The defining point of Fahrenheit 9-11 occurs when Michael Moore meets the film's poster-mother, Lila Lipscomb - the Michigan mom of a fallen soldier - in Washington D.C. On her way to see the White House, Lipscomb steps aside at a poster booth set up on the sidewalk... While the camera never lingers on the booth for long (why doesn't Moore want us to see it? -to use one of his own techniques), it appears to be the kind of conspiracy hut, common in DC and not unheard of elsewhere, where the names are changed to fit the times and particular argument but the pictures remain the same. As Lipscomb's attention pulls deeper into the booth (and, really, her own grievance) and mutters about President Bush killing her son, another woman steps in front of the camera flapping her arms and sqwuaking, 'This is all a set up... it's all staged.' Lila Lipscomb confronts this second woman to express the reality she is living, to which the woman allegedly responds, "You should blame Al Qaeda" - obviously, not even a factually correct statement.
And so, our middle-road Mid-America heroine, emotionally torn and confused, is stuck between two extremes: the first a paranoid distortion, the second a cold ignorance.
This is how it's been in the national debate. On the news networks, pundits are paired off like a dysfunctional Noah's ark to give "perspective" on cookie-cutter issues where the audience already knows what they're going to say. Pick your side because it's not the other side, they announce. The middleground is still the territory being fought over and is still where most politicians dwell, but the parties have learned it's a dangerous territory to wage the battle within. So they don't. When you're standing right next to the dividing line, it's easy to lose people to the other side. But if you wage war from the extreme corners of the map, you can easily pull folks in to your purported safety; even better, they have a long run if they want to switch sides. So, the extremes have hijacked the debate and are tugging at the wheel for control of the country's direction.
Michael Moore yanks hard in Fahrenheit 9-11.
I have a few major issues with the phenomenon of the film, although I will not pretend to abhor every ounce of it.
First : Moore the Magician
If you can suspend your disbelief, maybe the first act of the movie will captivate you. When you see this movie (again), I encourage you to watch for the sleight of hand, though. You'll notice it.
Moore's narration (through humor and rhetorical question) is intended to guide your thought pattern while he takes the reasoned explanation and hides it in his hat. Same with the editing. Little is total fabrication; just as magic tricks are not performed thanks to mystical power, Moore's film relies (mostly) on entirely true bits of information. But pay attention to how Moore needs you to believe certain assertions laid carefully on top of those facts, though, or how he bends the timetable of events (dates occasionally appear on the screen, making it easier for a viewer to keep track). The whole trick will collapse in front of your eyes. Check out Dave Kopel's (a 2000 Nader endorser) extensive write-up on the film if you would prefer to have some of the method blatantly explained.
At other times, Moore constructs more elaborate devices; take, for instance, the recruiting of congressmen's children. No congressman has the actual right to sign their child up for the military (17-year-olds require parental consent). So, the exercise of having congressmen sign up their sons and daughters is guaranteed to get the results Moore is seeking. Considering this "failure" is bona fide, how pitiful are the actual results? Moore gets people to ignore him on their way to other things or to be - at least, pretend to be - thoughtful with his laughably outrageous documentation.
If Moore's case is really convincing, why does he feel the need to resort to parlor tricks and crafted illusions to express it?
Because that is what he is... A birthday party magician. Having discovered powerful footage outside of the public eye (particularly, the "7 Minutes" and Gore's silencing of the 2000 Election opponents), he must turn these pieces into props for his act, unable to let them stand for themselves. Somehow, the footage overcomes Moore's murky plot; in nearly every major review of the film, these are the highlighted moments.
The bottom-line: Moore might succeed as a comedian, but he's made a piss poor documentary out of blatant misdirections.
Second: Critics, Accolades and the Media
I find it shocking that given the extensive reporting of Moore's fibs, exaggerations and stagings in Bowling for Columbine that an overwhelming majority of critics so quickly garnished Fahrenheit with unrelenting praise. Alright, okay, so they might have relented long enough to say that the film was pretty one-sided. In fact, stories which critically analyzed Moore's construction and content have been labelled as "critiques" distinctly setting them apart from the salivary traditional reviews of the Justice League of Film Critics (JLFC). The craft is dead.
The following is addressed to the JLFC, although the rest of you may read:
Critics, you may think you can hedge your bets by saying something along the lines of, "It is worth seeing, debating and thinking about, regardless of your political allegiances." You are wrong.
To say that a hastily fabricated conspiracy plot is worth listening to simply because you are unsure of its legitimacy is to betray your readership and to cede your piece's entire point for existing.
Your purpose is to head poor arguments - whether in their construction or content - off at the pass. Don't tell me to do your job for you.
Next time, send your paycheck to someone who knows what they're talking about. Let them give us some actual criticism, because a claim that is blatantly untrue is not worth listening to, it is not worth thinking about, it is not worth debating. It is a waste of time.
P.S. When it comes to fueling debate on foreign policy, tell people to fucking pick up the newspaper you write for (or.. Hell. Turn to another section).
Needless to say, I also disagree strongly with this year's judges at Cannes. It seems to me, they were swept away in the emotional intensity surrounding Fahrenheit's premiere and were unable to objectively step aside and - like a good chunk of critics - do their job correctly.
Third: The True American Patriot
Something I've heard from a lot of people who liked Fahrenheit 9-11 is, "I agree with his goal, so I mostly enjoyed it." It's my opinion that we shouldn't endorse extremists simply because we see them being on our side. If we, conservative or liberal, simply smile quietly while the fringes spout ridiculous claims, we effectively disenfranchise ourselves.
One of Moore's recurring commentaries on the so-called "War on Terror" is that the United States funded/supported Osama bin Laden in order to oust Russia from Afghanistan. Whatever the validity of the claim, it is the criticism itself that I want to focus on here; that is, the U.S. tolerated extremists when such a course was favorable but now witnesses its brutal repercussions. See what I'm getting at?
Since 9-11, there has been a screwball cultural war over who is more patriotic: those who unfailingly support the government's actions or those who unfailingly question them. Of course, the middleground has been largely eliminated as we who are skeptically-faithful of any mixture have polarized ourselves - magnetically attracted to our sense of "team". We are largely to blame for disinformation wherever it comes from, because we are too tied to our partisan "patriotism" to challenge that which aids our greater efforts.
I recently came across this piece from George Orwell, which I think speaks strongly to this issue and with which I will conclude this response. Incidentally, Moore misfocuses Fahrenheit's quoting of Orwell and, in effect, misinterprets it. I hope to fair better with this on the inherency of dangerous nationalism:
The most one can say is that people can be fairly good prophets when their wishes are realizable. But a truly objective approach is almost impossible, because in one form or another almost everyone is a nationalist... The most intelligent people seem capable of holding schizophrenic beliefs, or disregarding plain facts, of evading serious questions with debating-society repartees, or swallowing baseless rumours and of looking on indifferently while history is falsified. All these mental vices spring ultimately from the nationalistic habit of mind, which is itself, I suppose, the product of fear and of the ghastly emptiness of machine civilization....
I believe that it is possible to be more objective than most of us are, but that it involves a moral effort. One cannot get away from one's own subjective feelings, but at least one can know what they are and make allowance for them
from the Partisan Review, Winter 1945
