Posted on 06/23/2004 12:52:28 PM PDT by NYC Republican
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Michael Moore's controversial "Fahrenheit 9/11" arrives today in a blaze of hype and glory.
This diatribe against the Bush family, and especially against George W's handling of America's response to 9/11, is powerful enough to turn the stomach, if not a few votes in the upcoming presidential election - particularly on college campuses where the movie's questioning of authority and mocking tone are like mother's milk.
The movie is unabashedly political, yet it is entertaining enough to possibly become the top-grossing documentary in history. The thing is, it's not really a documentary.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" is more reasonably seen as a filmic personal essay, drawing on all the things that make Moore both successful and infuriating - fun, provocative, messy, ingenious and slippery.
The movie is mostly an indictment of the Bush family's financial ties to the Saudis and the Bin Laden family. This complicated tangle of relationships - money and glad-handing, Moore argues - clouded the administration's judgment in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
By following the money trail, Moore makes a damning case for, at the very least, conflict of interest, and at worst, transgressions against the American people.
I was in tears after first seeing "Fahrenheit" at Cannes (the final version has been slightly tweaked since then). The images were powerful - a maimed Iraqi baby, a Michigan mother grieving for her dead soldier son before a cordoned-off White House.
My tears do not mean the movie is perfect. Moore goes off on tangents and takes cheap shots that could turn off even the people who side with him. Those shots may be okay for a popcorn movie, but they don't build a solid case. If Moore's intent truly is to unseat a government, he'll need more facts and footnotes, not just clips of Bush mangling the language and looking like a buffoon.
Statistics fly without attribution or substantiation - that the Bushes have accepted more than a billion dollars from the Saudis, that Saudi Arabia owns a hefty slice of America and receives unusual government perks as a result.
There is also a lack of context, particularly with footage somehow obtained from Iraq. An inert Iraqi detainee is shown being touched inappropriately and ridiculed by U.S. soldiers. Was the detainee beaten? Dead? (Turns out, Moore told a press conference, the detainee was merely drunk.)
Moore doesn't always fight fair - but he does fight funny, including a hilarious roll call of the Coalition of the Willing, those nations who pledged us their support. Amidst the fun, a higher truth emerges, one that is enraging, even if it's old news - little people are the ones who pay the price for the war in Iraq and the limits on personal freedoms under the Patriot Act. Meanwhile, the rich get richer, and the powerful even more so.
There is less of Moore on camera than in "Bowling for Columbine" and "Roger and Me," but he still can't resist guerrilla-style humor. In one effective stunt, he asks congressmen on the street to enlist their own children in the military to show support for a war that is killing so many other people's kids. Naturally, they decline.
The most devastating footage speaks for itself (even though Moore narrates over it).
Moore obtained the full reel of President Bush sitting for nearly seven long minutes in that Florida schoolroom chair after learning that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center. While everyone else in the world was rushing to a TV set or collapsing in grief, Bush continued to read "My Pet Goat."
That footage sums up the message of "Fahrenheit 9/11." The information here isn't necessarily new, but it is packaged in an acid-tongued way along with powerhouse visuals that drive home the filmmaker's nakedly political views. ________________________________________________________
Moore Does Less With Facts When I read in Lloyd Grove's column in The News last week about an encounter between Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly in the lobby of the Ziegfeld Theater, I thought wouldn't it have been great if they'd put the gloves on and settled everything right there. They're two big guys, possibly the meanest and loudest voices of the political left and right, respectively. Let 'em punch it out and may the best man win.
But, wait.
There is no best man. Moore, the Sparkplug of Flint, and O'Reilly, the Factor Flash, are both ideological thugs who play loose with the facts while fostering hatred in an increasingly polarized country. We need to give them less attention, not more.
I don't want to raise or lower the temperature on the debate over Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." I consider the movie to be neither the Kerry campaign pamphlet Bush supporters wish to label it, nor the courageous burst of singular outrage that Moore would have us believe it is.
Like his earlier essays on corporate greed and America's gun culture, "F 9/11" is a personal rant embellished with a mix of verifiable facts and eye-popping conclusions, seasoned with sarcasm and ridicule, heavily skewed with selective sources, and dressed out as a kind of feature-length editorial cartoon.
For a movie critic who shares Moore's political views but disdains his style, "F 9/11" presents a dilemma. Anything that helps convince people to vote against George Bush is good, but anything that flatters the pompous filmmaker is bad.
I was the movie editor at the Los Angeles Times when Moore arrived there with "Roger & Me" in 1989, and his Mr. Smith Goes to Hollywood act was fun for about 10 minutes, until it was clear how cannily manipulative he was of the press.
No sooner had "Roger & Me" caught the fancy of the country than Film Comment revealed how cannily manipulative Moore had also been with the facts, events and time references within the film - deceptive enough for the late Pauline Kael to denounce him as having broken faith with the audience. Moore and his many supporters brushed that criticism aside as nitpicking, as they would again when Moore was caught being maliciously creative in "Bowling for Columbine."
