Joe W.
>From : <Dylanexpert at aol.com>
Sent : Wednesday, June 30, 2004 7:18 AM
To : actiongreens at yahoogroups.com, manhattangreens at yahoogroups.com,
newyorkgreen at yahoogroups.com
CC : Seth17279 at aol.com
Subject : [ActionGreens] The Passion of Michael (Review of Fahrenheit 9/11)
Dear Friends:
Many reviewers are comparing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 to Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ as two extremely controversial films that inspire love-it-or-hate-it responses from critics and audiences. Weird as the juxtaposition of the two films may sound (they're not even in the same *genre*, for Chrissake), the comparison does make a certain sense. Though I've never seen the Gibson flick -- and don't intend to do so anytime soon -- I know from reading numerous reviews that POTC:
a) is a fiercely ideological, take-no-prisoners flick;
b) is determined to make converts to its minority point-of-view;
c) desperately wants to market itself as an Event, even an Experience;
d) is directed by a man who believes his own hype -- one who believes himself capable, with just one film, of actually changing lives, or perhaps even history;
e) has a marketing plan driven by the Internet and by well-organized clusters of the faithful;
f) is impossible for a critic to review objectively.
Fahrenheit 9/11 also has a congregation to preach to: the increasing large and vocal minority of Americans who think, as I do, that George W. Bush is the worst president ever. It too hopes to make a few converts along the way. And though Michael Moore is claiming that the entertainment and artistic value of his film is just as important as its political content, he knows damn well that it will be seen, and reviewed, as a Political Event -- and is by no means displeased. Finally, F9/11 also has its Internet-marketing juggernaut in the form of the liberal PAC moveon.org, which has tirelessly prodded its members to see the film and talk it up with everyone they know.
There is a sense of urgency, even desperation, to this film that is almost palpable. Moore's heartfelt wish that George W. Bush vanish from the scene like an evil fairy-tale troll is so strong he can barely control it. And it's led him to cultivate a quality that has not been very evident in his past films: humility. As most critics have pointed out, there is much less of Moore here than in his earlier pictures, as he prefers, for much of the film's length, to stay off-camera and let his images tell the story. A curious thing that the critics have missed is that when he *does* appear, he seems a bit abashed, chastened even. The deadpan mischievousness of, say, Roger and Me has been replaced by a grim and implacable sense of purpose. This change has not killed Moore's humor, but it has certainly sharpened and focused his rage.
Another aspect of the film that the critics have missed is the emotion underlying that anger: guilt. For there is one crucial political figure who is conspicuously missing from the film: Ralph Nader, whom Moore (as we all know) passionately supported in the 2000 election. I was there at the big Madison Square Garden Nader Rally in October 2000, where I heard Moore gleefully tell 10,000 cheering people that there was no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush. ("They're the same guy!" he crowed.) So it's quite a shock to see F9/11 begin with a fantasy sequence in which Al Gore is seen standing onstage during a victory celebration in Florida with Ben Affleck, Stevie Wonder and "that Taxi Driver guy" (DeNiro), while Moore wonders in voiceover if the last three terrible years were just a dream. Then he swiftly recounts the story of the stolen election. The naive or misinformed would undoubtedly assume that he had always believed that an Al Gore Presidency would be the best of all possible worlds.
The reason for this bizarre change of mind is simple: after the Bush "selection," Moore completely bought into the Democratic lie that "Nader elected Bush" (which is, of course, logically inconsistent with Moore's position that the election was stolen by Bush). Consequently, he has put as much distance between himself and Ralph as possible. He has even suggested that he only campaigned for Nader as some kind of personal favor. And ever since, he's been busy getting in touch with his Inner Democrat.
This very peculiar attitude has, if anything, increased his animosity towards the Resident. No one has ever compiled a more devastating film portrait of Bush. There are admittedly a few scattered moments -- such as the scene where Dubya tries to convince a reporter, in the summer of 2001, that he's working really, really hard on his Texas ranch -- in which his lies are almost endearing, like the schoolboy who said his dog ate his homework. These parts of the movie might be called "The Discrete Charm of George W. Bush." But mostly he comes across as an amazingly sorry excuse for a leader, a weird combination of mendaciousness, inherent arrogance, bonedeep laziness and utter cluelessness. Such a portrait omits Bush's mile-wide sadistic streak, but in view of Moore's stated purpose of unseating him, this may be just as well: Americans generally prefer to vote for a strong bully over a well-intentioned weakling.
Thus, the most memorable image in the entire film may be the sight of Bush sitting in that grade-school classroom on 9/11, reading My Pet Goat for seven long minutes while the twin towers burn. The lost, blank expression on his dopey face is both pricelessly funny and more than a little frightening, when one realizes that this man is the most well-armed individual in all human history. (The most hilarious claim in New York Press hack Armond White's pompous, stupid and arrogantly self-righteous review is his claim that Bush is, in fact, consumed with grief, that the classroom scene shows "the most powerful man in the world suffering": yeah, right!) Except for one memorable shot of Wolfowitz combing his hair in the most bizarre manner possible, Moore oddly shortchanges the other Bushies as satirical targets, but this single-minded focus on Dubya may be a shrewd choice. He knows that Americans never vote against underlings no matter how awful, but will always direct their ire against the guy at the very top.
