American director Morgan Spurlock, who rose to fame in 2004 with Super Size Me, a documentary about McDonald’s, died of complications from cancer, his family announced on Friday May 24 in a press release. He was 53 years old.
“It’s a sad day, when we said goodbye to my brother Morgan. The world has lost a true creative genius and a special man. I’m proud to have had the opportunity to work with him,” said his brother Craig Spurlock, who worked on several of his projects.
Director, screenwriter and actor, Mr. Spurlock, born in West Virginia in 1970, began his career in cinema in 1994 as a production assistant on the set of the film Léon, directed by Luc Besson, with Jean Reno, Gary Oldman and Natalie Portman in the lead roles.
His career really took off with the production of his documentary Super Size Me, in which he depicted himself exclusively consuming, for thirty days, the widest menu offered by McDonald’s, morning, noon and evening, all while limiting himself to 5,000 steps a day, the average for a New York resident, and he was measuring the effects of such a diet on his body.
At the end of his experiment, Morgan Spurlock, then aged 32, had gained more than ten kilos, seen his cholesterol soar, his liver deteriorate due to excess fat and was subject to sexual problems .
Part of the film’s conclusions called into question
The film, nominated for an Oscar in the “best documentary” category, fueled 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.
In 2007, however, a Swedish university carried out a similar experiment, with a group of students having to eat only fast food, not exclusively from McDonald’s, for a month. While the students gained between 5% and 15% extra weight and felt “tired and bloated,” none developed the symptoms Morgan Spurlock described at the end of his documentary. Part of the film’s conclusions were also called into question in 2017, after Mr. Spurlock admitted “drinking regularly since the age of 13. I have never been sober for more than a week in thirty years. »
He will direct a total of around fifteen documentaries, almost systematically putting himself on stage, including Osama, ou sont-tu? in 2008, in which he traveled the world in search of the former leader of Al-Qaeda.
His last film, Super Size Me 2, made in 2017, focused on the business strategies of junk food giants to present their products in a better light.