Fahrenheit 9/11

Some disclosures to begin this review:

I would consider myself to be fairly (Maria would say extremely) liberal.

I don't like, nor have I ever liked, George W. Bush.

I don't believe the war in Iraq was justified.

Finally, here's my thoughts on Michael Moore: I like him. I enjoyed TV Nation, I thought Bowling for Columbine made some great points. I also think that he's his own worst enemy. When he gets on his high horse, when he starts making up facts, he becomes exactly the thing he's fighting against: a zealot. Which is a shame, because when he's on his game, he's hilarious--a great crusader, a strong thinker, and a man capable of making even horrible things scathingly funny (think here of Moore trying to return the bullets in Bowling). At his best, he entertains while he's preaching, which is the only way to reach most of America anymore.

That being said, it seems, in a lot of ways, that Moore has learned from his mistakes. He has much less screen time in Fahrenheit than in his other work--perhaps a sign that he's overcoming his own massive ego? (HA! I somehow doubt that.) That absence allows Moore to work his real magic--using his own vicious sense of humor to point out the flaws in the world around him, making his own special brand of film.

And let it never be said that his brand is anything remotely resembling a documentary. In fact, I've always preferred Moore's thinking, that his films are essays explaining his point of view. And this particular work of filmic essay has but one point:

Get George W. Bush out of office.

You might think that's not much of a theme to hang a movie on, and you're right. Moore spends about the first half of the movie just wildly swinging around, connecting with anything in sight, more interested in just attacking Bush than in making any coherent argument. That's not to say that he doesn't make some strong points in that first half of the film--he most certainly does. The footage of Bush sitting in a classroom for seven minutes, getting his picture taken for cameras, AFTER being told about the Trade Center attacks, makes all the point that's needed about a man adrift when he's away from his handlers for too long.

There are plenty of stunning scenes, in fact--the African-American representatives standing up, one after the other, to protest the disenfranchisement of black voters in the 2000 election; the reminder of just how much time Bush spent on vacation his first year in office; even Moore's handling of 9/11 itself (the most devastating shot is just a blank screen for minutes that stretch for what seems like an eternity)--all of these are reminders that, with enough focus, and attention, Moore could be a hell of a filmmaker. He's got a good idea of how to affect people, of how to engage them, and most of all, how to entertain them. His sense of humor, bitter though it is, permeates the first half of the movie (my personal favorite scene involves a Senator who tells his constituents that he has a 1-800 number that they can call to talk to him about the Patriot act; as he talks, subtitles appear at the bottom of the screen saying "This is not true. But, here is his private office phone number:", and proceeds to give it.

Unfortunately, the first half of the film doesn't have that focus. In about an hour, Moore takes on everything from the Patriot Act to Saudi ties to the Bush family to national security to Afghanistan to Halliburton to Bush's father to his Vietnam record, and the whole adds up to little more than a batch of name-calling. What's more, as Moore has no real intention of being entirely fair, it's not much of a debate--it's just one side, bashing the other helplessly. Granted, a lot of the movie is that other side hanging themselves with their own rope, but the movie would work more if there were some defense and counter-argument. Basically, Moore makes a ton of great points in the first half, but in his excitement to cover as much ground as possible, he ends up overexaggerating some facts, contradicting himself other times (i.e., "let's not live in fear, all that terrorism stuff is overblown," followed by "oh my God, Oregon is unprotected!"), and ultimately just coming across as someone who wants to just bash Bush for an hour with anything he can, rather than someone with a valid, thought-out point of view.

But as the film comes up on the war in Iraq, Michael Moore suddenly gets focused, and the film becomes something far more than it was. Rather than a scattershot series of attacks on Bush, Moore changes his film into an indictment of the war on Iraq. But his smartest move is not to spend time on the politcal fallacies behind the war--his first half of the film did that. Rather, what he does is convey the human cost of the war. He shows graphic, horrifying footage of the violent cost of war--the dead bodies of children and soldiers, the screaming wounded, the crippled soldiers in hospitals. (Of course, the film got called "unpatriotic" for daring to show footage showing the realities of the war.)

It's here that Moore's film becomes so devastatingly powerful. It's hard not to be moved by the stories, hard not to be affected by seeing what the war has done, especially if you believe that the war itself was (is) a waste of time, an unjust thing. But nothing does this job more powerfully than the story of the woman from Flint, Michigan who loses her first born son. For once, Moore stays out of the way, and lets simple human emotion say more than he could in a million years.

The one complaint I have about this second section of the movie is that it comes dangerously close to condemning the soldiers themselves for the war. If I truly thought he was doing that, I would be disgusted by the film. But I think, as the film develops, and Moore shows the reality--that while Congressmen and affluent white families remain largely unaffected by the war, it is more often the poor, the lower class, the unemployed who end up fighting, and dying, since they have little other option when it comes to making their money (no, it's not always the case, but I believe that for a good portion of people, it is)--an idea made bitterly humorous as Moore attempts to get Congressmen to sign up their children to fight in the war. By underlining the social aspect of the war , Moore only underlines how unjust it is--not only is it unnecessary, he says, but Bush and the people causing (and profiting) from it aren't even personally affected.

In some ways, Fahrenheit 9/11 could be a major turning point for Michael Moore. While the first half, with its wild shots and random accusations, are his worst side, the second half with its blistering attack on war and those who wage it with no thought of cost are his best aspects showing through. Should you see it? Why even ask me? You know if you agree, you'll see it; if you don't agree, you won't bother watching it. Is it a good film? At points, it is incredible. It's got flaws--no one can deny that. But when it hits its marks, it's as devasating an indictment as most of America will ever see. And if that means making a few cheap shots here and there, hey--I'm all for it.