Getting reaction Moore’s priority

As journalists, muckrakers have never been widely embraced.

Just consider the term itself: muckraker – raker of muck.

It comes originally, so journalism history books tell us, from John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It was Theodore Roosevelt who made the term popular, though, by applying it to those who employed questionable, and often sensationalistic, methods to uncover corruption in both business and politics.

Imagine what Roosevelt would say about Michael Moore, whose new film “Fahrenheit 9/11” opens at the River Park Square Cinemas today?

Moore, you’ll recall, is the filmmaker who first stepped into the public spotlight in 1989 with the release of the documentary “Roger & Me” (DVD, VHS; 1:31; rated R). In that film, Moore – a big, shambling presence of a man – pioneered what would become his trademark style: using comedy to make the underlying seriousness of his message easier to swallow.

Underlying seriousness: “Roger & Me” points fingers at General Motors CEO Roger Smith, whose decision to cut back on GM’s manufacturing in the company’s home of Flint, Mich., ruined the city’s economy.

Overt comic moments: Moore chases Smith across the country, even invading GM’s corporate headquarters, attempting to get him on camera.

The same kind of serio-comic mix met with various degrees of success in Moore’s follow-up to “Roger and Me,” 1992’s “Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint,” in the short-lived 1995 television program “TV Nation” and particularly in 2002’s Oscar-winning Documentary Feature “Bowling for Columbine” (DVD, VHS; 2:00; rated R for violent images, language).

A study of America’s love affair with guns, “Bowling for Columbine” is vintage Moore. Unafraid to take his camera where others – the famous television show “60 minutes” included – won’t go, Moore invites his audience to laugh, in one of many comic sequences, by showing a bank that is giving away a gun as a promotion.

It’s hard not to at least smile at Moore, having made himself a part of the promotion, appearing on camera with a new gun to fondle.

At the same time, Moore takes us into the hallways of Columbine High School, of Littleton, Colo., site of one of America’s worst mass killings. This segment, which portrays the aftermath of the horrific crime, isn’t even remotely funny.

Neither is his ambush of Charlton Heston. A spokesman for the National Rifle Association, Heston had shown up in Littleton 10 days after the school shootings to support gun ownership.

Moore tricks Heston into sitting for an interview. It isn’t until Moore’s questions get tougher that Heston realizes what’s happening. And he cuts the interview off, walking away even as Moore, angry now, continues badgering him with questions that are only thinly veiled accusations.

Critics of “Bowling for Columbine” were mixed on the Heston interview: Some thought it was effective filmmaking; others thought it was cheap theatrics.

And now comes “Fahrenheit 9/11,” fresh from winning the Golden Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Nothing that the film offers should come as any surprise to those familiar with Moore and his work.

It relives, we are told, the disputed presidential election of 2000. It portrays a link between the family of George Bush, the royal family that rules Saudi Arabia and the family of Osama bin Laden. It looks at the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

And it explores the ongoing war with Iraq, from the perspective of soldiers fighting in the conflict and from those back home who end up burying their dead.

“What’s remarkable here isn’t Moore’s political animosity or ticklish wit,” says Washington Post film critic Desson Howe. “It’s the well-argued, heartfelt power of his persuasion. Even though there are many things here that we have already learned, Moore puts it all together. It’s a look back that feels like a new gaze forward.”

Watching “Fahrenheit 9/11” may cause you to laugh. It may cause you to cry. It may cause you to fume.

It could actually accomplish all three at once.

Theodore Roosevelt wouldn’t be surprised by any of it. He had intimate knowledge of the work done in his era by muckrakers like Michael Moore.

Curious thing, though. Roosevelt made it clear that he didn’t like some of their methods.

Yet not liking how they worked doesn’t mean that he disagreed with what they said.