Posted on 06/25/2004 11:37:33 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
When Lion's Gate Films went before the ratings board this week to appeal the R given Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's hotly debated documentary about the Iraq war, the studio made an unusual argument.
Moore would not delete one profane utterance or disturbing image to appease the board. Nevertheless, president Tom Ortenberg argued unsuccessfully, the rating should be changed to the less restrictive PG-13 because the film is important and deserves to be widely seen.
"We need more public debate of the issues facing us today, not less debate," he said. "The 15- and 16-year-olds who are going to be asked to fight in the next war need to be allowed a chance to see what this war is like."
If that sounds more like a political argument than an artistic one, it's in keeping with the film's spirit. The scathing attack on President Bush is being released with all the trappings of a campaign event.
Ronald Reagan once joked about the thin line between politics and entertainment. This year, in the nation's movie theaters, the line has been obliterated. A wide array of politically tinged films is joining summer's traditionally escapist fare.
Some were made with the clear intent of influencing debate, if not the presidential election. It remains to be seen if movies can sway voters, but either way, film is emerging as an important voice of liberal politics, just as talk radio became a medium of conservative political expression in the 1980s and '90s.
Robert J. Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, says this is a far-reaching and culturally significant development: "The other side of the argument seems to have finally found its medium."
Fahrenheit 9/11 is the most prominent example. Never before has such a nakedly political movie been released this close to an election. Sight unseen, it has inflamed passions.
The California-based Move America Forward lobbied theaters not to show it. Moore hired former Bill Clinton political advisers Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani to set up a "war room" to counter attacks on the movie's accuracy.
Although Ortenberg said Fahrenheit 9/11 opened yesterday on 868 screens -- the most ever for a documentary -- Sal Russo, a Republican political consultant, maintained that the Move America Forward effort was successful.
"We've increased awareness that the film is neither a documentary or entertainment but only an effort by Moore, as he says, to help to defeat President Bush, even if it's at the cost of our war effort against terrorism," said Russo.
Both sides are using election-style campaign tools, including the Internet, talk radio and cable news shows.
MoveOn, a liberal, Internet-based advocacy group, is urging members to pack theaters this weekend and to hand out leaflets. The group will attempt to mobilize moviegoers by inviting them to house parties across the country on Monday. Moore will address the gatherings -- which MoveOn estimates at 1,000 -- and answer questions via a conference call. 'The Hunting of the President' premiere, June 16, New York
Lion's Gate hired Mario Cuomo, the former New York governor, to help appeal the R rating and to promote the movie on shows such as CNBC's Hardball. Cuomo helped craft the studio's statement and would've delivered it, had the ratings board not banned him from the hearing.
Before Fahrenheit 9/11, the year's biggest political movie was The Day After Tomorrow, a disaster epic about global warming that got more ink on op-ed pages than on entertainment pages. It featured a president and vice president who seemed based on Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Coming up are the documentaries The Hunting of the President -- about the "vast right-wing conspiracy" to damage Bill Clinton -- and Bush's Brain, a critical appraisal of political adviser Karl Rove.
Next month, Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep will star in Jonathan Demme's remake of The Manchurian Candidate, a political thriller whose updated plot involves the first Gulf War. Filmmaker John Sayles' new Silver City offers an unflattering portrait of a Republican gubernatorial candidate who resembles Bush. It's scheduled for September release. Sayles told ABC news he wrote the script in two weeks because it was important to rush the film into theaters before the election, "just to get into the conversation at the right time."
One of the few political movies with a conservative bent, a low-budget documentary titled Michael Moore Hates America, doesn't yet have a distributor. First-time Minneapolis filmmaker Mike Wilson turns the tables on Moore, needling the firebrand director and subjecting him to the same critical treatment Moore has given to corporate and political targets.
"The movie theater is a terrific place for public discussion and debate about the issues facing our country today," said Ortenberg, who welcomes the efforts of MoveOn and others on behalf of Fahrenheit 9/11.
Why is this happening now?
The explosion of political movies seems part of a larger phenomenon. Perhaps not since the 1960s has politics been so central to American life. Events such as the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton's subsequent impeachment, the controversial 2000 presidential election and the response to 9/11 have galvanized the public.
"Politics has become like an enormous miniseries, very much in the public eye," said Thompson.
Sales of political books have mushroomed. Political debate fills radio airwaves and is a mainstay of cable news. Political satire is flourishing. Statistics show that young people get less information from newspapers and television news programs than previous generations, but turn increasingly to liberal and conservative Web sites.
Advancing technology has a lot to do with the increased interest in politics.
"Twenty years ago, we only got a little dose of politics on television -- a half hour on the evening news," Thompson said. Now, the rise of cable television, talk radio and the Internet "allows so much more information about politics to be out there."
As the number and type of news sources grow and audiences become fragmented, the traditional goal of objectivity has been devalued. People increasingly seek their news from sources that match their ideology.
