kitty
06-29-2004, 12:19 PM
(still waiting to see this movie? don't want a *single* scene or argument spoiled for you? don't read this review. there are minor spoilers in it, including some discussion of Moore's basic arguments.)
Farenheit 9/11
It is my prediction that Farenheit 9/11 will represent an outlier in Michael Moore's directorial career. It is ironic therefore that, thus far, Farenheit 9/11 is also Moore's best. My secondary prediction is, of course, that the Academy won't give this film the Best Documentary Oscar next year, though if any film ever deserved it, this would be it.
Steeped in controversy, Moore's newest documentary takes a critical look at Bush's policies and record as president before, and mostly since, September 11, 2001, after the World Trade Center attacks. His primary focus, however, is the subsequent wars on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Unlike in previous documentaries, Roger&Me (a look at the big businesses that were sucking dry Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan) and Bowling for Columbine (a documentary that teases apart the complex issue of gun ownership and gun violence in the U.S.), Farenheit 9/11 is unusually sombre and devoid of Moore's trademark sarcasm, witticism, and humour, a tone that is far more appropriate given the seriousness of his subject matter. Roger&Me, and to a greater extent, Bowling for Columbine, were jam-packed with tongue-in-cheek 'stunts' (such as, in the latter film, when he took two Columbine survivors to the headquarters of K-mart to try and return the bullets in their bodies, or the climax of the film, with his confrontation of Charlton Heston) and self-styled narration. Arguably, however, these scenes represent the low-points of his documentaries. Though they do provide much needed levity and humour, Moore's rapid characterization as a rabid leftist taints the otherwise powerful arguments he is making; right-wing critics were quick to point out the 'Moore-isms' in his films and accuse him of misleading his audience. Fortunately, either as a response to critcisms like this of his previous work, or simply because Moore felt itwould be inappropriate in this film, most of these approaches are missing from Farenheit 9/11.
Now, the truth of documentaries is that they should never be passed off as blatant 'fact. Any analyst of mass media will be able to tell you that there is no media portrayal of pure truth -- instead, it is that any camera lens will bring about its own bias. Take for example the differences between event coverage in CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC -- all three major news networks cover the same daily events (give or take), but if one were to watch exclusively one channel over the others, one would get a far different picture of the world. Fox News is obviously a conservative network, and their support of Bush is mirrored by CNN and MSNBC's similar criticisms of this current administration -- and all of this commentary is evident not only in the editorial programs that bookend the 6 o'clock news, but also what news they choose to report, and how they couch the delivery of each headline.
Similarly, to argue that Moore is misleading his audience is to presuppose that other documentary filmmakers don't do the same thing -- which is of course ridiculous. Documentary directors, like directors of any film, set out to accomplish a singular goal, and though their subject matter is non-fiction in nature, there will always be a degree of 'misleading the audience' simply by editing the film and choosing what to shoot in order to create your argument. That being said, if Moore is to be accused of anything, it is simply that he doesn't pretend to be unbiased -- if you're going to a Michael Moore film, you know there will be some liberal propaganda aspect to the film, and Moore never denies this fact.
Farenheit 9/11 is, however, much more similar to conventional documentaries than Moore's previous, and Moore thankfully inserts himself into the film's narrative far less than before. Even in his interviews, which traditionally have featured Moore's voice or actually shown him on camera, are, in Farenheit 9/11, a straightforwrad point-and-shoot style with Moore off-camera and silent. Also, Moore employs a great deal of publicly accessible footage such as excerpts from medis outlets and broadcast news coverage, all of which culminates in a more 'objective' and ultimately powerful argument. Moore lets his footage speak for itself, and what he chooses to show is indeed powerful. It's hard to top watching the personal, emotional journey of a patriotic, Michigan woman, a firm believer in the power of the military and in Bush, who loses her first-born son to the war in Iraq. His choice of coverage of the actual 9/11 attack does, furthermore, not once shows the (now overplayed) footage of the second plane colliding with the towers, but instead, he chooses to show only bystander reactions, amidst a shower of stark white papers falling from the sky -- as if to couch his film not in the attacks themselves but their effects on America (as well as conveniently side-stepping the recent issue of using footage of the attack for personal gain, as with Bush's campaign ads). Similarly, Moore is able to evoke heartfelt and sincere feelings of empathy towards the troops and their families such that several people in the theatre I was in were moved to tears over the course of the film's 112 minute running time.