Strangely, there is (at least for anybody who regularly reads left-wing listserves or listens to Democracy Now!) almost no new information in this movie. Was the filmmaker so inhibited by the fear of Republican attacks that he included only "safe" data, facts that were 100% verifiable? (The Republicans, of course, are busy attacking him anyway -- and driving up his box office.) Yet, I was surprised to hear the New York audience of which I was part, one that I would have thought more knowledgeable and sophisticated, gasp and hiss at "revelations" about the Administration that I had known ages ago. So Moore, who is nothing if not a great popularizer, has once again demonstrated his genius for condensing and reconfiguring previously published information (e.g., the numerous connections between the Bush family and the Saudis) not just for the already radicalized, but for the politically-challenged mainstream audience.
On the other hand, many incredibly important subjects, from a Left viewpoint, are either completely omitted or mentioned only in passing, which is strange even considering the time constraints under which Moore functioned. Some of the most glaring examples include:
- the entire Palestinian issue and its relationship to the "War on Terror";
(My memory may be going, but I can't recall either the words "Israel" or "Palestine" being mentioned during the whole two hours.)
- the whole neo-con "New American Century" ideology behind the Iraq War;
(Richard Perle, for example, is a surprise absentee: to include, as Moore does, footage of Wolfowitz without Perle is like featuring Laurel without Hardy, Abbott without Costello.)
- the whole Chalabi connection and Cheney's role in twisting intelligence to justify the war through the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans;
- the roundup and summary deportation of immigrants, which, as I recall, is only very briefly alluded to;
(On the other hand, Moore concentrates a lot of screen time on the police infiltration, under the Patriot Act, of an ineffectual-looking white peace group in Fresno -- a regrettable circumstance, but, as none of the peaceniks were arrested or kicked out of the country, hardly at the same level of oppression as that directed against immigrants.)
- the whole issue of electoral reform;
- Bush's war on the environment;
- the Democrat's entire craven and cynical submission to the Bush fascist agenda, which is given about 30 seconds of screen time.
Furthermore, some of Moore's opinions don't pass the smell test. He insists against all the evidence that Bush had a disastrous first few months in office, claiming that, until September 11th, Dubya couldn't get his legislation passed and that his polls were going south. Not to mince words, this is total bullshit. I followed Bush's progress very carefully during those months and was astonished that he got his way in almost everything, most especially with that crucial first tax cut. (Moore alludes to Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords' defection from the Republicans, which didn't really change anything, yet fails to mention that it was not a Democrat but Jeffords himself, when he was still a Republican, whose influence led to that first tax cut being significantly reduced.) During that period, I was continually appalled and infuriated at the way the Democrats were rolling over and playing dead in the face of Bush's right-wing assault. As to those poll numbers, such a pattern of rise and fall has occurred with many new Presidents: there's a brief honeymoon, followed by a period in which novelty is replaced by familiarity and poll numbers drop somewhat. George Bush Senior's personal popularity was, I believe, considerably weaker than Dubya's during his first six months as President.
Given Moore's many shortcomings, what is it that makes the film so riveting, so funny and charming, so *essential*? The key, I believe, is another quality the critics often overlook: his extraordinary capacity for empathy. He has a tremendously strong feeling for the subtleties and paradoxes of class in America and rightly notes that this country's most victimized citizens are also its most patriotic and self-sacrificing. His sympathy for lower-class whites and blacks who have to do this government's dirty work is sincere and moving. His idealization of the disenfranchised even leads him to discount the fascist potential of parts of those classes -- though, to his credit, he does include a disturbing scene in which a crazed-looking soldier in Iraq talks about attacking houses from a tank while singing "Burn Motherfucker Burn."
The centerpiece of the movie is Moore's interview with Lila Lipscomb, a resident of his hometown of Flint, Michigan. Lipscomb describes herself as a "conservative Democrat" and claims that she once hated peaceniks because she thought they were all just putting down America. Lila, who works with welfare recipients, also has a black husband and black children (or stepchildren), a fact that Moore cannily does not reveal until late in the movie -- a nice subversion of the liberal viewer's stereotyping of "Middle America." Lila's son is serving in Iraq and she at first supports the war. So when she hears that this son has been killed and reads his last letter on camera, in which he condemns the war and Bush, the scene is heartbreaking.
But there is more. The filmmaker follows Lipscomb on her cathartic pilgrimage to Washington, though she has no hope of confronting George W. Bush directly. When she walks towards the White House, it's a weirdly compelling "High Noon" moment: the ordinary citizen bravely confronting the leadership of the most feared nation on earth. Then, shatteringly, she turns and weeps, almost prostrate with grief. One reviewer, by the way, has condemned the Lipscomb scenes as exploitative, and I would like to ask that critic where the hell he was when Bush and his cabal were shamelessly exploiting the dead of 9/11 -- and the grief of the nation -- to pursue their vile agenda. (I'm impressed by how many critics, literal armchair liberals who claim to share Moore's views, seem to bear an immense, irrational loathing towards him.)
"It's a great country," Moore says to Lipscomb at one point, and it sounds like he really means it. And in the end, it's that sincere patriotism -- the one thing that Moore's enemies can't seem to grasp or don't know how to attack -- that has led audiences everywhere, in the big cities and the small towns, on the coast and in the heartland, to applaud and cheer this work. Will historians, looking back on this awful period, regard the success of this flawed but quite wonderful film as a major turning point?
John D. Baldwin