Fox, the top ranked cable news network, has a conservative slant. The Daily Show, Jon Stewart's satirical news program on Comedy Central, is popular among young liberals. Conservative and liberal Internet users turn to openly biased sites such as the Drudge Report, TomPaine.com and Buzzflash.com.
Moore's work is firmly in the trend of advocacy journalism. He is at the forefront of filmmakers changing the definition of documentary film. Though he is probably now the most influential documentarian, his work angers some more traditional directors. Pioneer Albert Maysles, for example, called Moore in a 1998 interview "the most evil man in the business. He targets people for his own purpose. His point of view is everything."
Russo, a leader of the effort last year to block the showing of a miniseries about Ronald Reagan on network television, maintains that Moore's point of view isn't the problem. Russo doesn't object to Farenheit because it attacks Bush, he said, but because it might undermine the war on terrorism.
"We're in a time in American history when we need national resolve," Russo said. "We just celebrated the anniversary of D-Day. Just as during World War II, even though there were dissenters, we had to muster national resolve to defeat fascism. Now we need national resolve to win the war on terrorism. That's pretty non-negotiable."
Thompson thinks factionalism -- the way liberals and conservatives tune each other out and listen only to opinions they agree with -- is potentially harmful.
"A truly informed person wants to listen to ideas he disagrees with," he said. "It would be a healthy thing for Rush Limbaugh's audience to go to Michael Moore's movie and for Michael Moore's audience to listen to Bill O'Reilly."
I guess campaign finance reform was just to stifle those damned Republicans.
Lord, this makes me so sick. No president has ever suffered the onslaught of lies, propaganda and outright attacks that Bush has. If he wins, it will be a miracle. Why don't the Pubbies stand up and fight? Do they WANT to lose?
Though bad,many,many,MANY other presidential campaigns were as dirty/nasty;the left against Nixon and Goldwater,in recent memory and those involving most of our FFs and onwards.
Since Hollywood is NOT a Conservative or GOP bastion,just WHAT,exactly,do you want the RNC/GOP to do to "fight back" ?
The dummies will think this is reality "TV."
Ignoring all all the other crap in this article; would Mr. Ortenberg have made the same argument for a right-wing equivalent to Moore's leftist diatribe?
The answer is "no".
The left's compulsive need to interject their politics into their non-political jobs is pseudo-intellectual masturbation and is just as appropriate to their professions as the physical act would be.
It's simply disgusting.
Life throw you some fun now and then!
And they need control of education.
Thanks for starting out right away with a personal insult, di__head.
There is always opposition, but never to this filthy, lying over-the-top orchestrated magnitude.
They are, you just don't hear much about it in the "news."
Politics aren't as bad as they used to be. If I recall correctly, it's this July 11 that will be the 200-year anniversary of Vice-President Burr shooting Alexander Hamilton dead in a duel over a couple nasty elections.
I've heard some of their quiet milquetoast objections. They were underwhelming.
I really don't know Scorcese's politics, so I just assume he's a liberal. But he spent a good deal of his own money to restore "El Cid" and they did a fabulous job.
He spoke before they screened it, about how wonderful the movie was, and how timeless the stars (who were both there) were.
This was before (obviously) the War on Terror (so defeating the Muslim horde wasn't particulary controversial yet) and before Heston went very public with his NRA affiliation.
Heston was the best that night. After Scorcese introduced him, he went up to the stage and thanked "Marty" for his devotion to the restoration of cinemas old gems. All class, he said that the restoration brought back the beauty of the film, but then said something along the lines of, "But there was one element to the film that needed no restoration in it's timeless beauty. I'm speaking, of course, of my lovely and ageless co-star, the forever-beautiful Sophia Loren." She said nothing, but just waved to the crowd like she was the Queen of England. I hate to admit, but she was around seventy years old, and she still looked pretty fine, in a old lady sorta way.
After a standing ovation, he sat right next to her and watched the whole film.
It was really cool to see.
Hamilton called that duel, and it was over a lifetime of enmity between them. Hamilton sucked BTW. Good riddance to him.
He looks like he's skimming for krill.
lol
There wasn't any radio or T.V. or movies, but broadsides and pamphlets and newspapers and rumor mills were just as effective and NASTY in the 18th century.You really need to go look into this.All manner of NASTY has always been been used,in political campaigns,from calling Jackson's wife a whore and him an adulterer,when THAT mattered, to lying about Cleveland having a bastard child,when THAT mattered,and on and on.
Don't talk about things you know little about and nobody will then correct you. :-)
Please, please, PLEASE go read some American history.
To compare anything written about what happened in Waco to the bald faced lies of Michael Moore is a joke.
Not to mention that I'm having a hard time remembering the awards you speak of for the Waco massacre documentaries that never saw the big screen?
Many of our founding fathers thought Hamilton was trying to set up a monarchy with himself as king.
If some wild-eyed nut thinks that's a good thing, then ... well ... to each his own.
Films like 'Fahrenheit 9/11' are turning movie theaters into propaganda centers as they were in 1930's Germany.
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