Although Dubya-ites will most likely find Moore's criticism of Bush hard to swallow (and be eager to point out the further 'inaccuracies' or 'misleading statistics' of this film), it's hard to argue with some of Moore's more undisputed facts, such as the amount of time Bush spent prior to 9/11 on vacation (a whopping 42% of his first 8 months in office) or that Bush spent the first 7 minutes after finding out about the second plane on 9/11 continuing to read 'My Pet Goat' to schoolchildren, as if nothing had happened (Moore has the entire seven minutes on tape). Furthermore, Moore is surprisingly critical of Gore and the Democratic party throughout his film, accusing them of being as complicit as the Bush Administration in such debacles as the 2000 election (in which disenfranchised black voters tried to file objections to the election results on the grounds that 1.6 million African Americans were denied the right to vote in Florida), the Patriot Act, and in the War in Iraq, primarily because the Democratic Party did nothing to fight the Bush Administration after the 2000 election defeat. The weakness of Moore's film is when he tries too hard to establish ties between the Bush family and Saudi oil money, and ultimately the Bin Laden family and Osama, himself, in an attempt to suggest that Bush's decisions in office were skewed towards appeasing the Saudi Arabian government and his friends in American Big Business. It's a good point, but probably too complicated for a 120 minute film that has other things to cover, and better footage to use, and Moore's rather circumstantial evidence doesn't really do the argument justice in the amount of time he allotted. Other scenes also seem misused and out of place, such as when Moore shows footage of soldiers describing the CDs they listen to when they are in a firefight in Iraq and Afghanistan seems to show the dehumanization of the Iraqi people by the U.S. military, without much argument on the soldiers' behalf of how this dehumanization is necessary for the soldiers to be effective.
Nevertheless, despite these rough spots in the film, what really won Farenheit 9/11 for me was the entire last half of the film which deals exclusively with troops and deployment overseas. Though his criticism of Bush doesn't let up, Moore brings to the audience the harsh reality of the wars overseas, showing real media footage of the civilian victims of American bombings, and interviewing friends and families of troops who were lost. Farenheit 9/11 is the first, and certainly most explicit and moving argument that I've heard since the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, in which left-wing activists have combatted the conservative accusations that being against the war on terror is to be against the U.S. troops and be unpatriotic. Moore, instead, argues that leftists are completely supportive of their troops precisely because they value their soldiers' lives and want them deployed only when the cause is just. To ask a soldier to give up his life for the sake of an unnecessary, poorly-thought-out, and overly aggressive war effort is to disrespect the oath that the soldiers have given to give their lives for this country. Basically, if they are to die for America, they should do it fighting the good fight.
The film is powerful and provocative, and leaves you, as most Moore films do, thinking about the issue, whether it is in his favour or not is really besides the point. Fundamentally, Moore's job is to stir up debate, and he does it splendidly with his newest documentary. While I'm sure this won't be a problem, it would be this reviewer's opinion that everyone, whether liberal or democrat, right-wing or left, or even just undecided about all this political flaptrap, go see Farenheit 9/11. The truth is that today's youth is still fairly apathetic about politics, and perhaps this film will help us all discover exactly how we feel about the state of the America Bush has left us in.
Farenheit 9/11
It is my prediction that Farenheit 9/11 will represent an outlier in Michael Moore's directorial career. It is ironic therefore that, thus far, Farenheit 9/11 is also Moore's best. My secondary prediction is, of course, that the Academy won't give this film the Best Documentary Oscar next year, though if any film ever deserved it, this would be it.
Steeped in controversy, Moore's newest documentary takes a critical look at Bush's policies and record as president before, and mostly since, September 11, 2001, after the World Trade Center attacks. His primary focus, however, is the subsequent wars on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Unlike in previous documentaries, Roger&Me (a look at the big businesses that were sucking dry Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan) and Bowling for Columbine (a documentary that teases apart the complex issue of gun ownership and gun violence in the U.S.), Farenheit 9/11 is unusually sombre and devoid of Moore's trademark sarcasm, witticism, and humour, a tone that is far more appropriate given the seriousness of his subject matter. Roger&Me, and to a greater extent, Bowling for Columbine, were jam-packed with tongue-in-cheek 'stunts' (such as, in the latter film, when he took two Columbine survivors to the headquarters of K-mart to try and return the bullets in their bodies, or the climax of the film, with his confrontation of Charlton Heston) and self-styled narration. Arguably, however, these scenes represent the low-points of his documentaries. Though they do provide much needed levity and humour, Moore's rapid characterization as a rabid leftist taints the otherwise powerful arguments he is making; right-wing critics were quick to point out the 'Moore-isms' in his films and accuse him of misleading his audience. Fortunately, either as a response to critcisms like this of his previous work, or simply because Moore felt itwould be inappropriate in this film, most of these approaches are missing from Farenheit 9/11.
Now, the truth of documentaries is that they should never be passed off as blatant 'fact. Any analyst of mass media will be able to tell you that there is no media portrayal of pure truth -- instead, it is that any camera lens will bring about its own bias. Take for example the differences between event coverage in CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC -- all three major news networks cover the same daily events (give or take), but if one were to watch exclusively one channel over the others, one would get a far different picture of the world. Fox News is obviously a conservative network, and their support of Bush is mirrored by CNN and MSNBC's similar criticisms of this current administration -- and all of this commentary is evident not only in the editorial programs that bookend the 6 o'clock news, but also what news they choose to report, and how they couch the delivery of each headline.
