Movie review: 'Fahrenheit 9/11'
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By Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune Movie Critic
June 25 2004
4 stars (out of 4)
Among the movies everyone should see this year--whatever your film taste or your political bent--Michael Moore's incendiary documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" heads the list.
"Fahrenheit" may provoke, delight or divide its audience. But no one will react indifferently to this shocking, sad and funny look at the Bush administration's handling of terrorism and the Iraqi war.
It's another howitzer blast of heartland humor and journalistic chutzpah from director-writer Moore--his cheekiest, gutsiest, most hilarious assault yet on the halls of the rich and mighty.
"Fahrenheit" is, of course, not the last word on President George W. Bush or Iraq. It's Moore's word. This movie, the subject of controversy, is a defiantly personal statement on what the war really is--laced with that now-familiar "Roger and Me" mix of homespun wit, pop culture playfulness, populist heart twisting and "gotcha" guerilla film-making tactics.
From beginning to end, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is told in Moore's unmistakable voice: the deceptively casual tones of a wisecracking gadfly never happier than when he faces down or questions some person of great power or wealth whom he feels, knowingly or not, betrayed the public trust.
Like, in this case, George W. Bush. Using archival footage, cannily edited and narrated, the film shows Bush sometimes as an attractive, determined politician and likable, boyishly charming guy. But it also savages him with wicked satire, depicting Bush as a lightweight opportunist, swayed by privileged upbringing and moneyed pals and, to some extent, trapped in the whirlwind of events.
So strangely attractive is the subject and so amusing the portrait, that Bush quickly becomes the comic star of "Fahrenheit 9/11" with Moore as his straight man. But it's very dark comedy, soaked in tragedy. At times it wrenches your heart.
That's the strength of "Fahrenheit 9/11": the way it attacks emotions and stings us to laughter, anger and sorrow.
In his trademark Andy Rooney-gone-Zap Comix style, Moore comments on the disputed Florida election, the Bush family's close ties to Saudi Arabian oil interests, the President's frequent pre-9/11 vacation-time romps and his pained bewilderment on 9/11. Then Moore relentlessly presents his own take on Iraq, a conflict that in his eyes is born of fear, deception and confusion and realized in blood, death and tears, diminishing the American dream it purported to defend. Moore pointedly questions the premises, goals and "selling" of the war, its relevance to 9/11 and, most of all, its fearsome costs both in national resources and human lives. The film isn't objective, nor does it ever pretend to be. Moore keeps mockingly overstepping the boundaries while imagining what Bush is thinking, playing up the president's humor (both conscious and unconscious) and, at one point, superimposing Bush into the "Bonanza" TV title scene, along with fellow "Cartwrights" Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Tony Blair.
This is a movie often much closer to David Letterman, "Saturday Night Live" or "Dr. Strangelove"--or a Rush Limbaugh satiric tirade--than to Ken Burns or "60 Minutes." There's a human voice behind every scene: joking or occasionally--as in the scenes with bereaved war mother Lila Lipscomb or Moore's moving paean to America's preponderantly working-class fighting forces--rising to unexpected heights of grief and eloquence.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" is not unassailable journalism or history, though it's almost always superb moviemaking. Moore's thesis that oil money and geo-politics primarily drove the war, rather than nuclear fear or compassion for the Iraqi masses, will be rejected by many.
For some audiences "Fahrenheit 9/11" will seem propaganda and for others a fiery modern "J'Accuse." But one doesn't have to share Moore's views to be entertained by him. Last May, "Fahrenheit 9/11" received both the first prize (Palme d'Or) and the longest continuous standing ovation in the history of the Cannes Film Festival (25 minutes)--and it wasn't because of some cliched French antipathy to America.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" takes its title from Ray Bradbury's Orwellian novel about a futuristic book-burning society, "Fahrenheit 451" (the temperature at which book paper burns). And in the end, both liberals and conservatives--and some political extremes--will be amused and edified by the film. Conservatives, in fact, may especially respond to Moore's evocations of American ideals, national spirit and tradition he sees as being trampled on.
Yet, whatever its ultimate validity as history or its effect on the electorate, this is obviously one of the movies of the year. Moore's ability to kick off a debate--even a vicious one--remains priceless, as do his gifts for ridicule, for wringing laughs, shock and tears from his subjects and for shedding a spotlight on ordinary Americans.
What's more, there's a ferocious candor in his commentary that puts Moore in the classic Mark Twain tradition of American humorous skepticism. And, here, his comic game--playing the common schmo trying to confront the powerful people you can't reach--hits its highest peak. "Behave yourself, will you?" Bush himself jokes with Moore part way through this movie, adding impishly, "Go find real work!" Indisputably, he has.
"Fahrenheit 9/11"
Directed, written and produced by Michael Moore; photographed by Michael Desjarlis; edited by Kurt Engfehr, Christopher Seward, T. Woody Richman; sound by Francisco Latorre; music by Jeff Gibbs; produced by Jim Czarnecki, Kathleen Glynn. Narrator: Michael Moore. With appearances by President George W. Bush, Lila Lipscomb, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell. A Lions Gate Films/IFC Films/Fellowship Adventure Group release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:56. MPAA rating R (violent and disturbing images, language.)
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