Michael Bay, in many ways, is the definition of an American filmmaker.
When revisiting Michael Bay’s Armageddon in 2021, there is no shortage of memorable moments that jump to mind. There is the introduction of Bruce Willis’ blue-collar hero Harry Stamper, wherein Harry and his tough-guy driller pals taunt Greenpeace protesters by chipping golf balls at them from an oil rig.
Now, let us clear up a misconception right out of the gate: in spite of the accusations of regressive cultural attitudes that have sometimes rightfully been lobbed at Mr. Bay’s movies , saying that Michael Bay is an American filmmaker is not the same as saying he is a conservative filmmaker. This is not to suggest that the guy who made 6 Underground is some bleeding-heart liberal – far from it.
In almost every Michael Bay film, the fate of a nation, or sometimes even the world itself, hangs in the balance. This is not a filmmaker interested in stories wherein recognizably human people sit in apartments or cafés and talk about their problems. Bay’s scope is much more global than that. The exception to this rule might be something like the auteur’s divisive 2013 black comedy Pain & Gain.
This is not to suggest that the director isn’t gaga, punch-drunk in love with the idea of America. You see it in the widely-maligned Pearl Harbor: a kind of starry-eyed, morally uncomplicated vision of an apple-pie America that once was. You even see it in a comparatively straightforward thriller exercise like The Rock: these are movies where it’s cool to be a patriot, which is considered unfashionable or even problematic in today’s political climate .
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