Fahrenheit 911

[BigBank_Hank]

Ahh Vid don’t sweat it he’s just jealous because this topic is owning the one is Movieworld

[B.Helto]

this pretty much mirrors my opinion on MM and F9/11:

from slate.com:

Proper Propaganda
Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is unfair and outrageous. You got a problem with that?
By David Edelstein

Back in the '80s—the era of Reagan and Bush 41, when milquetoasts Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis were the ineffectual Democratic candidates and Jimmy Carter was off building houses for poor people, when Anthony Lewis was writing oh-so-temperately in the New York Times, which was then leaning neoconward under the stewardship of Abe Rosenthal, when there was an explosion of dirty Republican tricksters like Lee Atwater and trash-talking right-wingers, from Morton Downey Jr. to the fledgling Rush Limbaugh—I found myself wishing, wishing fervidly, for a blowhard whom the left could call its own. Someone who wouldn't shrink before the right's bellicosity. Someone who would bellow back, mock unashamedly, and maybe even recapture the prankster spirit of counterculture figures like Abbie Hoffman.

Yeah, I know: Be careful what you wish for.

In 20 years of writing about film, no movie has ever tied me up in knots the way Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (Lions Gate) has. It delighted me; it disgusted me. I celebrate it; I lament it. I'm sure of only one thing: that I don't trust anyone—pro or con—who doesn't feel a twinge of doubt about his or her responses. What follows might be broadly labeled as "waffling," but I hope, at least, that it is bold and decisive waffling.

Needless to say, Fahrenheit 9/11 never waffles. The liberals' The Passion of the Christ, it ascribes only the most venal motives to the other side. There is no sign in the filmmaker of an openness to other interpretations (or worldviews). This is not quite a documentary—which I define, very loosely, as a work in which the director begins by turning on the camera and allowing the reality to speak for itself, aware of its complexities, contradictions, and multitudes. You are with Moore, or you are a war criminal. The film is part prosecutorial brief and part (as A.O. Scott has noted) rabid editorial cartoon: a blend of insight, outrage, and sniggering innuendo, the whole package threaded (and tied in a bow) with cheap shots, some of them voiced by Moore, some created in the editing room by intercutting stilted images from old movies. Moore is largely off-screen (no pun intended), but as narrator he's always there, sneering and tsk-tsking.

Here are the salient points: that Bush stole the presidency from Al Gore (who, in one of the film's best scenes, must certify his opponent's election and quell a movement to stall that certification); that Bush and his family had been in bed with the Saudis, which made him less responsive to the danger of al-Qaida terrorism; that a pipeline in Afghanistan promised billions if the Taliban was on board, which was one reason that the threat of Osama Bin Laden (black sheep of a family with whom daddy did business) was swept under the rug. Better to concentrate on Iraq, the administration felt—it had unfinished Saddam business, it was rich in oil, and it was a potential goldmine for U.S. corporations.

Moore ranges far and wide: He apes Apocalypse Now (1979) with footage of bucolic Baghdad before the bombings, then cuts to soldiers explaining the way they hook their iPods to the tank speakers: "You have a good song playing in the background, it gets you really fired up." (I'm surprised he didn't go ahead and play "Ride of the Valkyries.") Then there's graphic footage of dead Iraqi women and small children killed in what the Pentagon said were surgically precise bombings. A grieving old woman shrieks curses at the United States, while U.S. soldiers with missing limbs rail at the administration. On the home front, Moore suggests that the Patriot Act was unread by the legislators who passed it and harps on its absurd applications, like the agent who infiltrated a septuagenarian cookie-baking peace collective in Fresno, Calif. Then he chases hawkish congressmen outside the Capitol. Would they send their own sons and daughters to fight in Iraq? he asks—often to their backs, as they flee.

As I watched California Congressman John T. Doolittle take off from Moore's camera, arms and legs bobbing spastically, I was troubled by the cheapness of Moore's interviewing techniques. But I laughed my ass off anyway. And I felt better about laughing when I checked the warlike congressman's Web site, which mentions his graduation from college in 1968 but, predictably, no Vietnam service.

All right, you can make anyone into a goofball with a selection of unflattering shots and out-of-context quotations, but it is so very easy to make George W. Bush—with his near-demonic blend of smugness and vacuity—look bad. Or is this in eye of the beholder? Perhaps when Bush speaks of hunting down terrorists, then gets down to the real, golfing business—"Stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive"—you see an honest, plainspoken leader unfairly ridiculed. But what can even Bush partisans make of those seven minutes in the elementary school classroom after he received the news that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center and the nation was under attack? In one of the few lapses in an otherwise virtuoso rant, Christopher Hitchens argues that Moore would have made sport of a martial, Russell Crowe-like response. Nice try, but that blow wouldn't have landed, and this one does, spectacularly. It is downright spooky to watch the nominal commander in chief and "leader of the free world" behave, in a moment of crisis, like a superfluous man.

