Tonight I took a few hours to watch a movie. I watched Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. I know by just mentioned that name, I’m invoking a whole slew of images and thoughts in your mind. I know exactly what you’re feeling. I’ve run the gammut of feelings on Michael Moore.
There was the time when I had no idea who the guy was. That was in the spring of 2001 after the attacks of September 11th occurred. I was introduced to him at first by my Communications professor Karyl Daughters. She went to see him when he gave a talk at St. Cloud State. I really thought nothing of it. Later that fall, I took another class with Karyl. In it, we watched Roger and Me. I found Moore too biased and annoying. At that time I also really didn’t have much of an opinion on politics or war.
Things began to change after I saw Bowling For Columbine. Immediately after seeing it, Michael Moore became someone I looked up to. Later I had heard that he’d pieced together parts of Bowling For Columbine to make some of Charlton Heston’s comments look worse than they were. I don’t really know if these statements were true, but they evoked doubt in my mind.
So Michael Moore wasn’t the hero I’d thought of him as before. He was still doing what I thought was right. I couldn’t really believe what the news caster was telling me anymore. This guy seems to be on my side.
When it came to Fahrenheit 9/11 I had my doubts, but I also had my own feelings. I wasn’t hard to get my attention. I sat fixated throughout the entire thing. And when it was all over, I felt like applauding. Instead I came here. The natural thing to do would be to encourage every person to watch this movie because it agrees with my viewpoints. I’m not going to do that. Watch it if you want. All I ask is that if you do, seriously consider the viewpoints presented. Take a good look at how the United States is being run. Then ask yourself if this movie, right or wrong, is worth the hype. I think it is. I think that at the very least it shows that people are curious about this type of thing. That not everyone is a mindless zombie believing everything they’re told.
Just think about it. That’s all I ask.
I’ve always been pretty skeptical of Moore. He’s got good points, but how he gets them across is so shady. He’ll ambush people and, like you said, splice together footage to make things look worse than they are. He’ll also take things out of context if it will further what he’s arguing for. I dunno. I think the guy is doing a good job about getting people aware of things, but it would be nice if he didn’t do it in the way he does.
Agreed. It was definitely thought provoking, but I also had a Comm. class at SJU where many groups did reports on Bowling for Columbine. Only one of the groups decided to dissect the points and actually research how Moore put the film together. That group came way after many presentations throughout the semester blindly applauding his creative (actually just emotional persuasion) genius. He’s great at splicing things to grab you emotionally, gluing you in for the rest of the ride to accept things without question. I thought Bowling for Columbine was great; revealing those things you always believe must be true but never hear about. That group in class discredited Moore quite a bit though.
I’m glad they presented what they did, because I was able to pick up on some more things in Fahrenheit 9/11 that I think I might not have before. The too Marine (or was it Navy?) officers doing recruiting in Flint, MI outside of K-mart, for example. IMO, there’s no way two marine’s are going to let some camera man follow them around with the camera about a foot from their face recording them saying things that allude to “let’s get that kid, looks like he’s got nothing going on his life.” While I have seen military recruiters before, and think it could be possible some of the recruiters are this desperate and might approach it like that, I can’t believe that two of them would conveniently show up in Moore’s hometown (a hotbed for his critique on how America is screwing the little people) and allow him, or whomever was carrying the camera, to follow them around and get the comments on tape that those officers made.
The students in class reported how Moore has gone beyond simply taking things out of context and splicing, but has actually engineered scenes in his movies.
The recruitment scene, I believe, was one of these cases, and I saw some other similar things in Farenheit. So though he raised points I hadn’t thought of, and showed information we normally don’t see (the beheading video!? holy crap!), I find it very unfortunate that he stoops methods of presentation outside of facts.
But, after all, it is a movie, not a documentary…