Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, an Oscar nominee whose most renowned will work skewered America’s foods industry and who notably ate only at McDonald’s for a month to illustrate the risks of a rapid-meals diet program, has died. He was 53.
Spurlock died Thursday in New York from complications of cancer, in accordance to a statement issued Friday by his relatives.
“It was a sad day, as we explained goodbye to my brother Morgan,” Craig Spurlock, who labored with him on several projects, reported in the statement. “Morgan gave so substantially through his artwork, tips, and generosity. The earth has missing a true resourceful genius and a distinctive male. I am so proud to have worked collectively with him.”
Spurlock created a splash in 2004 with his groundbreaking film “Super Dimension Me,” which was nominated for an Academy Award. The movie chronicled the harmful bodily and psychological consequences of Spurlock ingesting only McDonald’s foods for 30 times. He attained about 25 lbs, noticed a spike in his cholesterol and misplaced his sexual intercourse travel.
“Everything’s more substantial in The usa,” he explained in the film. “We’ve received the most important cars and trucks, the most significant properties, the major providers, the greatest foodstuff, and lastly: the greatest individuals.”
In a person scene, Spurlock showed young ones a picture of George Washington and none acknowledged the Founding Father. But they all quickly understood the mascots for Wendy’s and McDonald’s.
The film grossed much more than $22 million on a $65,000 spending plan and preceded the launch of Eric Schlosser’s influential “Fast Food items Country,” which accused the industry of becoming terrible for the atmosphere and rife with labor challenges.
Spurlock returned in 2017 with “Super Dimensions Me 2: Holy Rooster!” — a sober seem at an market that procedures 9 billion animals a calendar year in America. He targeted on two issues: chicken farmers caught in a peculiar economic technique and the endeavor by speedy-food items chains to deceive prospects into pondering they are consuming more healthy.
“We’re at an amazing second in history from a client standpoint wherever consumers are starting to have much more and additional electric power,” he told The Associated Push in 2019. “It’s not about return for the shareholders. It’s about return for the buyers.”
Spurlock was a gonzo-like filmmaker who leaned into the weird and ridiculous. His stylistic touches included zippy graphics and amusing songs, blending a Michael Moore-ish camera-in-your-experience model with his possess sense of humor and pathos.
“I needed to be capable to lean into the serious times. I required to be capable to breathe in the times of levity. We want to give you permission to chuckle in the locations where by it’s seriously tough to snicker,” he told the AP.
Soon after he exposed the fast-foods and hen industries, there was an explosion in eating places stressing freshness, artisanal procedures, farm-to-table goodness and ethically sourced substances. But nutritionally not much had modified.
“There has been this large shift and persons say to me, ‘So has the food items gotten more healthy?’ And I say, ‘Well, the advertising confident has,’” he stated.
Not all his do the job dealt with meals. Spurlock built documentaries about the boy band Just one Direction and the geeks and fanboys at Comic-Con. 1 of his movies appeared at existence behind bars at the Henrico County Jail in Virginia.
With 2008’s “Where in the Globe is Osama bin Laden?” Spurlock went on a global search to obtain the al-Qaida leader, who was killed in 2011. In “POM Superb Offers: The Greatest Movie At any time Sold,” Spurlock tackled concerns of solution placement, advertising and marketing and promotion.
“Being conscious is 50 percent the battle, I assume. Literally being aware of all the time when you are getting promoted to is a fantastic thing,” Spurlock told AP at the time. “A whole lot of persons really don’t realize it. They just can’t see the forest for the trees.”
“Super Sizing Me 2: Holy Chicken!” was to premiere at the Sundance Movie Festival in 2017 but it was shelved at the top of the #MeToo movement when Spurlock came forward to element his own history of sexual misconduct.
He confessed that he experienced been accused of rape though in higher education and had settled a sexual harassment circumstance with a woman assistant. He also admitted to dishonest on quite a few companions. “I am element of the problem,” he wrote.
“For me, there was a second of variety of realization — as anyone who is a truth of the matter-teller and someone who has created it a stage of attempting to do what’s appropriate — of recognizing that I could do much better in my possess lifetime. We should really be equipped to confess we had been incorrect,” he instructed the AP.
Spurlock grew up in Beckley, West Virginia. His mom was an English trainer who he remembered would accurate his do the job with a red pen. He graduated with a BFA in movie from New York College in 1993.
He is survived by two sons — Laken and Kallen his mom Phyllis Spurlock father Ben brothers Craig and Barry and former spouses Alexandra Jamieson and Sara Bernstein, the mothers of his little ones.
