The Aerie
We went to see "Fahrenheit 9/11" on Saturday night, and had to visit a couple of theaters before we found one which was not sold out.
I'm amused by the media furor about the movie. Watching hardened conservative institutions bark about Moore's film being "imbalanced" would be funny if it weren't so hypocritical. The Right has for so long monopolized the conversation that we now think that conservative views are centrist. On the Internet I watched both Matt Lauer and Katie Couric interview Moore, and they both copped this astonishingly self-righteous attitude: basically asking him "How could you DO something like this?" This as if producing a documentary was tantamount to treason -- which the Administration seems to believe.
Is Moore perfect? No. But am I glad that he's over there on the Left shouting at the top of his lungs? You betcha.
My main complaint with the movie was that the editing seemed to break down towards the end. The beginning was very tight and well written, tying together the various interest groups which are involved in the post-9/11 world and the war in Iraq. It made a very compelling case that the world ruling elite care not at all about the 99% of us who work for a living, and only serve their own interests.
But the second part of the movie was less tightly constructed. Certainly it was powerful seeing the raw effects of war upon the citizens of Baghdad and the soldiers in Iraq. And watching Moore pin down vile Minnesota Republican Senator Mark Kennedy, who returned a blank stare when asked to have his own kids enlist, was worth every penny of the admission.
But I became confused about the identity of some of the people who Moore interviewed, and also whether he had a particular direction in the latter part. At the very end Moore almost sewed it up for me, but not quite: what he needed to do at the end, IMO, was to tie the whole movie together and say
| "So Iraqi civilians and American soldiers are dying in Iraq for several reasons: to reinforce a permanent Mideast tactical presence (over a dozen permanent military bases are presently under construction in Iraq); to secure the world's second largest oil reserves in the control of the United States; but, in large part also for this reason -- because by redirecting blame for 9/11 onto Iraq, this administration successfully distracts the world's attention from noting that George Bush and Osama Bin Laden share a number of close personal friends." |
Okay, so that having been said, I think it's a movie that is critically important for everyone to see.
A point Moore didn't make in the movie but which is relevant. Informed that America was under attack by foreign enemies, President Bush not only displayed absolutely no leadership, but as a likely target of such attacks remained in a school full of children for 20 minutes even as jets were plowing into buildings. For the children's safety if not his own, he should have never left his limo and entered the school after learning of the first plane hitting the South Tower.
Posted by Albatross at June 29, 2004 11:08 AMI watched The Daily Show last night. They played a clip of Moore on the CBS Early Show. Hannah Storm asked if Moore asked Moore if he thought his film was propaganda. He replied, "No. I consider the CBS Evening News propaganda." At that point, Storm tried to cut him off, but Moore insisted on finishing his point:
"Why don’t we talk about the news on this and the other networks that didn’t do the job they should have done at the beginning of this war, demanded the evidence, asked the hard questions.
“We may not have even gone into this war, had these networks done their job. I mean, it was a great disservice to the American people because we depend on people who work here and the other networks to go after those in power and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. You want to send our kids off to war? We want to know where the weapons of mass destruction are. Let’s see the proof. Let’s see the proof Saddam Hussein had something to do with Sept. 11.' There was no proof and everybody got embedded and everybody rolled over and everybody knows that now."
Posted by: Richard at June 30, 2004 8:41 AM