I had to do an errand near a theater showing F9/11 so we decided to go ahead and see the show early. Hey, two bucks cheaper, too! IT was a packed house for a 11:30 showing in a very republican area. Mainly older folks, but a good showing of the rest of the age demographic. Mostly white as it was being shown in one of the wealthier 'burbs. We ran into a woman I'd seen at protests before. Turns out she used to work at Notre Dame draft counseling center, the biggest in the country, helping people get to CA. She'd mentioned a priest, Father Newland?, who spoke of with great admiration. Anyone recall? Jon?
The film closed to a much clapping and a standing O, even though there was no one there to say "thanks." :)
Local news on WMNF suggests that not a few people were suprised to learn much of what was covered in the film.
I must say that MM has gotten much better at film making. His use of music to make something funnier than it might otherwise be was marvelous.
The film opens with a recap of the 2000 election fiasco. He doesn't let the Democraps off the hook, pointing out how they rolled over. The most moving scene, which brought tears to my eyes, was of one member of the CBC after another objecting to the Florida certification on the house floor. One after another, speaking on behalf of their black constituencies, it was clear that _people_ objected to the crtification. Still, no Sen. would come forward to sign, thereby bringing it to the floor for a discussion. Gore asked each if they'd gotten a Senator to sign and they'd say, "No, a Senator is missing." or "Senators have gone missing." At one point, a congresswoman says, "I don't care what the rules say about a Senator signing." Gore responds, "The rules don't agree." The camera pans to all the white guys clapping and cheering Gore's words.
Where other lefty filmmakers would lecture at the audience in a more overt way, MM let it speak for itself. You're being schooled in the way racism works in this country: it just spoke for itself. "The rules don't agree." What better way to get across the idea that the racism happens because of the rules! No one has to think blacks are biologically or culturally inferior. They just have to follow rules that promulgate racism.
Perhaps a more powerful scene for the audience, many of whom seemed surprised, was footage of the coronation... I mean Inauguration limousine ride. I got the sense that many people in the audience hadn't known that people were protesting that day. They burst out cheering at the egg pelting the limo.
So, the Srubya reign is off to a bad start. By Aug 2001, it looked like his presidency was going to go the way of the many businesses he'd run into the ground. The footage shows a presdinet--bumbling and incompetent, unable to articulate anything of importance--more interested in vacationing in Crawford pretending to be a cowboy or talking about, IIRC, getting a thrill out of bugs in the forest? I didn't watch a lot of TV during the electioneering and didn't watch a lot between end of December 2000 and 9/11. Hence, I didn't get a load of the smirking chimp. But man, Shrubya really gave off the attitude that every question called for a smirking chimp reply. It was as if he were saying, "What, you want me to take this job seriously? Hell no. I'm the presdinet (tm). I'm here to play golf and glad hand at rib joints getting down with the peeps."
Then 9/11.
MM handled this particularly well. The screen fades to black. You expect the screen to come alive again with images of 9/11. You get only sound: a jet crashing into the WTC, people screaming, sirens, panic, running. It was pretty gut wrenching, mainly because you kept waiting to see the horror. Instead, you get black screen and sound FX. I can't even stress how powerful it was that he refused to show the footage. I saw a lot of people bow their heads or put their hands over their faces, expecting to see the imagery. But MM never gave it to them, not like FAUX Snooz and the rest did. Instead, they had to use their own memory, replying their own internal images to MM's sound effects: the terrifying sound of a crashing plane, the heart-wrenching screams, the sirens, the sounds of panic.
You've read about Wolfie spit combing his hair and Shrub making funny faces at the camera just before announcing to the world that he'd decided to unleash Shock and Awe on Iraqis. What no one noticed, though, is that he's using this, perhaps too subtly, to bookend the film. Our great leaders preparing to go on air and our great leaders getting off air.
This imagery isn't just to show them at their least flattering, but to show them preparing to spin it for all its worth. You see Shrub, Condi, Wolfie, Asscrack, Ridge, Rumsfeld, Powell having their make up applied, hair coifed, jackets smoothed, lint brushed, ties straightened. They clear their throats. They try to get psyched up for the camera. They try to relax. You see people who remind you of yourself getting ready to give your first speech or presentation in high school.
I'm not sure what techniques MM used, if any, but he made sure that they looked their worst. You can see the make up. You see the camera moving in to get a close up of the sweat, a blemish not hidden by the make up, or the darting, nervous, beady eyes. You see Condi's stark heavy lip liner starkly contrasted against patchily lipsticked lips. I wondered if she was into the Goth look. You see the nervous grins of their self-consciousness. But most of all, what strikes you is how awful they look. The lighting makes their eyes look dark and sunken like a skull and their complexions were like dull wax.
Close to the end of the film, you see our great leaders getting off camera: removing their mics, removing the ear pieces they were wearing, etc. I think this was a great device and he could have made more of it by showing more footage of our Leaders unplugging from the audience.
I mentioned at the outset that the film used music to good effect turning what could have been documentary dull into a kneeslapper. When the film turns to the bin Laden family's hasty exit from the U.S., MM introduces it with The Animals' "We gotta get out of this place."
Of course, later in the film MM traces the connections between the Saudis and the Bush family. After leading you through the details, he shows us Bush Pere, Shrubya, Powell, Baker, etc. glad handing or holding hands with the Saudis. The music that intros and backgrounds the footage? REM's "Shiny Happy People". Pretty fucking funny. You wouldn't have laughted without it.
Probably the best use of music was the introduction to Afghanistan and the connections with Unocal, the pipeline deal, Cheney/Halliburton, Lay/Enron, and Karzai who was once an advisor to Unocal. MM opens this with a map of Afghanistan, only it's like the map at the beginning of Bonanza, with fire tearing through it. If the reference to Bonanza with music wasn't funny enough, you get a real chuckle when you see they've replaced Hoss, etc with the shiny happy faces of Shrub, Cheney, Rummy, etc. Not just stills. They used a computer to slap their 3 D mugs underneath the bonanza cowboy hats. Great stuff.
