Capitalism: A Love Story Premieres in Venice to Great Reviews

According to the Huffington Post, Michael MooreMichael Moore says his movie Capitalism: A Love Story is dedicated to “good people...who’ve had their lives ruined” by the quest for profit.

Following a great deal of success at Cannes, Moore premiered the movie on Sunday in his first appearance at the Venice Film Festival. It was enthusiastically received at a press screening on Saturday evening and won positive reviews. Variety called it one of Moore’s “best pics.”

“I am personally affected by good people who struggle, who work hard, and who’ve had their lives ruined by decisions that are made by people who do not have their best interests at heart, but who have the best interests of the bottom line, of the company, at heart,” Moore told reporters on Sunday.

The movie features plenty of examples of lives destroyed by corporate greed – but also some inspiring stories of employees who have rebelled.

According to Moore, “the revolt you think I am calling for has actually begun. It began November 4,” when President Barack ObamaBarack Obama was elected.

There is the Chicago glass and window company whose workers barricaded themselves to demand their pay after management laid off all 250 workers when the bank’s line of credit dried up.

On the side of greed, Moore tells the story of a privately-run juvenile detention center in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, that paid off judges to imprison juvenile offenders. One boy said he had done not much more than throw a piece of meat at his mother’s boyfriend during a fight at the dinner table, and a teenage girl’s offense was making fun of her school’s vice-principal on a MySpace page.

The movie is filled with classic Moore gimmicks, such as wrapping crime scene tape around landmark banks and Wall Street institutions. And there is the expected Moore grandstanding as he attempts to make citizen arrests of bank CEOs, not getting past the sometimes amused security guards at the main entrance. By now, everybody sees him coming and knows who he is.

Moore said he considered himself a proxy for the “millions of Americans who would like to be placing crime scene tape around Wall Street.”

The filmmaker is optimistic that unimagined change can occur, citing the surprising fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and Nelson MandelaNelson Mandela’s election as the president of South Africa after 27 years in prison for his anti-apartheid activism.

“There are many things that have happened in the last 20 years that are just utterly surprising, so that I now believe anything can happen. People can revolt in good ways.”

Moore said his film on the healthcare system, Sicko, helped spark “a national debate about why we are the only Western industrialized country that does not have universal healthcare.”

While Capitalism has a strong political message, Moore said his main purpose is to entertain with a movie that “makes you laugh a little, or cry, or think. I am happy with all those results.”

But he acknowledges that his mass appeal allows him to reach even non-believers, a luxury enjoyed by few on the left.

“I am going to use that position to try to communicate not just to the church of the left but to the average, everyday American who wants to go see a good movie, and maybe gets something out of it at the same time.”

Capitalism: A Love Story is competing for the Golden Lion, which will be awarded on September 12.