Erik Marshall

The theater was quite crowded Saturday afternoon for this film, and it received a huge round of applause at the end. I’ve never really understood appluading a movie, but that’s what happened.

Michael Moore sometimes drives me crazy with his over-the-top antics, but he generally makes compelling films. Bowling for Columbine was really a watershed for him in some respects, tackling not only gun ownership, but the culture of fear perpetuated by the media in the U.S. Fahrenheit 9/11 is more focused on George W. Bush, and therefore a more pointed attack than a general commentary, which is really its biggest drawback. But more on that later.

The film starts with a prologue consisting of the controversy surrounding the 2000 elections. Every image in the prologue is taken from television, as eveidenced by the horizontal scan lines. When he reaches 9/10/01, the title sequence begins, reinforcing the fact that 9/11/01 is the defining momoent of Bush’s presidency, and the main thrust of this film. After the title sequence, we get a blank screen for an extended time with the sounds of jetliners hitting buildings. Instead of showing the towers burning, Moore instead chooses to show people looking up and reacting to the event, highlighting the human aspect of the tragedy.

What follows for the first half of the film or so is alternately
hilarious and confusing. Moore details the relationship between the
Bush and Bin Ladin families, showing numerous glimpses of Bush and
company shaking hands with turbaned people. This segment gets
confusing, as Moore throws out a lot of names and companies, detailing
the ties between the Bush family and the Saudi ruling family. The gist
of this segment is that Bush would not want to do anything to upset the
Saudis, and that waging war made them all much richer.

He
includes a lengthy section on the Patriot Act, before detailing the
Iraq war, showing wounded soldiers, and following the life of a woman
who lost her son in Iraq. This section of the film is moving, as she
reads the last letter she received from her son.

I don’t want to
detail the whole film – go see it yourself – but I do want to talk
about Moore’s approach to his subject matter. First of all, he lays out
his bias for all to see, so any objections about objectivity are moot.
That said, he seems to a good job lining up facts and suggesting
correlations. His main argument in the film is that Bush and company
have wanted to hit Iraq for a long time, and 9/11 was a good excuse to
do so, and that there is no good reason to be there. Nothing new there.
He puts a human face on the war, showing graphic depictions of injuries
and deaths, which the mainstream media tends to ignore.

What Moore seems to do best he saves for the end of the film. His best work is about more than the subject at hand. Roger and Me
is entertaining in his quest to fnid Roger Moore, but the inequality
and inhumanity inherent in corporate America is the main topic of the
film, and it comes across well. Ditto The Big One. Bowling for Columbine
works because it treats a complex issue in all of its complexity,
rather than simplifying it to a single issue, e.g. gun control. Along
the way, he does some pretty uncomfortable things, like badgering
Charlton Heston, but his sights are set as much on the media as
anything else.

In Fahrenheit 9/11, he draws connections
between many different elements to make a convincing case against
George Bush, but he is not going to convince anyone who has already
made up his/her mind. In fact, at times the film seems monotonous in
its attack on the president. The most thought provoking part of the
film comes at the very end, when he quotes Orwell about continous war,
and concludes that war without end, with ever-changing enemies, serves
to preserve the current social order. This is where Moore is best, when
he focuses on issues such as economic disparity, and suggests the
extent to which these realities are institutionally grounded.

In
terms of solutions, his main goal seems to be to get Bush out of
office. He glancingly mentions that the Democrats basically rolled over
in the 2000 elections, and in voting to give Bush authority to attack
Iraq, but he doesn’t criticize them enough to implicate them in the
international mess this country is in. He seems to think that if we
pressure the dems, they will do something to stop the momentum of war,
but if one follows his arguments to the end, then one might conclude
that voting for a democrat is not enough. We will end up in the same
situation; the difference is one of degree, not kind. But Moore doesn’t
want to say that. Beyond beating Bush, I’m not sure what his long-term
solution might be.

All in all, the movie is worth watching. The
music is wel-chosen and often hilarious. The footage of Bush fumbling
for words, or revealing his true nature ("some call you the elite, I
call you my base") are damningly well-placed. Even in its limited focus
and blunt-edged tactics, the film manages to be thought-provoking in
the end.