Fahrenheit 911 - a review
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Tue - July 13, 2004
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Fahrenheit 911: Spells It Out
It's impossible at this point to talk about the film “Fahrenheit 911” without talking about its director, Michael Moore.
Moore is often simplified and stereotyped by his detractors, but he is not some elitist New England liberal, so his life is seldom brought up. Moore was raised in a working class family in Flint, Michigan, the son of an auto worker. He received a Catholic school education and seriously considered the priesthood. At age 18, he ran for school board and won. He did not graduate college, but eventually worked for a couple liberal publications, writing and editing, before raising money for his first film, "Roger and Me." He is a self-made man from the Midwest, raised on religion, the kind of guy Republicans usually brag about.
Moore's politics are as unexpected as his biography. He started his career under the original Bush era and did not let up during the Clinton era at all – in fact, he referred to Clinton as "the best Republican president we've ever had." Moore also campaigned against Gore and for Nader - until he decided Nader's tactics were misguided and left the campaign. And recently in Time magazine, Moore is quoted as saying, "If Kerry's president, on Day Two I'll be on him."
Liberal, sure. Partisan? God, no.
Moore begins the film with an unsettling account of the 2000 election – it just seems so surreal – and segues into a haunting and poetic section about September 11, 2001, notable for a black screen that does not show you the incident - the sounds of the attack without visuals focus in on the horror and death. Following scenes of chaos and beautiful floating debris that captures the shattered moment in history better than anything I've ever seen, Moore takes us to Florida where President Bush blankly reads "My Pet Goat" to some little kids. It is one of the most embarrassing moments of presidential indecision ever captured by camera. Though sold as a decisive president, witnessing Bush’s confused glare as he desperately waits for someone, Dick Cheney, anyone, to appear out of nowhere and tell him what to do while thousands of Americans are dying horrific deaths, makes you want to scream as much as it makes you want to sob.
From there, Moore recounts the financial relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud, a well documented relationship, but his speculation has got him into some trouble, especially regarding his accusations about flights shuttling the Saudi royal family out of our country in the days following September 11 and his dispute that these people weren't sufficiently cross examined. The broader point of Moore’s argument has been lost in the nitpicking: There is a social and financial world of multinational corporations and millionaires functioning beyond our everyday world and special political favors are bandied around because of these relationships. It’s a message consistent with any of Moore’s work.
Many have accused Moore of implying that Bush wanted 9-11 to happen, but it seemed obvious to me that Moore was showing that Bush turned a disaster into an economic opportunity, as well as a chance to raise morale.
That's not the only misperception gleaned from the film. In his portrayal of Baghdad prior to our invasion, Moore presents an image of happy people and frolicking children, not to paint pre-war Iraq as an ideal Land of Oz, but to illustrate that our stereotypes of the Iraqi lives did not present the complete picture that was crucial prior to our march to war against them.
Moore's film manages to beat the tiresome rap of propaganda, which is, of course, work that toots the official horn of the government. More properly, Fahrenheit 9-11 is counter propaganda. “Everyone knows the official story,” Moore seems to be saying, “so I'm ignoring it.”
Moore rolls out his usual litany of real-life absurdity, but the most compelling parts of the film are spent on more heart-wrenching matters, notably the mother of a young soldier killed in the war. It is both touching and upsetting to watch her emotional journey from pro-military mindset to pained and pummeled woman, trying to come to terms with the death of a soldier child who neither approved of the war he fought in nor the president he fought for.
Moore manages the best filmmaking of his career in the sequences involving young soldiers in Iraq. Reportedly, Moore had some embedded television reporters who were outraged by what they were witnessing but not allowed to report sneak warfront footage to him. This is not the stuff they show you on television. What Moore presents is a brutal portrayal of young soldiers who don’t understand what they are in the middle of – many of them brag about hooking up their CD players in their tanks, killing people to music, and getting a big head rush - even they are killing civilians.
“It’s more gruesome than you think.” says one young soldier who thought he was prepared because he played video games at home.
Later, Moore takes the camera to his hometown of Flint, MI, and follows pushy Marine recruiters around a the mall as they attempt to convince low income teenagers to sign up and see the world.
In the end, to say that “Fahrenheit 911” is an exercise in Bush-bashing is an embarrassing oversimplification. Once Moore has berated the Democrats and the national news media alongside the Bush administration, there is really no one left to be blamed but ourselves. Moore spares his fellow citizens that and he is kind for doing so, but I am not sure we deserve it. His last appeal is for the young armed forces, a parade of naïve faces that he fears we have betrayed.
In the final, achingly gorgeous sequence, Moore couples haunting slow motion live feed footage of the Bush administration as he recites a passage from Orwell’s ‘1984.’ The words explain why there must always be a war and why a victory can never come, because war is the structure that preserves the hierarchy of upper class and lower class.
As Moore has chronicled for over two decades, it is always about upper class versus lower class, and it is always about manipulation of data to convince the lower class that what is bad for them is what is good for them. It is classic Orwellian doublespeak.
Moore may sound like a conspiracy nut to some, but let’s be honest – at one point in the film, the Secret Service shows up out of nowhere to check up on him while the camera is rolling. Moore is not near the White House – he is filming in front of the Saudi Arabian embassy.
You tell me.
Posted at 08:02 AM |
