NEW YORK – Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, an Oscar nominee whose most well-known work criticized American meals and diets and who notably ate solely at McDonald's for a month as an instance the risks of a fast-food weight-reduction plan, has died. He was 53 years previous.
Spurlock died Thursday in New York from problems of most cancers, in accordance with an announcement issued Friday by his household.
“It was a tragic day as we mentioned goodbye to my brother Morgan,” Craig Spurlock, who labored with him on a number of initiatives, mentioned within the assertion. “Morgan gave a lot by way of his artwork, concepts and generosity. The world has misplaced a real inventive genius and a particular man. “I’m very proud to have labored alongside him.”
Spurlock made a splash in 2004 along with his groundbreaking movie. Tremendous Measurement Me, which was nominated for an Academy Award. The movie chronicles the detrimental bodily and psychological results of Spurlock consuming solely McDonald's meals for 30 days. She gained about 25 kilos, noticed a rise in her ldl cholesterol and misplaced her sexual want.
He returned in 2019 with Tremendous Measurement Me 2: Holy shit! – a sober have a look at an trade that processes 9 billion animals a yr in the USA.
“We're in an unbelievable second in historical past from a shopper standpoint, the place shoppers are beginning to have increasingly energy,” he instructed The Related Press in 2019. “It's not about shareholder returns. “It’s about returns for shoppers.”
Spurlock was a gonzo filmmaker who leaned towards the unusual and ridiculous. His stylistic touches included quick graphics and enjoyable music, combining a Michael Moore-style in-your-face digital camera fashion along with his personal humorousness and pathos.
“He wished to have the ability to help me in critical moments. I wished to have the ability to breathe in moments of lightness. “We need to provide you with permission to snort within the locations the place it's actually laborious to snort,” she instructed the AP.
After he uncovered the quick meals and rooster industries, there was an explosion in eating places that emphasised freshness, artisanal strategies, farm-to-table goodness, and ethically sourced components. However nutritionally it hadn't modified a lot.
“There's been an enormous change and other people ask me, 'So meals has gotten more healthy?' And I say, 'Properly, advertising and marketing has,'” she mentioned.
Not all of his work was about meals. Spurlock made documentaries in regards to the boy band One Route and the geeks and followers of Comedian-Con. Considered one of his movies checked out life behind bars on the Henrico County Jail in Virginia.
In POM Fantastic Presents: the very best film ever offered, Spurlock addressed problems with product placement, advertising and marketing, and promoting. With The place on the planet is Osama bin Laden? Spurlock embarks on a world search to search out the chief of Al Qaeda.
Tremendous Measurement Me 2: Holy shit! It was set to premiere on the Sundance Movie Competition in 2017, however was shelved on the top of the #MeToo motion when Spurlock got here ahead to element his personal historical past of sexual misconduct.
He confessed that he had been accused of rape whereas in school and that he had settled a sexual harassment case with an assistant. He additionally admitted to dishonest on quite a few companions. “I’m a part of the issue,” he wrote.
“For me, there was a second the place I spotted, as somebody who tells the reality and somebody who has put within the effort to attempt to do the best factor, to acknowledge that I might do higher in my very own life. We must always be capable of admit that we had been flawed,” he instructed the AP.
Spurlock grew up in a small city in West Virginia. His mom was an English instructor and he or she remembered that he would appropriate her work with a crimson pen.
He’s survived by two kids: Laken and Kallen; his mom Phyllis Spurlock; father Ben; brothers Craig and Barry; and ex-wives Alexandra Jamieson and Sara Bernstein, the moms of his kids.
By MARK KENNEDY Related Press