Review by Lachlan Malloch
Fahrenheit 9/11
Written and directed by Michael Moore
At cinemas everywhere
"[This] documentary has managed to ignite a fire in the collective belly of the American public", declared a Kansas City movie-goer after seeing Michael Moore's powerful anti-war indictment of George W. Bush's presidency.
Fire is an appropriate and recurring symbol in Fahrenheit 9/11. It exploded like a cinematic incendiary device onto screens around the world. In the USA, it was the top-grossing film in its opening weekend, beating two mainstream blockbusters.
In Australia, it has already broken the record for the highest-grossing documentary in an opening weekend, even before it officially opened! The campaign in the Australian media to try to scare the punters away by discrediting Moore has proven utterly futile.
The litany of complaints about Moore currently being faithfully recited in Australia's media include the following: Moore misrepresents with nasty insinuations without hard evidence; Moore's films are all about celebrating himself and not the issues; Moore does not live up to his own principles — he is a difficult boss to work for and became wealthy on the success of his books and films; Moore is a manipulative propagandist just like those in the US establishment he supposedly despises; and Moore must be anti-American, because he applies his moral judgements selectively.
Perhaps the most stinging accusation levelled at Moore is that he is not who he says he is. Paul Sheehan, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says it is "self-serving distortion" that Mike's an ordinary guy from working-class Flint, Michigan. Apparently, he's from nearby Davison instead, a geographical distinction which is a "small distance, huge difference".
How dare someone who has risen above average Americans in terms of wealth and fame continue to devote his life to sticking up for them!
The charge that Fahrenheit 9/11 is a vehicle for Moore's own celebrity is not borne out by watching it. Moore's major — but brief — appearance in the film is when we see him atop Capitol Hill, together with conscientious objector Sergeant Abdul Henderson, inviting congressmembers to enlist their sons and daughters in the military to die in Iraq. This is a vintage Michael Moore stunt, employed to sensationally good effect.
But to discover why Moore has simultaneously got the establishment in a muckraking lather and set public consciousness on fire, we have to look deeper.
It's not just because Fahrenheit 9/11 delves deeper into his Stupid White Men examination of how the Republicans "stole" the 2000 US presidential election, although that is long overdue.
It's not just that Moore dramatises the seven burning questions he asks of George W. Bush in Dude, Where's My Country about the circumstances surrounding 9/11. That too is sorely needed.
What's most powerful for us about Fahrenheit — and therefore most dangerous for them — is that this film gives a voice to the voiceless. Moore amplifies the people who are supposed to stay silent in times like these. He aims to "uncensor" society, beginning to uncover what the mainstream mass media, if it pursued genuine independent, investigative reporting, would have shown the US and the world long ago.
Moore cleverly structures Fahrenheit 9/11, achieving a sort of lyricism with his "rhyming couplets" effect. The rounding up of suspected resistance fighters in Iraq by US soldiers parallels images of the way US military recruiters target blacks in the poor parts of Flint. The wailing grief of an Iraqi woman whose uncle's house has been bombed is reflected by the heart-wrenching grief of Lila Lipscombe in Flint, whose son was killed in Iraq.
Lila Lipscombe's long, grieving scenes are the dramatic climax of Fahrenheit 9/11 and she personifies the danger the US rulers feel when ordinary people are allowed to speak in their own voices. Lipscombe taps into the deep well of solidarity that can easily overflow when a country's military forces are sent to kill innocent civilians abroad.
Even US soldiers can't escape their basic humanity in these conditions. "Every time you kill someone, you can't do it without killing a piece of yourself", says a US soldier in the combat zone.
The other side of this is the ugly blood lust of US soldiers as they prepare to kill and maim in Iraq. Moore pulls no punches here, even while he sympathises with young Americans sent to fight a war based on lies.
Some commentators have taken exception to the supposed "voyeurism" in Fahrenheit 9/11's depictions of the physical and emotional horrors of war. The Sydney Morning Herald admonished Moore for going "well beyond the bounds of human decency".
I say the opposite. The heart-wrenching grief of Lila Lipscombe is a taste of exactly what the USA needs now: a head-on, popular confrontation with the Bush war machine.
It's great if much of Fahrenheit 9/11 makes people uncomfortable. Better still that it makes the warmongers burn with shame at the senseless loss of life they have caused. And it'll be the very best if it helps fire the US people to throw out the warmongers and build movements for lasting social change.
Unfortunately, "people power" doesn't get much of a run in Moore's political outlook. Fahrenheit 9/11 barely acknowledges the US anti-war movement, preferring instead to continue with the strategic myopia of Dude, Where's My Country. Moore says that, in the 2004 election at least, it's crucial to mobilise the nation to vote Democrat.
Fahrenheit 9/11 skilfully amplifies one of the global anti-war movement's crucial arguments: that the "war on terror" abroad is inextricably linked to a war on the citizenry at home.
We're left in no doubt about what progressives have said for years: the ruling class has the same disregard for the rights and lives of their own citizens, especially the poor and people of colour, as they do for the Iraqis and Afghans whose countries they pulverise.
In making this argument, Moore returns to Bowling for Columbine's central theme, that of the mass fear-mongering that pervades the US mainstream media. By exposing this again, in the new territory of the "war on terror", Fahrenheit 9/11 shows us who we should really fear, in ways that are variously comic, tragic and enraging.
Yes, it is true what the right-wingers say. The Palm D'Or prize awarded to Fahrenheit 9/11 at Cannes this year was politically motivated. It recognised Moore's popular trail-blazing amidst craven and heavily self-censored mainstream US media. And more power to him for that.
From Green Left Weekly, July 28, 2004.
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