Moore is best when he doesn't stage dumb pranks (like broadcasting the Patriot Act in D.C. out of an ice-cream truck) but provokes with his mere presence. When he interviews the author of House of Bush, House of Saud in front of the Saudi embassy and the Secret Service shows up to ask what he's doing, it's a gotcha moment: What's the Secret Service doing protecting non-U.S. government officials? He has a light touch there that's missing from the rest of the Fahrenheit 9/11. In one scene, his camera homes in on a Flint, Mich., woman weeping over a son killed in Iraq, and the effect is vampirish. After the screening, a friend railed that Moore was exploiting a mother's grief. When I suggested that the scene made moral sense in the context of the director's universe, that the exploitation is justified if it saves the lives of other mothers' sons, my friend said, "When did you become a relativist?"

I'm troubled by that charge—and by the fact that we nearly came to blows by the end of the conversation. But when it comes to politics in a time of war, I think that relativism is, well, relative. Fahrenheit 9/11 must be viewed in the context of the Iraq occupation and the torrent of misleading claims that got us there. It must be viewed in the context of Rush Limbaugh repeating the charge that Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster murdered in Fort Marcy Park, or laughing off the exposure of Valerie Plame when, had this been a Democratic administration, he'd be calling every day for the traitor's head. It must be viewed in the context of Ann Coulter calling for the execution of people who disagree with her. It must be viewed in the context of another new documentary, the superb The Hunting of the President, that documents—irrefutably—the lengths to which the right went to destroy Bill Clinton. Moore might be a demagogue, but never—not even during Watergate—has a U.S. administration left itself so open to this kind of savaging.

Along with many other polite liberals, I cringed last year when Moore launched into his charmless, pugilistic acceptance speech at the Academy Awards. Oh, how vulgar, I thought—couldn't he at least have been funny? A year later, I think I might have been too hard on the fat prick. Six months before her death in 1965, the great novelist Dawn Powell wrestled in her diary with the unseemliness of political speech during an "artistic" event: "Lewis Mumford gave jolt to the occasion and I realized I had gotten as chicken as the rest of America because what he said—we had no more right in Vietnam than Russia had in Cuba—was true but I did not think he should use his position to declaim this. Later I saw the only way to accomplish anything is by 'abusing' your power." Exactly. Fahrenheit 9/11 is not a documentary for the ages, it is an act of counterpropaganda that has a boorish, bullying force. It is, all in all, a legitimate abuse of power.

[vidcc]

Ok forget 911 and imagine the film was about Saddam Hussain, Hu Jintao (the chinese president) or Fidel Castro and was made in the same way. I use the last two examples because their political systems are opposite to ours.

Would there be the outcry that we hear from some ? or would it be taken as just and factual ? and would it be shown in the cities where 911 won't be played.

@ Clocker, I think Busyman was just pointing out that a rebuttal documentary is being made with that title and the Filmmaker Michael Wilson is the one accusing moore of "hating America"...not busy. I'm sure he will make that point himself if he returns to this thread

[GepperRankins]

i feel that instead of trying to stop its showing, critics should try to concentrate on trying to counter claims depicted.

the wondeful thing about micheal moore films is they cant counter it, just sit there embarrassed.


the best thing for bush and allies would have been to STFU aand it wouldnt have got half the ammount of attention

[clocker]

Originally posted by vidcc@25 June 2004 - 12:33


@ Clocker, I think Busyman was just pointing out that a rebuttal documentary is being made with that title and the Filmmaker Michael Wilson is the one accusing moore of "hating America"...not busy. I'm sure he will make that point himself if he returns to this thread

Oh.

Oooopsie.

Apologies in advance if that is the case.

[brenda]

I wouldn't be swayed politcally by a film because a film is a construction, a way of looking at something, even factual films are presented in a particular way to portray a certain aspect of the truth. Scepticism is always a good advisable when reading any form of media.

[Biggles]

I have just finished "Dude where is my country" which would appear to be the book of the film or vice versa.

It was quite interesting. MM's style is a little brash for my taste and the diatribes were predictable. However the biggest revelation to me (and I guess it should have been obvious really) is that the US is a very Liberal country (in the sense that J2 is none too keen on). That the right although holding the reins of power do so with about 24% of the voting population. 24% (and a little bit) vote Democrat and the remaining 50+% are busy getting on with their very liberal lives and are not in the least interested in politics. This is why the right wing talk show people are so angry all the time. They are spitting against the wind. The people of the US have voted with their feet and tolerate liberalism because they essentially are liberal people.

