> I, for one, don't have any artistic objection to Fahrenheit 9/11 aside
> from Moore's heavier use of "talking heads" in it than in his previous
> feature-length documentaries that I have already mentioned in passing.
>
> If you have a lot to say about Moore's film-making prowess from the film
> studies angle, however, I'm all ears.
I'm not a professional film critic, but I have a fine arts degree and am a big movie buff. I think that Fahrenheit 9/11 shows that Moore is getting better and better as a filmmaker. I liked how the beginning and end of the film were framed by straight sequences of unaired footage depicting Bush and his cronies getting ready for television. All he did was show how these rich and powerful people got ready for the big spectacle and how they treated it like a big game. I don't recall Moore's voiceover during those parts, but the choice to start and end the film with that footage was quite powerful.
Moore also pulled many punches in this film. He could have opted for spectacular footage of 9-11, such as the planes crashing into the twin towers. Instead the film shows the emotions of people watching and includes a poetic segment where office paper is swirling in the aftermath of the attacks. Then there is the part which shows Bush reading to that classroom. I was expecting that Moore might superimpose the images of what was happening in New York City to match what Bush was doing in the classroom during those minutes. Moore didn't opt for this direct comparison, but the part about the president doing nothing was still effective.
It's also hard to argue that Moore was a big presence in this film. His main presence was voiceover, but he was very tactful about not turning the film into a series of cheap gags.
One of the more interesting parts of the movie for me was the segment which showed Bush's inaugural parade. Some radical librarians were sitting behind me and I heard one of them gasp when the film showing the motorcade being pelted with eggs and all the protesters. It dawned on me that I had been at those protests and knew how feisty they had been, but had forgotten that the media had downplayed them. I talked to a local economics professor about this tonight--he had seen the film last night--and he said that he didn't know that the inauguration protests had been that crazy.
Chuck0