Red Right Blog |
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Rants, Rates, Slags, Slates. Manic-depressive posts from Red Wright-Hand. Because there are thousands of worthless blogs out there and who am I not to add to their number?
Total US troop deaths in Iraq to date (09/01/07) since 03/20/03: 3739
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Sunday, July 04, 2004
THE TEMPERATURE AT WHICH PATIENCE BURNS: Make no mistake, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a phenomenon. I didn’t even try to get tickets on its opening weekend, and the following Wednesday, after work, when I strolled by the single theater in downtown Philadelphia where it’s currently playing (on two screens), both prime-time evening shows were already sold-out, so I bailed once again. Yesterday I bought my seat for the 3 PM show two hours in advance…and a good thing too; that show sold out, as had at least two of the later shows by the time I exited around 5 PM. I’m pleased to see this movie doing so sensationally well, concretizing in unavoidable long lines the degree of sheer disgust so many in this country feel with President Bush and his cabinet. Hope sprouts. As a matter of fact, there’s just one thing wrong with "Fahrenheit 9/11," and that’s the fact that it really isn’t a very good movie. Michael Moore’s biggest "mistake" (one that’s already made his movie the highest-grossing documentary in history, so I fully concede the joke is on me, if not the President) is his determination to tackle virtually every aspect of the W. Bush Administration in under two hours. He could easily have got one solid movie (hell, three or four) if he’d focused on a single area: the 2000 election fiasco; 9/11; the Bush family’s obscene ties to Saudi business interests; the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. Of course I realize these subjects are inter-related, but in his haste (an unkinder man would say his desperation) to show the darker connections between and among them, in his rush to get it all in, Moore neglects to make real ipso facto arguments, supplying instead his characteristic insinuations and cheap stock-footage inserts and musical cues so that we in the audience can congratulate ourselves for being in on the joke and knowing the real score. (And why not, I hear you ask, when these methods have served him so well to date? Yes, they’ve served Moore very well, but have they served the cause of getting the greater truth established once and for all?) And speaking of rushed, what’s with the editing job Moore performs on "the smoking gun," the "he'll be toast" footage of Bush freezing up for a full seven minutes in front of that Florida classroom on the morning of Sept. 11, after being told that a second plane had just struck the World Trade Center? I couldn’t wait to see it...and I’m still waiting, because it isn’t in the movie. What Moore did (after apparently coming to a decision about his audience’s patience) was drastically telescope the footage to perhaps 30 seconds (and I’m being generous here) overlaying a time-stamp every few seconds along with his patented sarcastic narration as to what Bush might have been thinking as the minutes passed. Imagine how effective that agonizingly uninterrupted shot of Bush could have been...if only Moore could have let it alone, no edits, no voice-over, nothing. Just the dreary real-time event itself. Imagine the audience positively squirming with rage and anguish as Bush sits there for 420 very long seconds, making his eye-wandering faces, an absolute picture of ineptitude rendered Andy Warhol-style. Imagine if the movie had started this way. (Or should I leave my own screwy film tastes out of my argument?) After all, is there a better way to subvert Bush than by simply showing footage of him hanging himself in front of a live camera? (Happily, the movie ends with a well-known doozy of an example of just this.) Maybe what galls me most about Moore is his "whatever works best this minute" approach, which leads to wildly contradictory material being present here, as in all of his films. About midway through "Fahrenheit 9/11", there’s a montage of American soldiers describing the best heavy metal to listen to in their tanks as they lay waste to Iraqi homes and civilians. Our horrible soldiers are roasting the children of Iraq and grooving to the action! Then, when Moore wants to make the point of the war’s cost to American families, he shows us the GI coffins and amputees, the weeping mothers, the bitter veterans. Our poor soldiers are being roasted in Iraq and nobody cares! Gee, it’s amazing how the troubling complexity of real life manages to creep into even a movie that features "Do Something: www.michaelmoore.com" and no other website addresses, activist or otherwise, in its closing credits. So, in conclusion, SEE THIS MOVIE! Register to vote! Get unregistered people to vote! Read non-mainstream and/or non-US news sources (many of them freely available online). And stay tuned for more Independence Day coverage, including, possibly, photos. |