The transgression that stuck in most people's craws was his spectacularly boorish behavior with actor Charlton Heston, the celebrity head of the National Rifle Association. Moore wheedled his way into Heston's home for an interview, then demanded that Heston apologize to the people of Flint for making an NRA appearance there shortly after the shooting death of a 6-year-old girl. While Heston retreated, Moore chased after him holding up a picture of the dead girl and yelling shame.
It was later revealed that Heston had made no such NRA appearance in Flint. He'd shown up there months after the shooting as part of a three-state Republican get-out-the-vote rally.
In the publicity run-up to the release of "F 9/11," Moore has been dazzlingly obnoxious. He spent much of May bad-mouthing America to the delighted French and telling anyone who would listen that the American press could learn a little about hardnosed journalism from him (God help us).
Proving he still knows how to manipulate the media, he hoodwinked even The New York Times editorial page into accusing the Walt Disney Co. of censorship, after Michael Eisner refused to allow his Miramax division to release "F 9/11" - something Moore knew he was going to do a year earlier!
Moore is obviously aware of his credibility and image problems. To address the latter, he kept his own appearances in the new film to a blessed minimum. To address the former, he has hired a stable of fact checkers to counter any charges of breaking the faith, plus a trio of lawyers to sue anyone who dares libel him.
He has already been caught in one whopper of a factual error. He says in the film that members of the Bin Laden family were flown out of the country while airports were grounded in the aftermath of 9/11 and that they were not interviewed by the FBI. Wrong on both counts.
"I don't want to get lost in the forest because of a single tree," Moore said, when asked about this by a New York Times reporter.
I think that's two trees. But who's counting?
I walked into the bonus room in time to see the second plane hit the WTC.
I stood there for the next 12 hours.
You didn't answer the question: what would you have done?
You are a complete dolt; the entire time YOU were counting, I was doing something -- namely finding articles to prove you're wrong.
The world didn't stand still, bucko.
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Was that his only alternative?
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he felt it was "important to project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening."
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How was sitting there going to give him a better understanding?
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I'm not pleased with the seven minutes wait under those circumstances. That doesn't make me a Moore cheerleader in spite of how some yahoos here want to twist it. Those long minutes give the left irresistable ammo and they are using it. What's wrong with pointing that out?
He was gathering his thoughts, with full knowledge that his staff was taking care of the things that needed to be taken care of -- while he mentally decided how HE, as our LEADER, should handle it.
It appears to me that YOU are the one using them as ammo, even after numerous discussions of what exactly was going on.
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I wasn't counting. That was someone else posting but I'm sure you knew that.
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The world didn't stand still, bucko
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Not on the 11th either. Thank you for making my point.
Irresistable ammo? More like idiotic ammo that you drink down like Jonestown Kool-Aid.
By the way all knowing omnipotent one, what would you have done?
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On that day, at that time I spent the first seven minutes on the phone with my son listening to him describe the bodies falling out of number One and landing fifty yardfs away. That is until number two was hit and he dropped his phone and ran. Then I tried to get hold of my wife who was also down there. Then I called my family members trying to find out about my brothers who were also there. Then I called my sister to make sure that she knew to get over to our mother's and comfort her. I did not sit on my hands or stare out the window for twelve hours. And within 26 hours after the first impact I was in there myself digging.
Unless your point was that everything that could be done was being done, your point is pointless.
Well, then, it's a good thing you weren't the president that day, isn't it, since all YOU were interested in the the first minutes was finding out if your family was okay.
Well, he just told us; he spent the first hour, at the least, calling around to see if his family was okay.
If he had been president, we'd be seeing a film by Michael Moore about WTC on the PHONE all day long.
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Considering four of them were there I'd say my priorities were pretty much in order.
And I surmise you like moore blame Bush and not the terrorists.
And George Bush had 283,000,000 people just like you to think about.
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Have the courtesy to address the one whom you wish to insult.
If either of you two brainiacs have a problem with me taking care of my family you can kiss my royal Irish a**.
Are either of you two men? Healthy? Got a car? What did you do to help? I worked with guys who drove non-stop from as far away as Alabama and Oklahoma to dig. They made it in. Where were you? Did you even try? Or did you sit on the couch one hand on the remote the other in your shorts...swing away cupcakes. I'm done with you.
I directed every word of that to you in the post right above it.
I see; it's fine for you to trash George W. Bush's actions when you have NO idea what was really going on, but once YOU get challenged it's a completely different story.
Are either of you two men? Healthy? Got a car? What did you do to help? I worked with guys who drove non-stop from as far away as Alabama and Oklahoma to dig. They made it in. Where were you? Did you even try? Or did you sit on the couch one hand on the remote the other in your shorts...swing away cupcakes. I'm done with you.
What was your hero michael moore doing. Just my opinion he was saying hooray!
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