Similarly, to argue that Moore is misleading his audience is to presuppose that other documentary filmmakers don't do the same thing -- which is of course ridiculous. Documentary directors, like directors of any film, set out to accomplish a singular goal, and though their subject matter is non-fiction in nature, there will always be a degree of 'misleading the audience' simply by editing the film and choosing what to shoot in order to create your argument. That being said, if Moore is to be accused of anything, it is simply that he doesn't pretend to be unbiased -- if you're going to a Michael Moore film, you know there will be some liberal propaganda aspect to the film, and Moore never denies this fact.
Farenheit 9/11 is, however, much more similar to conventional documentaries than Moore's previous, and Moore thankfully inserts himself into the film's narrative far less than before. Even in his interviews, which traditionally have featured Moore's voice or actually shown him on camera, are, in Farenheit 9/11, a straightforwrad point-and-shoot style with Moore off-camera and silent. Also, Moore employs a great deal of publicly accessible footage such as excerpts from medis outlets and broadcast news coverage, all of which culminates in a more 'objective' and ultimately powerful argument. Moore lets his footage speak for itself, and what he chooses to show is indeed powerful. It's hard to top watching the personal, emotional journey of a patriotic, Michigan woman, a firm believer in the power of the military and in Bush, who loses her first-born son to the war in Iraq. His choice of coverage of the actual 9/11 attack does, furthermore, not once shows the (now overplayed) footage of the second plane colliding with the towers, but instead, he chooses to show only bystander reactions, amidst a shower of stark white papers falling from the sky -- as if to couch his film not in the attacks themselves but their effects on America (as well as conveniently side-stepping the recent issue of using footage of the attack for personal gain, as with Bush's campaign ads). Similarly, Moore is able to evoke heartfelt and sincere feelings of empathy towards the troops and their families such that several people in the theatre I was in were moved to tears over the course of the film's 112 minute running time.
Although Dubya-ites will most likely find Moore's criticism of Bush hard to swallow (and be eager to point out the further 'inaccuracies' or 'misleading statistics' of this film), it's hard to argue with some of Moore's more undisputed facts, such as the amount of time Bush spent prior to 9/11 on vacation (a whopping 42% of his first 8 months in office) or that Bush spent the first 7 minutes after finding out about the second plane on 9/11 continuing to read 'My Pet Goat' to schoolchildren, as if nothing had happened (Moore has the entire seven minutes on tape). Furthermore, Moore is surprisingly critical of Gore and the Democratic party throughout his film, accusing them of being as complicit as the Bush Administration in such debacles as the 2000 election (in which disenfranchised black voters tried to file objections to the election results on the grounds that 1.6 million African Americans were denied the right to vote in Florida), the Patriot Act, and in the War in Iraq, primarily because the Democratic Party did nothing to fight the Bush Administration after the 2000 election defeat. The weakness of Moore's film is when he tries too hard to establish ties between the Bush family and Saudi oil money, and ultimately the Bin Laden family and Osama, himself, in an attempt to suggest that Bush's decisions in office were skewed towards appeasing the Saudi Arabian government and his friends in American Big Business. It's a good point, but probably too complicated for a 120 minute film that has other things to cover, and better footage to use, and Moore's rather circumstantial evidence doesn't really do the argument justice in the amount of time he allotted. Other scenes also seem misused and out of place, such as when Moore shows footage of soldiers describing the CDs they listen to when they are in a firefight in Iraq and Afghanistan seems to show the dehumanization of the Iraqi people by the U.S. military, without much argument on the soldiers' behalf of how this dehumanization is necessary for the soldiers to be effective.
Nevertheless, despite these rough spots in the film, what really won Farenheit 9/11 for me was the entire last half of the film which deals exclusively with troops and deployment overseas. Though his criticism of Bush doesn't let up, Moore brings to the audience the harsh reality of the wars overseas, showing real media footage of the civilian victims of American bombings, and interviewing friends and families of troops who were lost. Farenheit 9/11 is the first, and certainly most explicit and moving argument that I've heard since the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, in which left-wing activists have combatted the conservative accusations that being against the war on terror is to be against the U.S. troops and be unpatriotic. Moore, instead, argues that leftists are completely supportive of their troops precisely because they value their soldiers' lives and want them deployed only when the cause is just. To ask a soldier to give up his life for the sake of an unnecessary, poorly-thought-out, and overly aggressive war effort is to disrespect the oath that the soldiers have given to give their lives for this country. Basically, if they are to die for America, they should do it fighting the good fight.
The film is powerful and provocative, and leaves you, as most Moore films do, thinking about the issue, whether it is in his favour or not is really besides the point. Fundamentally, Moore's job is to stir up debate, and he does it splendidly with his newest documentary. While I'm sure this won't be a problem, it would be this reviewer's opinion that everyone, whether liberal or democrat, right-wing or left, or even just undecided about all this political flaptrap, go see Farenheit 9/11. The truth is that today's youth is still fairly apathetic about politics, and perhaps this film will help us all discover exactly how we feel about the state of the America Bush has left us in.