Also funny was the footage of Bush declaring an end to the war. You remember all the rah rah hoopla? The jet flight? The carrier? Heh. The theme music?
Look at what's happened to me I can't believe it myself Suddenly I'm up on top of the world It should've been somebody else
(this last line, of course, got roars from the audience)
Believe it or not I'm walking on air I never thought I could feel so free Flying away on a wing and a prayer Who could it be Believe it or not it's just me
(Theme music for The Greatest American Hero :) Of course, it's great to see music used to such hilarious effect. But, I have to note here that one of the things MM reveals is that the U.S. military has made sure our troops can't shoot 'em to their favorite soundtrack. Yep. That's right. The troops rave about how great it is to have their helmets rigged for sound so they can listen to their favorite blood-pumping, shoot 'em up music. Gets 'em really psyched. The tanks are also outfitted for sound. One unit tells Moore that they like to listen to Bloodhound Gang's "Fire Water Burn" The lyrics "burn motherfucker burn" are most inspiring as they bomb Baghdad.
MM addresses the administration's use of fear to subdue the population. The film stresses, to good effect, the way the administration keeps people on edge with prevariganda. Go out and shop. Terr (tm). Visit the nation's fine parks, like Disney in Florida. Evil Bin Laden. Take a family vacation. Axis of Evil. Shop til you drop. They have WMDs. Buy, buy, buy; more, more, more. SaddamBinLadenAlQaedaHussein. Get on a plane and vacation with your family. Terr (tm).
From the promos, you know that Moore hasn't abandoned his trademark stunts. In part, the scenes where he tries to convince congresscritters to enlist their kids is made more powerful by the fact that he's brought along a Marine who says he'll refuse to go to Iraq again. Moore isn't as in your face with his targets. He just quietly tries to pawn off recruiting brochures and lets the reactions of the congresscritters speak for themselves.
The other one appeared pretty impromptu. You see MM talking to the driver of an ice cream vending truck. Then they get in and read the Patriot Act while driving around a traffic circle in DC.
I have to point out here that while I say he was more subdued, I am still at a loss as to why reviewers claim that MM stayed out of the way. He was clearly part of the film. He narrates it. You hear his voice interviewing people. There's definitely a point of view. What they are saying is you don't see his figure in the film. It's apparently disturbing to actually see Moore?
As you've heard, the most gut wrenching parts of the film are the death and destruction. I would have liked him to show more footage of what the bombing did to the people and the country. He chose, instead, to focus on American losses, mainly. Iraqi losses aren't ignored, you just don't see what should have been shown since so many more Iraqis have died.
MM takes us to a vet hospital where you see kids with no limbs, strung out on morphine, bitter and angry. At this point, many people in the audience were crying. Many of us had been crying over the images of death and destruction in Iraq, so we were certainly primed.
There wasn't a dry eye in the house after meeting the mother and family of a young man from Flint who died in a Black Hawk crash. I doubt it mattered if you have kids or not. You couldn't help but feel the pain of the family, and especially the mother. As MM notes, he's always wondered at the willingness of the have nots in this country to step up and give up their lives when called upon, no matter how much they've been shat upon. His isn't a disgusted wonder--"How could people be such morons." Rather, I guess it's more a wonder at how resilient people are in the face of adversity. I'm not sure, but you don't get the sense that he's sneering at their stupidity. I think he wants to say that there is a potentiality there that remains untapped or is, rather, tapped by the wrong forces. As Doug notes, though, MM doesn't shy away from showing people actually doing idiotic things.
The good hearted mother dutifully hangs her flag each day since her daughter was shipped off to GWI.(Contrast with the tattered flags flying from the local Taco Bell) She admits she was a conservative democrat. She admits that she encouraged her kids to join the service, so they could have things she couldn't give them.
While she was presented as the broken-hearted, bitter mother who'd lost a son, she came to represent people who'd trusted the Presdinet (tm). Her anger and bitterness, her mourning, her sobbing tears, her trembling lip-bitten rage boiling beneath that mid-western veneer of pleasantness -- it's your angry, bitter, mournful, sobbing, trembling, lip-bitten rage.
Later, she goes to a unemployment conference in DC. She meets Moore, apparently to tell him she's decided to work through her pain by symbolically confronting Shrub by actually looking at the WH, a symbol of the forces that sent her son to his death. As she strides purposefully up the street, hands in her pockets, head bowed a bit against what looks like a cold DC wind, you want to take powerful strides alongside her. As she confronts her fear, the film has made you want to do the same. As she becomes empowered by openly demonstrating her rage, the film has made you want to rage right along with her.
We are all a dead soldier's mother.
Kelley
Although some of you think I dislike MM, I do not. I don't care that he's fat, or that he dresses like a slob, or that he lives in a million dollar condo in Manhattan. Who cares? I think those comments are absurd. I do think he needs to be as accurate as possible, not because the facts will change people's minds. Rather, because _we_ will change people's minds through our interactions with individuals, face-to-face. If we recommend a Moore film or book and it turns out to be filled with factual errors, then it makes it much more difficult to be taken seriously.
For those of you who've thought I dislike Moore and lumped me in with whoever the hell it is that attacks MM for the above, just search on my name and MM. You'll find that I've actually defended him against those absurd attacks. However, I've also criticized his films for their lack of a more explicit structural analysis and tendency to reinforce the idea that social problems can be resolved at the level of individuals. That's called constructive criticism. It certainly isn't on the order of attacking him because he's rich but dresses like he's working class. Again, WTF cares?
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'