Michael Moore's latest incendiary device, Fahrenheit 9/11, is a rant against the Bush administration. It also is a fine piece of filmmaking.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published June 24, 2004
[Photo: Lions Gate Films]
During the filming of Fahrenheit 9/11, director Michael Moore, right, spent one day on Capitol Hill approaching members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., and asking if they’ll be sending their children to fight in Iraq.
[Getty Image ]
Writer/director Michael Moore arrives to the special Screening of "Fahrenheit 9/11" June 14, 2004 in New York City.
For the sake of argument, let's agree that Michael Moore is a pain in the neck, or any other anatomical region you wish to reference. There's no question that Moore is also an American with the inalienable right to cause such discomfort in whatever place for whomever he chooses. Love him or hate him, but that's why you feel one way or the other.
In a symbolic sense, Fahrenheit 9/11 is Moore's way of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, or several hundred theaters that he hopes will be crowded this weekend when this frontal assault on President George W. Bush debuts.
Some viewers will smell smoke while others will want him arrested for disturbing the peace, as if peace is measured by remaining silent while questionable politics are going on.
Make no mistake: Fahrenheit 9/11 is polemics disguised as documentary filmmaking, a rant against the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror, war in Iraq and perhaps a few sorties on American ethics and principles. Moore doesn't like the guy but, unlike about half of U.S. voters, he can put his finger on exactly what about W. troubles him.
Not that this information hasn't been available before. Anyone expecting to hear revelations about the Bush administration in Fahrenheit 9/11 will be disappointed. New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, who covered the 9/11 commission meetings for a year, recently wrote: "It seems safe to say that central assertions of fact in Fahrenheit 9/11 are supported by the public record."
What Moore does so well, however, is assimilate news stories that were spun away or overshadowed into a crudely cinematic flow chart. You don't have to believe it in order to admire it. He may indulge in bits of trickery himself, piling on so much information so briskly that viewers can't cross-examine his methods. Anyone who suits his conspiracy theories can be left defenseless by shrewd editing. Only those who agree are allowed to speak since they know what he's doing, making a movie to make a president look bad in an election year.
Then there are those moments when Bush and all the president's men (and Condoleezza Rice) don't require Moore's help to look bad. Moments that are at best disingenuous double-speak and at worst outright lies. The editing by Kurt Engfehr and T. Woody Richman - plus an unbilled Moore, of course - makes those gaffes and scripted takes more obvious, stripped of the verbal camouflage.
Mainly it's those moments when President Bush isn't shown to be presidential. The preview trailers showcase a clip of the president issuing a worldwide call to stop terrorist attacks, sounding like a leader. Then he says: "Now watch this drive," and we see his ensuing golf swing. Such awkward statesmanship, plus his deer-in-the-headlights stare at crucial moments, will likely influence as many voters as Moore's rhetoric.
The film immediately contends the Republicans stole the 2000 election, yet offers the first sense that Moore is a bipartisan gadfly. We see then-Vice President Al Gore overseeing congressional approval of Electoral College results while several African-American U.S. representatives raise official protests, claiming black voters in their states were disenfranchised. The protests fail because not one U.S. senator would sign the petition, including several dozen Democrats. Later, Moore takes swipes at Democratic leaders who backed what he considers a needless war in Iraq.
The political material is so fascinating that Fahrenheit 9/11 falters a bit when Moore takes a more personal approach. The strategy worked in Bowling for Columbine, The Big One and Roger & Me because those films were about common folks. Here, the grief of a mother whose son was killed in combat is a sentimental touch the movie doesn't need. Or maybe Moore is smart enough to think it does.
Moviegoers like elemental emotion. Certainly more people step up to box offices than voting booths, so mainstream viewers drawn to theaters by the controversy around Fahrenheit 9/11 may need some melodrama to stay interested. They may even be those undecided voters who will probably swing this year's presidential election.
This isn't Moore's funniest film. But it contains a few trademark Moore stunts (asking congressmen to offer their children for military service) and faintly absurd earnestness, like U.S. Marine recruiters cruising for enlistees at a shopping center. Musical cues provide the best jokes, as obvious as the Go-Go's' Vacation when the president repeatedly takes time off, or a swatch of Cocaine when detailing a National Guard buddy of Bush's who became a go-between for Bush oil companies and Saudi Arabian investors.
There's so much to digest in Fahrenheit 9/11 that multiple viewings are necessary to glean every assertion and filter them for truth. Moore's slant is obvious, but his evidence should be questioned by anyone of any political bent.
If nothing else, he makes a compelling case for making ourselves wiser about where our leadership is taking us. If only one of his accusations is true - and they're splattered like blood all over Fahrenheit 9/11 - then voters have a patriotic duty to look beyond the campaign ads before Nov. 2.
