deals with Israel and Palestine. And it’s incredible. You know, he explains the formation of these nations and what it implies for minorities and all. Or they create minorities because the Palestinians were created as minorities, which they were not before.
Michael Moore [01:13:47] Right. You have a very powerful moment near the end of the film and you talk about this 18-year-old Palestinian girl who strapped a bomb to herself and blew herself up in a bus in Tel Aviv. And then you pause for a brief second and then you say:
Raoul Peck [01:14:09] When others think about revenge, I think of my daughter. What would have pushed her to commit such a horrific act? Would I call my child a monster? Yes, it is complicated.
Michael Moore [01:14:28] When you personalize it like that, when you realize what it would take, what kind of living and suffering would it take for an 18-year-old girl to do this? If we have the courage to be willing to ask that question, as you do, and it’s kind of like, you know, you catch your breath in your throat when you say in the film, because I mean me or anybody watching this, it’s like you instantly relate to this. And then you instantly have to have some empathy for what’s going on, or we’re never going to fix this.
Raoul Peck [01:15:03] It’s very powerful. And you know, the strange thing when I found that piece in the film, when I edited it, I cried. Because I felt this is the core story. Because as long as we don’t see the other, even the monster, we will not be better in living together. I have to take in account who is in front of me, who is the enemy because I go from the fact that we are all human beings, we are one species. He’s not nothing. The idea of race is totally nonscientific. It doesn’t make sense. And by the way, this is something I learned also from Baldwin, you know, the power of Baldwin’s words because when he talks about conflict, when he talks about America, when he talks about the rest of the world, he always does it from a human point of view. He’s profoundly a humanist. He’s watching like he’s in the laboratory and watching human beings moving and doing. He has a sentence that is…when he says, you know, I’m afraid of loving every human being. Or every human being is a miracle. And I, you know, learned to love the miracle they are and at the same time, to protect myself from the monster they have become.
Michael Moore [01:16:54] Right. Wow. So powerful.
Michael Moore [01:17:00] It said it all. And that’s what I felt when I wrote that line because it’s, by the way, it’s a sentence I wrote in my journal many decades before. And I, you know, I bumped into it, and I say, This is perfect for the film. Because it conveys everything that I feel right now about the stupidity of conflict, the stupidity of people killing other people just because they think they don’t exist or they are inferior. You know, it doesn’t make sense if you call yourself a human being. You know, we are capable of doing so much. And that was important for me to mention that conflict, which is another film for itself. You know and yeah, I hope one day I can deal with that. And Baldwin also wrote an incredible piece of journalism. You should find it. I don’t remember the title, but it’s something like Letter from Jerusalem. A small essay, maybe a page or two. And believe it or not, he wrote it like 50 years ago, but it’s as if he wrote it like today.
Michael Moore [01:18:37] Mm.
Raoul Peck [01:18:39] He could see through reality in a way that none of us can.
Michael Moore [01:18:43] Yeah, well, I think you have done an incredible job. You’ve made another masterpiece looking at these things, and the way you have woven it all together, you know, and I started to say that this is in chapters, my friends. It’s not your typical documentary. Chapter one and then it goes in some chronological order. Raoul goes back and forth and forth and back so that we can understand how we got here and understand what’s ahead of us if we truly want to change. And I got to say, as a documentary filmmaker, you do reenactments in this, which I think are brilliant and you have a device that at first it was like, Wow, what is he doing and then I started laughing and laughing in a good way like, Oh, this is brilliant. So if I could just share this with the audience before we close. The actor Josh Hartnett, I’m sure people know who he is, is a wonderful actor. And so in these reenactments that go all the way back to the Crusades through the slave trade, through the the war to annihilate the Native Americans. And throughout this, this thousand year history, you have a white man do what the white man did at the time.
Michael Moore [01:20:11] There’s actor Josh Hartnett. And he becomes the universal white man through the ages. And I just thought this was such a genius way to do this instead of trying to, I’ve seen other ways people try to do this, but this was just…this is not my token white man, this is the universal white man. And you got him to agree to play all these roles through the centuries. And it’s just genius. Just give me a little bit of what you’re thinking was about that.
Raoul Peck [01:20:45] Well, that’s exactly the type of thing that would develop while I was writing the film because I knew that I had to go further than I did with “I Am Not Your Negro” and because I’m basically dealing with history with images that I don’t have. Because nobody did those images from my point of view. So I had to invent them. And so my sentence is, you know, whatever means necessary. So the scripted part and you call the reenactment, I call them totally autonomous stories.
Michael Moore [01:21:29] Yes. That’s a better way to put it.
Raoul Peck [01:21:32] It’s as if I’m creating a parallel narrative in order to catch you at another level, a more emotional level and turn you around because I want it through that device to get you into feelings that you’ve never felt before. And in particular, the white audience, but also the Black audience, because we are also sometimes totally brainwashed by Hollywood. And so it was important to have that freedom and to have that device to go as far as possible in generating emotions that you have never gone through.
Michael Moore [01:22:23] Hmm.
Raoul Peck [01:22:30] This a miracle in that sense, too. And it’s organic. Nothing that happened there, everything in the country, everything that happened there in the film is organic. It’s part of the story. That’s why I tell the story of Roxanne, I tell the story of Sven, I also tell the story of my friendship with… My story with Josh is I needed an American actor and I needed an actor that is not the usual suspect to play the bad guy. Because I didn’t want the bad guy. Ideally, I wanted a guy that any American would recognize as the genuine American hero.
