'Fahrenheit 9/11' review
Moore's documentary eloquently rips Bush a new one
By Ling Ma
Published: September 24th, 2004 | 4:56pm
Fahrenheit 9/11 begins with political figures being primped in preparation for television broadcast and ends with the same figures removing the live feed-ins from their ears after broadcast. The likening of politicians to actors is apparent, but filmmaker Michael Moore isn’t interested in these characters for the story <I>they</I> are telling as he is interested in these characters for the story he is telling — a dark, corrupt epic encompassing Bush’s Texas oil days to September 11 to the Iraq War.
To be sure, the narrative is at its most poignant when Moore minimizes the intrusion of his sometimes over-exuberant commentary and allows the amazing footage he has collected and his interviewees to do the talking. A case in point: the footage of the Congress’ ratification of Bush’s 2000 election shows Al Gore, in his vice presidential duties, presiding over the session. In order for Bush’s election to be challenged, at least one representative and one senator must rise to challenge it. The only congressmen rising to the occasion includes not a single senator, but a handful of minority representatives, whose unfazed voices of protest are continually interrupted by none other than Gore pounding his gavel, denying the admissibility of their challenges, his own final chance at becoming president, and perhaps, a different course of history. This is exemplary of the film at its best and most effective, in which Moore’s stance of government corruption and a scene’s dramatic pathos converge in blistering collision.
It is the complementing of personal political opinions with such beautiful raw footage that Moore has managed to scale new heights in eloquence of argument. The searing pathos of the aforementioned proceedings is further emphasized as all the more heartbreaking with the personal claim that Bush’s election was completely bogus to begin with.
Moore’s tone is appropriately much more subdued from his previous works (Bowling For Columbine, The Big One); for instance, there are less personal confrontational hi-jinks with authoritative figures. Still, like his earlier works, the film obviously makes no attempt at objectivity, and the mishmash of footage and facts with occasionally over-the-top commentary will definitely be discomforting to some. Moore can still be artlessly manipulative when he chooses: a series of shots almost exclusively of Iraqi children playing in Baghdad is followed by a shot of U.S. bombing, a maneuver too closely similar to propaganda clichés as to cheat from the reality of the situation.
Fahrenheit 9/11 won the highest honor at Cannes, the Palme d’Or. Even if this choice may be partially political, it is undeniable that Moore is exceptional at bringing to fruitation many ideas most Americans already understand as a high probability to be true. To this end, he uses particularly illustrative footage as the conformation of these ideas into actualities. When Moore queries a congressman if he had ever read the Patriot Act, the congressman patronizingly addresses Moore as “son” and explains very frankly that no one ever reads the bills being passed, that with the time given, it’s a near impossibility. It’s the kind of thing most of us already know or suspect, but somehow, in watching Fahrenheit 9/11, this knowledge transforms into stunning lucidity.
Issue #25
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