Despite all the pompous commentary
and the predictable outrage of the conservative crybabies, Michael Moore’s
controversial new documentary, Fahrenheit
9/11, suggests much more beyond its avowed intention to rid the nation of
George W. Bush. The writer-director certainly succeeds in showing the
incompetence, corruption, and mendacity of the Bush administration.
More
important, though, he fully reveals the abject failure of the American news
media to report accurately and objectively the truth of the Bush presidency.
The picture, whatever its detractors may say, in fact demonstrates the absolute
necessity of a Michael Moore, who essentially recounts the events that the
so-called liberal press either ran away from or simply ignored.
Moore
begins the picture with a retrospective glance at the infamous 2000 Florida
electoral scandal, providing a somewhat humorous voiceover commentary, but
mostly allowing his pictures to speak for themselves. He shows the blatant
manipulation of both the vote count and the press and the utter disregard for
legality and justice in the filmed and recorded comments of both the various
network news anchors and the Republican spokesmen. Both the footage and the
commentary serve to remind the audience of a barely credible history as well as
the national disgrace of the capitulation of the Supreme Court and the Congress
in the theft of the Presidency.
The
beginning also underlines the fact that, like it or not, Fahrenheit 9/11 participates wholly in the great tradition of the
documentary, not only in its political commitment but also in its use of
history itself. Despite Moore’s familiar ambush journalism, most of the film
consists of archival footage, film and videotape taken from official sources or
the television networks themselves.
Perhaps
only a news junkie remembers the passion and eloquence of the Congressional
Black Caucus pleading for a single Senator to sign their objection to the
election results, which would legally open an investigation of the Florida
recount. Yet Moore shows the speeches as they took place, naturally carried
only on C-SPAN, and by implication the utter cowardice of the entire contingent
of Democratic senators.
That
archival footage, much of it apparently censored by the networks, also includes
one of the most horribly ironic sequences in the film. While a sycophantic Tom
Brokaw intones a mawkish description of the Inaugural motorcade proceeding up
Pennsylvania Avenue on that terrible January day, the television videotape
shows what his network did not: a raucous, booing crowd of thousands of
protestors, holding up appropriate signs and pelting the presidential limousine
with eggs and vegetables (not intended as food), a situation that in fact
prevented Bush from taking the traditional walk to the Capitol.
That
sequence suggests some of the greatest value of Moore’s work, the simple
revelation of events that never flickered in the twilight of the American
living room.
Aside
from providing a glimpse of contemporary history, Moore spends a good deal of
time on the familiar theme of the connections between the Bush family and the
ruling family of Saudi Arabia. He also examines the well-known involvement of
Halliburton and its former CEO, the late Dick Cheney, in the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
Those
scenes and sequences do not simply explode from the director’s own prejudices,
but again, are documented in numerous contemporary photographs, videotaped news
stories, company boasting, even TV commercials.
The
most relevant footage, naturally, deals with the invasion of Iraq, showing the
endless prevarications of the whole Bush team — Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice,
Powell — about those invisible weapons of mass destruction and the necessity
of the subsequent blitzkrieg. The film also shows, for the first time, actual
dead bodies of both American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, with some images of
corpses, including a baby, being loaded on a truck.
Interviews
with military personnel range from the usual deluded assertions about defending
America’s freedom, to some honest statements about the excitement of combat and
the joy of killing, to one soldier’s sad recognition of the loss of self
entailed the taking of a human life.
Some
of the saddest moments derive from the rare glimpses of the specific human cost
of the war for individual Americans — the maimed and mutilated soldiers in
the military hospitals, the devastating grief and rage that almost paralyzes a
woman whose son died in Baghdad.
The
most ironic passages seem almost too easy — the nauseating pictures of George
Bush strutting around the aircraft carrier, smirking and preening himself over
the famous “Mission Accomplished,” the various celebrity newsmen, dressed in
battle gear, looking grimly at the camera and speaking in ringing tones about
the wonders and triumphs of the invasion. Ted Koppel seems particularly odious.
Fahrenheit 9/11 displays the
traditional methods of documentary — montage, archival footage, still
photographs, newspaper headlines, voiceover narrative, talking heads, all the
paraphernalia inherited from generations of committed filmmakers — to tell a
long, eventful, and passionate story.
His
critics complain about Michael Moore’s biased view, forgetting the social
relevance and political persuasion that marks the work of such important
practitioners of the form as Robert Flaherty, Joris Ivens, Pare Lorentz, and
yes, Leni Riefenstahl. Certainly his most artful, vigorous, and utterly
necessary film, Fahrenheit 9/11 places Moore among those great documentarians.
Fahrenheit 9/11 (R), starring George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell,
Condoleezza Rice; produced, written and directed by Michael Moore. Canandaigua Theatres, Cinemark Tinseltown,
Culver Ridge Cinemas, Geneseo Theatres, Henrietta Cinema 18, Little Theatre,
Pittsford Cinema.
This article appears in Jun 30 – Jul 6, 2004.