Michael Moore [01:23:22] Yes.
Raoul Peck [01:23:22] You know, it’s David Crockett, basically. And I had to show him as a real human being and because otherwise you wouldn’t understand his dramatic curve. Because basically what I’m showing is a mercenary cold killer. And at the beginning of the film, when he kills this seminole chieftain, you know, he’s tired of having to kill hundreds and dozens of people every day. And he’s exhausted. And then you follow him throughout history and throughout those four episodes. At some point you realize the job that he was asked to do. Because he’s a human being. You know, in any of my films, I never show like a bad guy. For me it’s a human being that does very bad [things]. And I need to understand why.
Raoul Peck [01:24:31] What is his motivation, in what system, and what is the context? And I want to see his eyes. You know, he’s looking at the victims because he is making a decision. It’s unlike a Western. You know, in Western you can kill left and right upside down everywhere. You don’t need to know the identity, it’s just, you know, the hero is killing everybody. And that’s not the kind of film I make. Killing somebody is something grave. It’s something very important.
Michael Moore [01:25:09] And personal.
Raoul Peck [01:25:11] And I want to see the eye of the killer. And at what point does he take the decision? I mean, what you did with Columbine. That’s exactly that. So you go inside the head of that person. So I needed that character. And what happened is that toward the end, his head exploded. There are too many dead people. He’s carrying too many ghosts. And there is no way out.
Michael Moore [01:25:41] Exactly. And you watch this and you think you know, fellow white people, were committing the same suicide. It doesn’t have to be, it doesn’t have to end this way. It doesn’t have to end this way.
Raoul Peck [01:25:58] If you go up to the end, it’s got to be suicide for everybody.
Michael Moore [01:26:00] It doesn’t end well.
Raoul Peck [01:26:01] Exactly.
Michael Moore [01:26:02] Well, listen, this has been an incredible conversation. I really want to encourage people listening to go if you have HBO, HBO Max, or what are the other ways that people can see “Exterminate All The Brutes”?
Raoul Peck [01:26:18] Right now, I can’t tell you, I know we are on different platforms.
Michael Moore [01:26:24] Oh right, you’re in France.
Raoul Peck [01:26:26] Sky as well in Britain. But what is for sure? I’m working with HBO right now. I’m trying to convince them to give the film to PBS for a certain number of streaming. Whether it’s one or a whole week. But that’s what they did with “Sometimes in April,” you know, they gave a big…
Michael Moore [01:26:59] I hope they do that. I hope they do this. If people want to watch it tonight, you can always and if you don’t have HBO, you can sign up for a 30 day free trial. And exactly, it’ll give you the chance to watch this film and you can decide later if you want to stay and if you want to stay on, it doesn’t cost you anything. Don’t miss this movie. “Exterminate All The Brutes.” And it’s been such an incredible thing for me to experience viscerally, and it has inspired me in ways that someday I’ll talk about in terms of what I went on to do next. But I thank you for that gift, and I thank you for these films. Again, everyone, “I Am Not Your Negro” and the fiction films, “The Young Karl Marx” and others. And his documentaries on Haiti. So much good stuff here to check out. And I know it’s late now in France and you’ve stayed up to do this, so I greatly appreciate it. And please keep doing more of this.
Raoul Peck [01:28:02] It was a pleasure, Michael, really, I enjoyed having the discussion with you. And I think we should have it more often, not on the air, of course. But, you know, maybe we can find a few things to do together.
Michael Moore [01:28:19] Yes, well, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. The time is now. And I look forward to speaking with you and doing that with you, Raoul. It would mean the world to me, and I think people will be helped and be appreciative. And remember folks, as I’ve often told you with my films, it’s not just the political issues here, it’s that we’re also filmmakers, we’re artists, we’re creative people, and we’re making films for you to enjoy. Enjoy if that’s the right word. But yes, enjoy as movies. When you see the cinematography of Raoul’s film, just the brilliant way that he captures his travels around the world, I can’t begin to describe, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about in the first ten minutes of this movie, but we make them as movies so that we can bring the things that we’d like to say and the stories we’d like to tell to the rest of you. But we are not making medicine for you. We’re not wagging our finger: you must take your medicine. It’s not that, folks,
Raoul Peck [01:29:31] We’re not making products for you.
Michael Moore [01:29:34] Not products either. That is correct. That is absolutely correct. So do me the honor, you’ve got till Tuesday morning, folks, watch this movie and write to me about it here. My address is on the podcast page. Or leave me a voicemail. My voicemail’s on there. I’d love to hear what you think of “Exterminate All The Brutes.” Raoul, many thanks. Much gratitude.
Raoul Peck [01:30:15] Thank you, Michael. That was great.
Michael Moore [01:30:17] Please keep doing it. And I look forward to that moment when we get to work together.
Raoul Peck [01:30:21] Yes, we will.
Michael Moore [01:30:23] Be, well, be safe. And all of you who are listening. Thank you to our executive producer as well, Basel Hamdan, our editor and sound engineer Nick Kwas, and to everybody who has supported this podcast, including our underwriters. Thank you so much for letting my voice and the voice of Raoul and all my guests to be heard, not only in this country, but around the world. It means a great deal to me. Enjoy the holiday. This is Michael Moore and this is Rumble.