Fahrenheit 9/11
Created | Updated Jun 28, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11, his heavily sarcastic, rather entertaining, and somewhat incoherent screed against the presidency of George W. Bush. In this film, Moore, who has made a career out of stalking corporate executives and ambushing conservative celebrities like Charlton Heston, focuses his political indignation and his weakness for the cheap laugh on the White House, and he certainly finds ample material. There is very little here that anyone who has followed the politics of the past four years would consider new or revealing; for the most part, Moore's film is a merry, occasionally sentimental summary of every anti-Bush opinion column ever written.
It all begins with a flashback to the election of 2000, when, as Moore would have it, the big three networks and the Democratic Party all folded under the withering glare of Fox News and allowed Bush to snatch the presidency away from Al Gore. Moore glides past the possibility that there may have been genuine confusion on election night, and he omits any reference to the legal fight that Gore did put up. What's more, he never even attempts to explore why not one senator joined certain congresspeople in protesting the alleged disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida. If curiosity is an essential characteristic of a good documentary—or any other film, for that matter—then it is notably lacking here. Moore is much less interested in plumbing the ambiguities and ironies of American political life than in doing whatever it takes to manipulate his audience's sympathies.
Indeed, despite the occasional intriguing revelation—such as the fact that one of Bush's buddies in the National Guard, one James R. Bath, went on to be a financial advisor for the bin Laden family—the most striking thing about Fahrenheit 9/11 is not what Moore puts into the film, but what he leaves out. For example, in a montage mocking the various useless countries that joined the "coalition of the willing," such as Iceland and Morocco, Moore never mentions England or Australia. Moore also gives his viewers the impression that Iraq was a happy paradise in which children flew kites and dictators danced with their people, until that awful day when the Americans attacked; he never acknowledges the hundreds of thousands of civilians that human rights groups say were killed under Saddam Hussein's regime, nor does he address Hussein's sponsorship of terrorism in Israel or his sheltering of a key figure in the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. In fact, Moore seems to want his audience to think that Hussein posed no threat whatsoever, and in one of his more astoundingly bizarre insinuations, Moore suggests Bush attacked Iraq as a favor to his Saudi friends—but if this is so, then why did Saudi Arabia oppose the war?
With some justification, Moore criticizes the Bush administration for sending "mixed messages" to the American people—orange terror alerts one day, assurances that it's okay to keep on shopping the next—but Moore sends out some of his own, too. After telling us, in effect, that the Democrats bear some of the blame for letting Bush rise to power, Moore then interviews wounded troops who, in a scene that has had some audience members cheering, tell him they will be switching their votes to the Democratic Party. (Come to think of it, Moore neglects to mention that he, too, may have been complicit in Gore's defeat—and Bush's victory—since he threw his considerable weight behind Ralph Nader.) In another scene, Moore dwells on the unsettling fact that some soldiers feel a "rush" when they listen to heavy metal and go into bloodthirsty combat, but then he ends the film on an "up with soldiers" note.
Moore has often played the race card and pandered to other demographics whenever it suits his agenda—what Canadian can forget how lovely Toronto's "slums" looked in Bowling for Columbine? Now he plucks religious strings, too. One scene focuses on an Iraqi woman who asks where God is after her house is bombed, while other scenes focus on an American woman who wears a cross, prays to Jesus, and sends a Bible to her son, who dies fighting in Iraq. Given the way he slaps together nearly every anti-Bush argument on the books, no matter how mutually contradictory they might be, it is interesting that Moore avoids the theory, popular in some circles, that born-again theology has taken over the White House. Moore is certainly not above indulging in gratuitous caricatures (as evidenced by his performance as a perverted Christian in Nora Ephron's Lucky Numbers) but within this film's rhetoric, he seems to think faith is on his side. That's progress of a sort, I guess.
In some ways, Fahrenheit 9/11 is the least egocentric of Moore's films to date—there are fewer of those famous publicity stunts in which Moore himself is the star of his own show—yet he still cannot help interrupting his interviewees and stealing their punchlines. Some have complained that his films cannot be "documentaries" because they are not "objective," but pure objectivity is impossible and perhaps even undesirable; every film reflects some sort of perspective, and there is something to be said for films that take a clear side on any given issue.
The problem with Fahrenheit 9/11 is not that it is one-sided, per se; it is that Moore barely acknowledges there even is another side. The problem is not that he fails to give the other side equal time or equal validity; it is that he shows virtually no interest in what that other side might be, and in how he might best deal with it. Inevitably, this weakens Moore's own arguments—or it would, if he was all that concerned about making any. Moore's appeal is more emotional and visceral than intellectual; in his own way, Moore is a fearmonger, and preying on the ignorance of his audience just as he accuses Bush of doing.