If the Democrats could tap into this in a postive way the Republicans might never see power again. MM suggests that the current Democratic leadership is too lacklustre to grasp the opportunity. The book is as much a wake up call to Liberals as it is an attack on Bush. Indeed, where he speaks to the reader directly, there is an assumption that they are already in that church and converted. In other words, he does not anticipate many sales to right wing talk show hosts (who probably have people to read it for them anyway.)

Having read the book I think I should be excused the movie - as I don't much care for the door-stepping style of documentary.

The idea that MM hates the US is silly. That is like saying right wingers who hate the Democratic liberals hate the US. One cannot assume the mantle of a nation in one poltical wing.

[Gemby!]

i keep thinking this is a thread about a guys perfume

but on topic- i wont see this film unless i get to see it for free cos things like that dont interest me as its just not my type of film ...

[lee551]

i posted this also in the topic about Fh911 in movieworld, but i thought it deserves to be in both related topics:

got this in my e-mail today. its from michael moore's mailing list. i thought it was pretty interesting to read (they usually are). it lists some astonishing facts about the movie's opening etc.. so read on!

July 4th, 2004




Friends,

Where do I begin? This past week has knocked me for a loop. "Fahrenheit 9/11," the #1 movie in the country, the largest grossing documentary ever. My head is spinning. Didn't we just lose our distributor 8 weeks ago? Did Karl Rove really fail to stop this? Is Bush packing?

Each day this week I was given a new piece of information from the press that covers Hollywood, and I barely had time to recover from the last tidbit before the next one smacked me upside the head:



** More people saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" in one weekend than all the people who saw "Bowling for Columbine" in 9 months.

** "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke "Rocky III’s" record for the biggest box office opening weekend ever for any film that opened in less than a thousand theaters.

** "Fahrenheit 9/11" beat the opening weekend of "Return of the Jedi."

** "Fahrenheit 9/11" instantly went to #2 on the all-time list for largest per-theater average ever for a film that opened in wide-release.

How can I ever thank all of you who went to see it? These records are mind-blowing. They have sent shock waves through Hollywood – and, more importantly, through the White House.

But it didn't just stop there. The response to the movie then went into the Twilight Zone. Surfing through the dial I landed on the Fox broadcasting network which was airing the NASCAR race live last Sunday to an audience of millions of Americans -- and suddenly the announcers were talking about how NASCAR champ Dale Earnhardt, Jr. took his crew to see “Fahrenheit 9/11” the night before. FOX sportscaster Chris Myers delivered Earnhardt’s review straight out of his mouth and into the heartland of America: “He said hey, it'll be a good bonding experience no matter what your political belief. It's a good thing as an American to go see.”  Whoa! NASCAR fans – you can’t go deeper into George Bush territory than that! White House moving vans – START YOUR ENGINES!


Then there was Roger Friedman from the Fox News Channel giving our film an absolutely glowing review, calling it “a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail.” Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice surmised that Bush is already considered a goner so Rupert Murdoch might be starting to curry favor with the new administration. I don't know about that, but I’ve never heard a decent word toward me from Fox. So, after I was revived, I wondered if a love note to me from Sean Hannity was next.



How about Letterman’s Top Ten List: “Top Ten George W. Bush Complaints About "Fahrenheit 9/11":



10. That actor who played the President was totally unconvincing



9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election



8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words



7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where I get him deported



6. Didn't have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger



5. Of all Michael Moore's accusations, only 97% are true



4. Not sure - - I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe



3. Where the hell was Spider-man?



2. Couldn't hear most of the movie over Cheney's foul mouth



1. I thought this was supposed to be about dodgeball

But it was the reactions and reports we received from theaters around the country that really sent me over the edge. One theatre manager after another phoned in to say that the movie was getting standing ovations as the credits rolled – in places like Greensboro, NC and Oklahoma City -- and that they were having a hard time clearing the theater afterwards because people were either too stunned or they wanted to sit and talk to their neighbors about what they had just seen. In Trumbull, CT, one woman got up on her seat after the movie and shouted "Let's go have a meeting!" A man in San Francisco took his shoe off and threw it at the screen when Bush appeared at the end. Ladies’ church groups in Tulsa were going to see it, and weeping afterwards.

It was this last group that gave lie to all the yakking pundits who, before the movie opened, declared that only the hard-core "choir" would go to see "Fahrenheit 9/11." They couldn't have been more wrong. Theaters in the Deep South and the Midwest set house records for any film they’d ever shown. Yes, it even sold out in Peoria. And Lubbock, Texas. And Anchorage, Alaska!

