"Fahrenheit 9/11": Yea!
Moore is not just a traditional muckracker, but a crusading artist -- like Dickens, Solzhenitsyn and Springsteen -- and has become a signal artist of our time.
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By Andrew O'Hehir
June 23, 2004 |
It might seem cynical, or downright offensive, to suggest that "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's dizzyingly broad indictment of George W. Bush's handling of terrorism and the war in Iraq, should be considered primarily as entertainment. It's a strange kind of entertainment indeed, one dedicated to exposing a national emergency that is -- if you buy even one-fifth of the film's arguments -- profoundly alarming. It's a dark, metafictional entertainment, one in which the duly elected (or, well, at least duly sworn) president of the United States delivers a dire warning on terrorism for the cameras and then turns around to address his tee shot; one in which the filmmaker himself comes under Secret Service investigation for photographing on the streets of Washington. (No, that isn't actually illegal, at least not yet.)
How can one apply that term to a film that features, among many other things, nightmarish images of mutilated Iraqi children and mortally wounded American soldiers? I'm not suggesting that Moore deploys such images for laughs, or exploits them (although some viewers may have that reaction). But he is most certainly trying to shock you, to galvanize you, to make your jaw hit the floor. These are the goals of old-style muckraking journalism, and Moore belongs, in part, to that tradition. But they are also the goals of the crusading artist, from Dickens to Solzhenitsyn to Springsteen, and it's time to recognize that Moore has one foot in those waters as well.
Moore is not just a traditional muckracker, but a crusading artist -- like Dickens, Solzhenitsyn and Springsteen -- and has become a signal artist of our time.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
By Andrew O'Hehir
June 23, 2004 |
It might seem cynical, or downright offensive, to suggest that "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's dizzyingly broad indictment of George W. Bush's handling of terrorism and the war in Iraq, should be considered primarily as entertainment. It's a strange kind of entertainment indeed, one dedicated to exposing a national emergency that is -- if you buy even one-fifth of the film's arguments -- profoundly alarming. It's a dark, metafictional entertainment, one in which the duly elected (or, well, at least duly sworn) president of the United States delivers a dire warning on terrorism for the cameras and then turns around to address his tee shot; one in which the filmmaker himself comes under Secret Service investigation for photographing on the streets of Washington. (No, that isn't actually illegal, at least not yet.)
How can one apply that term to a film that features, among many other things, nightmarish images of mutilated Iraqi children and mortally wounded American soldiers? I'm not suggesting that Moore deploys such images for laughs, or exploits them (although some viewers may have that reaction). But he is most certainly trying to shock you, to galvanize you, to make your jaw hit the floor. These are the goals of old-style muckraking journalism, and Moore belongs, in part, to that tradition. But they are also the goals of the crusading artist, from Dickens to Solzhenitsyn to Springsteen, and it's time to recognize that Moore has one foot in those waters as well.
