Michael Moore Lied: He is a Brilliant Journalist
gadflyer.com
Review of Fahrenheit 9/11
by Daniel Manatt
6.25.04
Fahrenheit 9/11 is, in descending order, an outstanding piece of documentary journalism, a mostly funny satire, and a middling overall film. But there can be no denying: it is already one of the most significant documentaries ever made.
The film begins with a recap of the 2000 election/Florida recount and W's inauguration, which manages to revive passions, fears and loathing that I for one had nearly forgotten under the debris of two years of the War on Terror, the Iraq War, and Al Gore's increasingly self-parodying behavior. It is but the pre-credits montage, but tremendously important in reminding us how this mess all got started.
From there the film trots through the pre-9/11 Bush days, and then to the day itself. Here, Moore shows his greatest cinematic skill by using anti-cinema – rather than showing the trade towers impaled by the Al Qaeda kamikazes, Moore has the screen go black, allowing the soundtrack of sirens, screams, and crying to summon up the memories already seared into the American collective unconscious.
Then, to my mind, comes the film's strongest section by far: the recounting of the tangled web connecting the Bush, Saud, and Bin Laden families for decades, through the ties that bind (i.e. the $1.4 billion the Saudis have invested in companies with Bush ties, such as the Carlyle Group, Harken Energy, etc.). Some of the facts are familiar, some were new to me (like Bin Laden family members attending Carlyle's shareholder meeting, along with George H.W. Bush, at the M Street Ritz in the days immediately preceding 9/11). The section concludes with the film's most blistering voiceover, where Moore points out that the W's presidential salary of $400,000 pales in comparison to the money the Saudis have pumped into Harken Energy, the Carlyle Group, and other Bush-related enterprises, and the impact that may have on 43:
"Is it rude to suggest that when the President wakes up in the morning he thinks about what's good for the Saudis, not for you and me? $1.4 billion will buy you... a lot of love."
Moore then cuts to a montage of W, GHW, Rummy, Colin, and others shaking the hands of, kissing the cheeks of, and generally smothering with love the Saudi royals while the soundtrack plays the bright strains of REM's "Shiny Happy People."
Then we get into the war, and recap W (and crew's) greatest hits: Rummy saying we KNOW where the WMD are; Powell at the UN; Cheney talking about Saddam reconstituting his nuclear capability; Condi recounting the title of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief to the 9/11 Commission; Richard Clarke recounting W's insistence on linking Al Qaeda to Saddam; "Mission Accomplished", etc. With skillful cuts, montage, voiceover and soundtrack, Moore weaves those individual notes of deception into a symphony of mendacity. It's been playing out piecemeal in the daily headlines for two years, but Moore is the first to package it all into a mass market pop art. Moore is to the W administration's lies as Seurat was to dots.
Then Moore gets into his more familiar, standard satire – interviewing average citizens harassed by the FBI under the Patriot Act; clips of Ridge and Aschcroft warning darkly of impending attack; satirizing the TSA's foibles; the underfunding of Homeland Security, and so on. Decent stuff, but the momentum of the film's first 45 minutes dissipates. The film gets a second wind when it goes to Iraq – Moore has included some outstanding footage of interviews with troops, troops on patrol on Christmas Even 2003, house to house raids, etc. – then peters out where many critics say it is at its best, tracking a Michigan woman who loses her son to fighting in the war. Emotional stuff to be sure, but not quite as powerful to my mind as the Bush-Saud-Bin Laden stuff (I imagine I would feel very differently if I were a parent, much less one with a child in Iraq).
Which brings me back to where we started – I think the film does best in its first portions, when it's at its most journalistic.
Fahrenheit 9/11's strength resembles that of many of the great muckraking pieces of the progressive era, i.e. in its retelling of many facts, moments, and stories that have already been told. But by weaving them together in a single film, Moore has created something more powerful than the bombshell from any one news cycle (that's exactly what muckrakers like Lincoln Steffens and Ida Tarbell did in their day).
Moore has given us a gift using film to do this type of contemporary "macro" journalism. Conventional media of course only touch "new" stories that fit within the latest 24-hour (or 12-hour) news cycle. Macro stories are usually reserved for books and the rare Woodward-esque piece which, as this election cycle has shown like no other, can still be tremendously influential, but obviously don't have quite the mass reach that a film can.
Especially a film helped along by Moore's irrepressible wit, an unprecedented treasure of archival footage courtesy of new digital video technology, a lead character unwittingly brilliant in his role (W), and a similarly unwitting PR boost from the vast right wing conspiracy that tried to shut this movie down, and in the process ensured its impact on the 2004 election and its place in documentary film history. |
