Moore’s movie a deft anti-Bush attack
Michael Moore’s latest movie “Fahrenheit 9/11” is an anti-Bush broadside. It accuses President Bush of letting Saudis leave the United States after Sept. 11 without being interviewed by the FBI. A shocking charge! And utterly false, as well – the FBI got its crack – but who cares? Millionaire Moore is a deft provocateur, and if he’s wrong about the facts, well, the facts should be right. They feel right. Isn’t that what counts?
Of course his latest film won the Palme D’Or at Cannes. Jittery film-geek Quentin Tarantino, who led the panel, assured reporters that the choice was not a political statement. Lands sakes, no. Just because the movie flays Bush, sets his skin on fire and waves it over its head doesn’t mean it’s political. “I made a statement early on,” QT added, “that I didn’t want politics to be involved.”
Oh, well, if a statement was made, that settles any suspicions. Tilda Swinton, a Scottish actress, noted Moore’s brave stance: “What he is saying in this film can’t be said in the mainstream U.S. media.” She’s right, of course. There’s much that can’t be said in the mainstream media. If Dan Rather tells his bosses that delicate fairies are hovering around the cameras making funny faces at him while he gives the news, they will probably decide that can’t be said, either, lest their remaining credibility melt like cotton candy in a warm Texas rain.
Swinton went on: “I do think it’s possible to see that this film is not about Bush, America or Iraq.” Remember, this is a film about Bush, America and Iraq. “But (it’s) about the system, in a very precise way. It’s about the dialectic between filmmakers, the media and the audience.”
Mm-hmm. And “Titanic” was a movie about maritime navigation. “The Passion of the Christ” was about the Roman judiciary.
This is maddeningly disingenuous. No doubt the film has merits as a piece of art. The same thing could be said of Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” which was well-edited and compelling, as long as you understood that the entire thing was an entertaining farrago of lies and nonsense. But at least no one pretended that it was some disinterested inquiry into a noted historical event; it was agitprop, and Stone made no secret of the fact.
But we’re asked to believe that the Cannes jury acted from high-minded love of art? If Moore had made a brilliant, sympathetic documentary about Pat Tillman, or a scathing account of French complicity with Saddam Hussein, it would have been screened at 3 a.m. in a theater that sat six. Because a movie like that just isn’t helpful.
When the movie is released stateside, few reviewers will note Moore’s admiring words for the people who are killing coalition troops and fellow Iraqis. As Moore wrote on his Web page in April: “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or ‘The Enemy.’ They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow – and they will win.”
Yes, the man Time’s movie reviewer called the left’s “canniest Bush Ambusher, its savviest guerilla entertainer, and its more colorful ambassador” is rooting for the other side. For al-Sadr. For the men who hacked off Nick Berg’s head. They’re the Iraqi Founding Fathers.
Politics makes strange bedfellows. Or would, if this was a political movie. In his acceptance speech, Moore struck a noble note: “I want to make sure, if I do nothing else for the rest of this year, that those who died in Iraq have not died in vain.”
Such solicitous concern. But as Moore also wrote last April on his Web site: “I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I’m sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe – just maybe – God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.”
Sacrificing American blood to earn God’s favor, eh? He has more in common with Nick Berg’s killers than one would have thought. Oscar nominations? Count on it.