Newspaper after newspaper wrote stories in tones of breathless disbelief about people who called themselves “Independents” and “Republicans” walking out of the movie theater shaken and in tears, proclaiming that they could not, in good conscience, vote for George W. Bush. The New York Times wrote of a conservative Republican woman in her 20s in Pensacola, Florida who cried through the film, and told the reporter: “It really makes me question what I feel about the president... it makes me question his motives…”



Newsday reported on a self-described “ardent Bush/Cheney supporter” who went to see the film on Long Island, and his quiet reaction afterwards. He said, "It's really given me pause to think about what's really going on. There was just too much - too much to discount." The man then bought three more tickets for another showing of the film.



The Los Angeles Times found a mother who had “supported [Bush] fiercely” at a theater in Des Peres, Missouri: “Emerging from Michael Moore's ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ her eyes wet, Leslie Hanser said she at last understood…. ‘My emotions are just....’ She trailed off, waving her hands to show confusion. ‘I feel like we haven't seen the whole truth before.’"

All of this had to be the absolute worst news for the White House to wake up to on Monday morning. I guess they were in such a stupor, they "gave" Iraq back to, um, Iraq two days early!

News editors told us that they were being "bombarded" with e-mails and calls from the White House (read: Karl Rove), trying to spin their way out of this mess by attacking it and attacking me. Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett had told the White House press corps that the movie was "outrageously false" -- even though he said he hadn't seen the movie. He later told CNN that "This is a film that doesn't require us to actually view it to know that it's filled with factual inaccuracies." At least they're consistent. They never needed to see a single weapon of mass destruction before sending our kids off to die.

Many news shows were more than eager to buy the White House spin.  After all, that is a big part of what "Fahrenheit" is about -- how the lazy, compliant media bought all the lies from the Bush administration about the need to invade Iraq. They took the Kool-Aid offered by the White House and rarely, if ever, did our media ask the hard questions that needed to be asked before the war started.

Because the movie "outs" the mainstream media for their failures and their complicity with the Bush administration -- who can ever forget their incessant, embarrassing cheerleading as the troops went off to war, as though it was all just a game -- the media was not about to let me get away with anything now resembling a cultural phenomenon. On show after show, they went after me with the kind of viciousness you would have hoped they had had for those who were lying about the necessity for invading a sovereign nation that was no threat to us. I don't blame our well-paid celebrity journalists -- they look like a bunch of ass-kissing dopes in my movie, and I guess I'd be pretty mad at me, too. After all, once the NASCAR fans see "Fahrenheit 9/11," will they ever believe a single thing they see on ABC/NBC/CBS news again?

In the next week or so, I will recount my adventures through the media this past month (I will also be posting a full FAQ on my website soon so that you can have all the necessary backup and evidence from the film when you find yourself in heated debate with your conservative brother-in-law&#33. For now, please know the following: Every single fact I state in "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the absolute and irrefutable truth. This movie is perhaps the most thoroughly researched and vetted documentary of our time. No fewer than a dozen people, including three teams of lawyers and the venerable one-time fact-checkers from The New Yorker went through this movie with a fine-tooth comb so that we can make this guarantee to you. Do not let anyone say this or that isn't true. If they say that, they are lying. Let them know that the OPINIONS in the film are mine, and anyone certainly has a right to disagree with them. And the questions I pose in the movie, based on these irrefutable facts, are also mine. And I have a right to ask them. And I will continue to ask them until they are answered.

In closing, let me say that the most heartening response to the film has come from our soldiers and their families. Theaters in military towns across the country reported packed houses. Our troops know the truth. They have seen it first-hand. And many of them could not believe that here was a movie that was TRULY on their side -- the side of bringing them home alive and never sending them into harms way again unless it's the absolute last resort. Please take a moment to read this wonderful story from the daily paper in Fayetteville, NC, where Fort Bragg is located. It broke my heart to read this, the reactions of military families and the comments of an infantryman’s wife publicly backing my movie -- and it gave me the resolve to make sure as many Americans as possible see this film in the coming weeks.

Thank you again, all of you, for your support. Together we did something for the history books. My apologies to "Return of the Jedi." We'll make it up by producing "Return of the Texan to Crawford" in November.

May the farce be with you, but not for long,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
[email protected]



P.S. You can read letters from people around the country recounting their own experiences at the theater, and their reactions to the film by going here.



P.P.S. Also, I’m going to start blogging! Tonight! Come on over and check it out.

[j2k4]

Astonishing!