-If you don't like Bush, then of course you will love this movie!
It all begins with a flashback to the election of 2000, when, as Moore would have it, the big three networks and the Democratic Party all folded under the withering glare of Fox News and allowed Bush to snatch the presidency away from Al Gore. Moore glides past the possibility that there may have been genuine confusion on election night, and he omits any reference to the legal fight that Gore did put up. What's more, he never even attempts to explore why not one senator joined certain congresspeople in protesting the alleged disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida. If curiosity is an essential characteristic of a good documentary—or any other film, for that matter—then it is notably lacking here. Moore is much less interested in plumbing the ambiguities and ironies of American political life than in doing whatever it takes to manipulate his audience's sympathies.
Indeed, despite the occasional intriguing revelation—such as the fact that one of Bush's buddies in the National Guard, one James R. Bath, went on to be a financial advisor for the bin Laden family—the most striking thing about Fahrenheit 9/11 is not what Moore puts into the film, but what he leaves out. For example, in a montage mocking the various useless countries that joined the "coalition of the willing," such as Iceland and Morocco, Moore never mentions England or Australia. Moore also gives his viewers the impression that Iraq was a happy paradise in which children flew kites and dictators danced with their people, until that awful day when the Americans attacked; he never acknowledges the hundreds of thousands of civilians that human rights groups say were killed under Saddam Hussein's regime, nor does he address Hussein's sponsorship of terrorism in Israel or his sheltering of a key figure in the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. In fact, Moore seems to want his audience to think that Hussein posed no threat whatsoever, and in one of his more astoundingly bizarre insinuations, Moore suggests Bush attacked Iraq as a favor to his Saudi friends—but if this is so, then why did Saudi Arabia oppose the war?
With some justification, Moore criticizes the Bush administration for sending "mixed messages" to the American people—orange terror alerts one day, assurances that it's okay to keep on shopping the next—but Moore sends out some of his own, too. After telling us, in effect, that the Democrats bear some of the blame for letting Bush rise to power, Moore then interviews wounded troops who, in a scene that has had some audience members cheering, tell him they will be switching their votes to the Democratic Party. (Come to think of it, Moore neglects to mention that he, too, may have been complicit in Gore's defeat—and Bush's victory—since he threw his considerable weight behind Ralph Nader.) In another scene, Moore dwells on the unsettling fact that some soldiers feel a "rush" when they listen to heavy metal and go into bloodthirsty combat, but then he ends the film on an "up with soldiers" note.
Moore has often played the race card and pandered to other demographics whenever it suits his agenda—what Canadian can forget how lovely Toronto's "slums" looked in Bowling for Columbine? Now he plucks religious strings, too. One scene focuses on an Iraqi woman who asks where God is after her house is bombed, while other scenes focus on an American woman who wears a cross, prays to Jesus, and sends a Bible to her son, who dies fighting in Iraq. Given the way he slaps together nearly every anti-Bush argument on the books, no matter how mutually contradictory they might be, it is interesting that Moore avoids the theory, popular in some circles, that born-again theology has taken over the White House. Moore is certainly not above indulging in gratuitous caricatures (as evidenced by his performance as a perverted Christian in Nora Ephron's Lucky Numbers) but within this film's rhetoric, he seems to think faith is on his side. That's progress of a sort, I guess.
In some ways, Fahrenheit 9/11 is the least egocentric of Moore's films to date—there are fewer of those famous publicity stunts in which Moore himself is the star of his own show—yet he still cannot help interrupting his interviewees and stealing their punchlines. Some have complained that his films cannot be "documentaries" because they are not "objective," but pure objectivity is impossible and perhaps even undesirable; every film reflects some sort of perspective, and there is something to be said for films that take a clear side on any given issue.
The problem with Fahrenheit 9/11 is not that it is one-sided, per se; it is that Moore barely acknowledges there even is another side. The problem is not that he fails to give the other side equal time or equal validity; it is that he shows virtually no interest in what that other side might be, and in how he might best deal with it. Inevitably, this weakens Moore's own arguments—or it would, if he was all that concerned about making any. Moore's appeal is more emotional and visceral than intellectual; in his own way, Moore is a fearmonger, and preying on the ignorance of his audience just as he accuses Bush of doing.
-If you don't like Bush, then of course you will love this movie!
