Fahrenheit 9/11

Fair?enheit 9/11

It was a typical Saturday at Florida State University. The Noles has defeated, pretty decisively, UNC and the people were conducting normal activities. However, this Saturday was different in the fact that Academy Award winner Michael Moore was to speak to students at the Ruby Diamond auditorium about the upcoming 2004 presidential election. I had received my ticket from the College Democrats, who had arranged for their group to have block seating. During the event itself, which included an introduction by Andrew Gillium, a local Tallahassee politician, Michael Moore talked about his various complaints about President Bush's policies and told young voters to vote for the Kerry/Edwards ticket. He also showed some extra clips from his movie Fahrenheit 9/11. This movie, which is a "documentary", grossed over 110 million dollars in the U.S (Kopel 2). The budget for the film itself was only 6 million dollars. Michael Moore had won the Oscar for Bowling for Columbine the year before for Best Documentary, and so this film was very much anticipated by both sides of the political aisle. To add to this expectation, Moore was an outspoken opponent of the Bush administration and had used his 2003 acceptance speech at the Oscars to blast Bush's war on Iraq. This film, at least from my perspective, was the result of great passion and zeal.

The film itself, in the words of many commentators, a "two hour hate letter to Bush", and in my opinion it was. This film was coming out on the heels of Mel Gibson's hit success, The Passion, and the same type of intense controversy was surrounding Fahrenheit 9/11.

The movie premiered in June, and according to a friend of mine the opening night was jammed pack in Tallahassee itself, which was showing the film only at the Miracle 5 Theater. All across the nation, Moore's film was number 1, grossing huge amounts of money. It was expected to generate huge profits all across the globe, for it was a film many who oppose President Bush were waiting to see. I was amazed at how this film was treated as if it were Moses handing down the law, and with all the hype I decided that it was time for me to see it

I did not think I would get to see this movie. My beliefs about the war and terrorism could be thought of as Pro-Bush, and I highly distrusted anything Moore had to say after seeing Bowling for Columbine, which I believed contained distortions. However, I swallowed my arrogance about the correctness of beliefs and went with my mother and brother to see the movie. I got my popcorn, sat down, and watched. The film opens with a semi-tragedic take on the 2000 recount in Florida and the subsequent Supreme Court verdict, which went in favor of George W. Bush, and allowed him to ascend the presidency. The film itself portrays the events of that election, as if Fox News, Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, and the Supreme Court all conspired to suppress African-American votes and steal the election. Regardless of claims to the contrary, Moore's film called President Bush's legitimacy into question. The film then does something which is quite effective by showing the opening credits with members of the Bush administration getting their makeup applied before speaking to the public. This, in my opinion, helps to create a feeling that the Bush and his administration were trying covering up that they really were and thus trying to mislead the people. After this, the film then quickie delves into the 9/11 attacks and tries to paint the picture that Bush did nothing to try to prevent it. It says Bush went on vacation, never met with his counter-terrorism czar, and in essence, was absent from his duty as commander-in-chief.

The film then takes a turn here and tries to connect President Bush with the Saudis. Moore very cleverly utilizes music and quick snaps of photographs and film clips to make people believe that Bush and the Saudis are, figuratively speaking, in bed together. He also brings on authors and other experts to testify to this and also to comment on the departure of many Saudis from the US after September 13th 2001. The film then dives into the purposes behind the Afghan war, which Moore says was to be simply for an oil pipeline. It support this claim, he strings together a collage of different facts and tries to make his theory acceptable. I have remembered, like many critics, that Moore will sometimes go to the extreme extent to create the appearance of conspiracy. He had done this In Bowling for Columbine, when he tried to connect Dick Clark with a welfare mother and a child shooting. From here, the movie takes a humorous sidetrack. It has always been my opinion that the success of Moore's films is partially based on how he integrates humor with serious matters. However, after showing some of the ridiculous incidents that took place in consumer America after 9/11, he places attention onto the Iraq War. Iraq is a major part of the Moore movies, as it was apart of the America dialogue during the recent presidential election. Moore tries to paint Saddam Hussein's Iraq as a peaceful nation that had no ill intentions towards anyone, but that Bush wanted, for oil, to conquer it. Moore describes the failure of American intelligence as it came to the whole Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) issue. There were no WMDS and this, in the opinion of many, hurt the reasons why America went to war with Iraq. Moore then delves back into the America homeland, with an examination of mothers and family members who have lost young ones in Iraq. Moore then weaves together news reports and shows the death toll rise from about a hundred dead to nearly a thousand. At this point in the film, Moore focuses on one family, the Lipcombs and their personal story of how their son died in Iraq. He follows her around on how she describes the horrible condition she and her family have been living with and on how many people in the country are suffering from President Bush's economic polices. The movie concludes, not only with a few moment of personal empathy between Moore and the woman, but also with many of those who are registered into service. The movie's climax is when Moore reads a passage from George Orwell's 1984.

After I left the theater, it had been two hours since I arrived, I was amazed at the many techniques Moore had used to get his message across. I believed that the film was well made, but then another question came to my mind: was the film accurate. To no surprise to myself, I found out the movie was mostly one big distortion.