Morgan Spurlock is in town to talk about his new film with The Herald’s Stanley Woodman. Friday, April 4, 2008.
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Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is best known for his work that stung America’s food industry and only ate in restaurants. McDonald’s A month to illustrate the dangers of crash diets is dead. He is 53 years old.
Spurlock died Thursday in New York of complications from cancer, according to a statement released by his family on Friday.
“It is a sad day as we say goodbye to my brother Morgan,” Craig Spurlock, who worked with him on multiple projects, said in a statement. “Morgan gave so much through his art, ideas and generosity. The world has lost a true creative genius and a special man. I was proud to work with him.”
Spurlock made a splash in 2004 with his groundbreaking film Super Size Me, which was nominated for an Academy Award. The film chronicles the harmful physical and psychological effects of Spurlock’s 30 days of eating only McDonald’s food. He gained about 25 pounds, his cholesterol levels soared, and he lost his sex drive.
“Everything is bigger in America,” he says in the video. “We have the biggest cars, the biggest houses, the biggest companies, the biggest food, and lastly: the biggest people.”
In one scene, Spurlock shows children a photo of George Washington, but no one recognizes the founding father. But they knew the Wendy’s and McDonald’s mascots right away.
The film, which had a budget of $65,000 and grossed more than $22 million at the box office, preceded the release of Eric Schlosser’s influential film Fast Food Nation, which accused the industry of environmental abuses. Unfavorable and rife with labor issues.
Spurlock Return in 2017 and “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” — a sober look at the industry that handles 9 billion animals a year in the United States. He focused on two issues: chicken farmers trapped in a peculiar financial system and fast-food chains trying to deceive customers into thinking they are eating healthier.
“We’re at an amazing moment in history from a consumer perspective where consumers are starting to have more and more power,” he told The Associated Press in 2019. “It’s not shareholder returns, it’s consumers s return.
Spurlock is a gonzo filmmaker with a penchant for the strange and absurd. His style includes lively graphics and fun music, blending a Michael Moore-esque “on-camera” style with his own sense of humor and pathos.
On May 26, 2004, Morgan Spurlock was featured in the documentary “Super Size Me” where she ate only McDonald’s and Big Macs for 30 days.
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“I want to be able to immerse myself in the serious moments. I want to be able to breathe in the lighter moments. We want to allow you to laugh in places that are hard to laugh at,” he told The Associated Press.
After he exposed the fast food and chicken industries, there was a proliferation of restaurants emphasizing fresh, artisanal methods, farm-to-table quality and ethically sourced ingredients. But not much has changed nutritionally.
“There’s been a huge shift, and people say to me, ‘So food has become healthier?’ and I say, ‘Well, marketing does,'” he said.
Not all of his work is about food. Spurlock has made documentaries about the boy band One Direction and the geeks and fans at Comic-Con. One of his films follows prison life at Henrico County Jail in Virginia.
2008’s Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? Spurlock launched a global search for the al-Qaeda leader who was slain in 2011.
“I think realizing that is half the battle. Literally, it’s a great thing to always know when you’re being pitched,” Spurlock told The Associated Press at the time. “A lot of people don’t realize that. They can’t see the forest for the trees.”
“Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” The film was originally scheduled to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017, but was shelved at the height of the #MeToo movement, when Spurlock came forward to detail his sexual misconduct Behavioral history.
He admitted he was accused of rape while in college and settled with a female assistant. He also admitted to cheating on many of his partners. “I am part of the problem,” he wrote.
“For me, there was a moment where I realized — as a truth teller, as a person trying to do the right thing — that I could do better in my life. We should be able to admit We were wrong,” he told The Associated Press.
Spurlock grew up in Beckley, West Virginia. His mother was an English teacher, and he remembers her marking his homework with a red pen. In 1993, he graduated from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in film.
He is survived by two sons, Laken and Karen. his mother, Phyllis Spurlock; father, Ben; brothers Craig and Barry; and his former spouses, Alexandra Jamieson and Sara Bernstein, They were the mothers of his children.
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