Moore is, despite, his seclusion, a witty, charming, and remarkably clear speaker. Most of the movie, is Moore discussing his belief and ideas concerning Magic, Human Evolution, Spirituality, and the role of the artist in society.
Magic is often called "the art", and Moore takes this literally, Magic Gramoire is a simple way of saying "grammar", and the casting of spells, is simply to "spell", and by manipulating symbols and language(writing) produce a change in consciousness of the audience. Moore feels "advertisers" are the modern keepers of this symbolic magical language, a perversion he feels, which keeps us attached only to materialism and the psychical limitations of our environments.
The most interesting part of the film is the end, where Moore talks about "Information Doubling" theory, where according to him sometime around 2015, human information, will be doubling every half second. Where literally every second, humanity as a whole, will be learning more in a single moment, than it has in it's entire history, at which point human culture goes from fluid, to boiling, to steam. This is Moore's "apocalypse", which though traumatic sounding, he explains from the dictionary, simply means "revelation".
Moore comes from North Hampton, which he calls "so inbreed the dogs have the same cleft lip as everyone else in the family". We see the cold industrial city built out of the Ruins of a castle, and it's juxtaposed to the brightly colored American comic books, which served as an escape from the bleak "material" world Moore found himself in as a boy(though if you were to read his novel "The Voice Of The Fire", he would argue, all of human history can be traced in some way to his hometown). That's the contradiction of Moore in general though, or at least the one he sees in the world, alternating between magical almost Utopian romanticism and cynical, world weary, fatalism.
If you have no idea, who or what an Alan Moore is, it's a good documentary, which explores his ideas and beliefs in detail (if it skirts his personal life), which some very at times moody and others psychedelic cinematography and juxtaposition of images. Moore is one of my favorite writers, so personally I can enjoy just listening to him talk, but all and all, the film itself, just isn't as good as it's subject. Still I'm glad I watched it, and would recommend to anyone who could find a copy, especially if you like writing or art. A little disappointed with the form here, but non the less, inspired by the content. ...and more conflicted about wanting to see the up-comming "The Watchmen" film, than ever before...
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