Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock died Thursday of cancer.
Aged 53, he is notably the author of the hit film about junk food “Super Size Me”.
During this feature film, he lived for a month solely on food sold by McDonald’s.
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A figure of American documentary has passed away. Morgan Spurlock, director of the famous film “Super Size Me”, died Thursday at the age of 53, his family announced this Friday in a press release. He was suffering from cancer. “It’s a sad day, when we said goodbye to Morgan, reacted his brother Craig, who had participated in several of his projects. The world has lost a true creative genius and a special man. I am proud to have had the opportunity to work with him.“The screenwriter and producer of The Simpsons, Al Jean, for his part paid tribute to the memory of a”talented, fun and brilliant man“.
A worldwide success in 2004
Morgan Sporluck really became known during the making of his documentary on junk food, “Super Size Me”, in 2004. At the time, he challenged himself to eat every day for a month within the McDonald’s fast food chain. For 30 days, he put himself on display by ordering morning, noon and evening a “super size” menu, the most copious offered in these fast restaurants. An experiment carried out while limiting physical expenditure to 5,000 daily steps, the average of a New York resident. The objective? Measure the effects on the body of such a diet.
Nominated for an Oscar for this film, Morgan Spurlock helped fuel the debate on the harmful effects of the fast-food industry on public health, particularly at a time when the United States was facing an increase in cases of ‘obesity. The multinational also ended up abandoning its “super size” formula some time later. It must be said that at the end of his experience, Morgan Spurlock’s state of health had particularly deteriorated. In addition to his 11 extra kilograms, the documentary maker said he saw his cholesterol levels soar, his liver deteriorate due to excess fat and was subject to sexual problems.
Work called into question on “Super Size Me”
Without ever experiencing such success, Morgan Spurlock subsequently distinguished himself with daring documentaries on very different subjects. In 2008, he became interested in the question of war with “Where is Osama Bin Laden?”. Three years later, he made a film on the success story of the animated series “The Simpsons”, before focusing in 2013 on the madness sparked by the boy band One Direction. His last film, Super Size Me 2, focused on the marketing of big brands to make people buy products that are increasingly less healthy.
However, his work on his flagship film has been called into question several times in the past. In 2017, he admitted “drinking regularly since age 13“and never have”been sober for more than a week in 30 years“, suggesting that such a healthy lifestyle could have had an influence on the results of his experiment.
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The same year, his career also came to an abrupt end after the publication of a letter on the networks in the wake of the #MeToo movement, in which he acknowledged “be part of the problem“, admitting in particular to having paid in exchange for his silence a former assistant to whom he had harassed.
