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Date Posted: 18:48:23 06/28/04 Mon
Author: AN HONEST REVIEW
Subject: 
Re: How many Gullible dopes will go see Fahrenheit 9/11?
In reply to:
silly ass propaganda
's message, "How many Gullible dopes will go see Fahrenheit 9/11?" on 13:42:12 06/26/04 Sat
By Ed BlankTRIBUNE-REVIEW FILM CRITICFriday, June 25, 2004
One of the hardest films ever to sit through, Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" challenges one's instincts about fairness and objectivity, even in the subjective sphere of reviewing.It arrives, like Moore's earlier "Roger & Me" and "Bowling for Columbine," in the guise of a documentary.
But is it that? Can it be embraced or even dismissed simply as a documentary with a point of view?
Few would deny a documentarian the right to a perspective, whether he's campaigning for the protection of wildlife or documenting the tyranny of the Third Reich.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" is something else.
Whatever hatred Michael Moore has for President George W. Bush, the filmmaker lapses into a disregard for the office of the U.S. presidency to such a degree that his film becomes the most self-serving piece of American-bred anti-American propaganda ever to achieve the high profile it has.
And it has done so, make no mistake, through the self-aggrandizement of the publicity-crazed filmmaker.
The picture will polarize audiences worldwide as no other has because it feeds prejudices with manipulative cunning.
Most of the response will be favorable because it won't be seen by the majority of those who sense they'd loathe it or resent, at least, what it implies about the United States and Americans in general.
Those who approach it eager and even determined to be impressed and influenced will be.
A film this lopsided about Bill Clinton, Jack Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson would be just as offensive. But because of "Fahrenheit's" topicality and intended urgency on matters such as national security and the war in Iraq, it could be interpreted as an act of sedition. Does patriotism take this form?
Countless other sources will describe, defend and refute sequence after sequence in "Fahrenheit."
What's essential to any viewing of the film is an awareness of the specious manner in which Moore goes after, selects and edits content, juxtaposing images, words, music and moods to create a corrosive portrait of the president.
This is a film so snide that Bush's blinking is run in slo-mo so that it's caught looking sleazy.
Using a scattershot approach to facts, half-truths, distortions and misrepresentations, Moore suggests that after 9/11 Bush attempted to placate Saudi Arabian business contacts, while most flights were grounded, by ushering bin Laden family members (Osama has some 50 siblings alone) out of the country.
If true, for safety or privilege?
Moore alleges that terrorist alert levels were manipulated to win support for the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent war.
Intriguing allegations worth investigation? Perhaps.
But you won't find the allegations supported in the film.
Moore's game is ridicule. He quotes a Washington Post assertion that Bush spent 42 percent of his first eight months on vacation (how, precisely, was this calculated?) and documents it with shots of the president golfing and responding awkwardly to questions fired by media at the course.
It's unclear what Moore thinks of national security, because he attempts to support general dissatisfaction by talking with an Oregon state trooper patrolling an area alone.
In another scene in Washington, D.C., Moore hints that we're in an encroaching police state because he's questioned politely about his presence outside a guarded building.
There's footage of Bush on 9/11 at a Florida elementary school classroom where "My Pet Goat" is being read when he's whispered word of the attacks and does not immediately respond. Clearly, the president is distracted. His hesitation, lasting a reported six to seven minutes, can be interpreted as indecision, caution or contemplation.
Here it becomes part of a portrait in which scenes at the Bush ranch in Texas are overlaid with whimsical banjo music. Former President George H. W. Bush plays horseshoes and greets Saudis. (Only the Bushes have done so?)
Viewers are encouraged to connect dots involving James R. Bath, who served with Bush in the Air National Guard in the early 1970s, being financial adviser to bin Laden family members. But then, Bush is labeled a deserter.
Almost without exception, the U.S. soldiers who spoke with Moore are moronic or disgruntled. (None I've spoken with is either.)
Nasty as the film is in tone, Moore becomes graven when making his case that in his depressed hometown of Flint, Mich., young black men are recruited to join the military, the implication being they're too poor and desperate to make a sensible career choice. Are we to take it they're being duped or maybe just suicidal?
Moore ambushes Congressmen on street corners to ask whether they'll encourage their offspring to enlist.
He juxtaposes a shot of a seemingly clueless Britney Spears supporting the war with a shot of a distressed Iraqi woman wailing.
All of the people who speak against Bush are reasonable, devastated and sympathetic. All for him are arrogant, detached, evasive and conniving.
Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft is erroneously represented as being defeated in a Missouri gubernatorial race by a dead man, whose widow, in fact, was the winning candidate. Moore dawdles on Ashcroft singing amateurishly a composition of his own called "Let the Eagles Soar."
Jokey one minute, as with a clip from the earnest G-man film "Dragnet" (1954), "Fahrenheit" is graven when it shows gruesome clips from Iraq.
Perhaps no one receives more screen time than Lila Lipscomb, a bereaved mother whose Marine son Michael was killed in Karbala. The time spent with her is more compelling than anything else in "Fahrenheit 9/11."
But at what point does the depiction of her grief and the sight of bloody bodies turn to exploitation in what is, finally, political propaganda of a low order?
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This Movie was a Propaganda Joke -- Green Partier, 07:31:43 07/05/04 Mon
What a waste of $7.00
how people think this was a documentary is beyond me
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Re: How many Gullible dopes will go see Fahrenheit 9/11? -- It was a great documentary...how could anyone not like it?, 09:45:20 07/28/04 Wed
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