Fahrenheit 9/11 is a documentary by Michael Moore, who’s previous documentaries include the very successful ’’Bowling for Columbine’’, ’’Roger and Me’’ along with that darkly humorous movie ’’Canadian Bacon’’.
This movie was the recipient of the Palm D’Or at the recently concluded Cannes Festival.
The documentary loosely follows the theme of the book ’’Fahrenheit 451’’ which is the temperature at which paper burns and tells about a book-burning society. Moore says that freedom burns at Fahrenheit 9/11 by trying to display as to how the government and terrorists are actually in bed by intricately meshing some seemingly innocuous archival video clips.
The film begins with a seemingly triumphant Al Gore celebrating his victory in Florida. Then when Fox News broadcasts that Bush has won Florida, all the other networks in an universal reversal of their election results say that Bush takes Florida, with the Supreme court following suit, awarding the presidency to Bush. He questions the legitimacy of Bush’s presidency by presenting various conspiracy theories.
The first few days of Bush’s presidency is shown as uneventful with the President being on vacation most of the time.Then comes a catastrophic security failure called 9/11 and Bush is caught unawares in the middle of reading ’’Billy the Goat’’ in a Florida classroom. Moore criticizes the time taken by Bush to respond to this crisis thereby questioning his decision making ability, his lack of understanding of the magnitude of the situation and his title of ’’leader of the free world’’.
Moore’s criticism of Bush’s rhetoric in the post 9/11 situation is strangely reminiscent of what Nicolo Machiavelli, the Italian statesman wrote in his book ’’Principe’’ (The Prince)
’’And that prince who bases his power entirely on...words, finding himself completely without other preparations, comes to ruin;’’. But Moore and Machiavelli are on the opposite ends of the political spectrum and hence my first confusion with the movie.
There is a hilarious what-if Clinton had let the McVeigh family leave the country after the Oklahoma city bombing, which considering the Republican distaste for him may very well be true.
The movie then goes on to question the various links between the Bush family, the associates of George HW Bush and the Bin Laden family. There is some really good footage of the various business/personal meetings between the Saudis and the Bush family members and how Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador dined with the President just three days after 9/11.
The propagation of fear and the profiteering from it by manufacturers of home security products is very well shown with the sarcastic tone typical of Moore. To add validity to his theory, a psychiatrist who’s also a Senate member adds his input as to how effective fear can be in steering people in a particular direction.
He also adds a shot of an interview with Britney Spears who speaks of her unquestioned support for the president and his policies, insinuating that people who support the President have about the same level of intelligence as Spears. Maybe Moore has a preference for the Dixie Chicks music.
Moore inserts into the movie excerpts from the Richard Clarke interview after he published his book on the casual treatment given to terrorism by the Bush administration, the attempt to find a link between Iraq and 9/11 and how there was never a meeting between the top counterterrorism expert and Bush prior to 9/11. This I believe is to create an awareness of the contents of the book in people who don’t bother to read.
Moore then shifts to Iraq with a comical adaptation of the cowboy series ’’The Cartwrights’’, the main roles being played by Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Ashcroft. Ironically the dialogue of the cowboys and Bush’s speeches seem to match, with Moore trying to tell us that the speech writers for Bush are being ’’inspired’’ by cowboy movies.
The movie shows the grief of the parents who’s children have been killed in Iraq, the dubious recruiting procedures of the Marine Corps (who’s members incidentally have the highest mortality rate in all of the wars that have been waged by the US)targeting the underprivileged with promises of a college education if they signed up for service. Following this lead he investigates about the enlistment rate of the rich kids, especially the children of Senators and in signature Moore style accosts Senators asking them to sign their progeny up for military service in Iraq.
The rest of the movie deals with the horror of war, showing some really gruesome images, how the young soldiers wrangle with their physical disfigurement, their battles with their conscience and the apathetic treatment of Iraqi civilians. The scenes will actually evoke sympathy among the viewers for the Iraqi people and the alleged terrorists who fight against the US forces.
On the whole whether you lean towards the right or the left, Moore’s movie has some very comical takes on the gaffes of the President and takes off the kid gloves when it comes to dealing with the harsh reality of war, saying in the words of one soldier that war isn’t a video game. Having been dragged to the movies by a strongly Democratic cousin(don’t know if the ’’ABCD’’s are confused culturally but they sure are politically) and his bleeding-heart liberal wife in a futile attempt to change my middle-of-the line views, I am actually grateful to them because this movie is probably the funniest I’ve seen all year.
The documentary is not objective in its view, leaning too much to the left and twisting some facts to achieve its aim of exposing the avarice of the corporations and politicians . But the intention of Moore was never objectivity.It was to depict his hatred towards this President and his policies. One thing I cannot understand is as to how you hate a person with so much venom when you barely know him or her on a personal level and are not affected directly by his/her actions.