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Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Updated: 02:12 PM EDT A Film to Polarize Along Party Lines By JIM RUTENBERG, The New York Times The Michael Moore documentary the Walt Disney Company deemed too partisan to distribute offers few new revelations about the connections between President Bush and prominent Saudi Arabian families, including that of Osama bin Laden. But this film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is scheduled to make its debut today at the Cannes International Film Festival, contains stark images of civilian casualties and disillusioned soldiers from the Iraq war zone that have rarely, if ever, been shown on American television. And the muckracking craft evident in this nearly two-hour attack on President Bush's tenure in the White House is likely to have a galvanizing effect among both conservatives and liberals should the film be widely distributed this summer. A reporter for The New York Times was invited to a screening of the film last week. "Fahrenheit 9/11" focuses on longstanding ties between the Bush family, its associates and prominent Saudis and on whether those ties clouded the president's judgment in recognizing warning signs before the Sept. 11 attacks and hampered his response afterward. Mr. Moore extends his critique of the president to his conduct of the war in Iraq, arguing that the war is victimizing not only Iraqis but also the lower-income enlisted Americans who are fighting in it. In addition he attempts to make a case that the government's terrorism alerts at home are being used to repeal some civil liberties. These are the subjects that have made "Fahrenheit 9/11" such a political hot potato. Icon Productions, Mel Gibson's company and the original primary investor in the film, backed out last spring, and Miramax Films, a Disney division run by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, stepped in. Although Disney executives said they made clear last May that Disney would not allow Miramax to distribute the film, it was only recently that the Weinsteins became convinced they would not be able to budge their corporate masters. Two weeks ago Mr. Moore, who won an Oscar for his documentary "Bowling for Columbine," went public to protest Disney's actions. "Some people may be afraid of this movie because of what it will show," he said at the time. (Last week, Disney agreed to sell the movie to the Weinsteins, who can arrange for its distribution in North America, though not under the Miramax name.) But Republicans predict many viewers will discount the film as an anti-Bush screed, and that it will ultimately have no effect on the election. Democrats say they hope it will feed growing discontent in the United States with Mr. Bush's Iraq policy and help the campaign of Senator John Kerry, his presumptive Democratic challenger. Mr. Moore is confident it will sway votes against Mr. Bush, though he notes the film, into which he also has tried to inject a good dose of humor, is likewise critical of Democrats for not posing any significant opposition to Mr. Bush after Sept. 11. Mr. Moore said he was considering making at least one sequence from the film available to the news media today after he presents it at the Cannes film festival: that of American soldiers laughing and taking pictures as they place hoods over Iraqi detainees, with one of them touching a prisoner's genitals through a blanket. Mr. Moore and his production team said they also believed the film would get attention for showing that a name excised from one of Mr. Bush's National Guard records was that of an investment counselor for one of Osama bin Laden's brothers, Salem. In a copy of the record released by the National Guard in 2000, the man in question, James R. Bath, was listed as being suspended from flying for the National Guard in 1972 for failing to take a medical exam next to a similar listing for Mr. Bush. It has been widely reported that the two were friends and that Mr. Bath invested in Mr. Bush's first major business venture, Arbusto Energy, in the late 1970's after Mr. Bath began working for Salem bin Laden. Mr. Bath and the White House have said that the money he invested in Mr. Bush's company was his, not that of Mr. bin Laden. The White House said Friday that Mr. Bath's name was expunged from the record it released in February only to protect his privacy and should have been in 2000, as well. That is one of several connections Mr. Moore highlights in the film between Mr. Bush, his family and associates and Saudi Arabia. Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis, as is Osama bin Laden. As White House officials noted last week, however, many of these connections have been made elsewhere, most recently in "House of Bush, House of Saud," by Craig Unger (Scribner, 2004). But writ large on the big screen with Mr. Moore's narration and set to music, the connections could still prove revelatory to those who have not paid close attention to reports about Saudi Arabia's connections to Mr. Bush and his associates. At the screening last week audience members � including people featured in the film like the mother of a serviceman killed in Iraq and a soldier unwilling to return � exclaimed loudly when Mr. Moore's narration spelled them out. In one connection the film notes that Mr. Bush's father, George H. W. Bush, worked as a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group, a private investment company with various ties to Saudi Arabia and even, for some years, to the family of Osama bin Laden. "My point is first of all that the Bushes were so close to the Saudis that they essentially had turned a blind eye to what was really going on before 9/11," Mr. Moore said in an interview. "And after 9/11 they were in denial." More specifically the movie implies that the Saudi connections explain why the United States facilitated the departure of dozens of Saudi nationals from the country � including relatives of Osama bin Laden � shortly after the attacks, and charges they were not properly questioned. But like other points in the film, critics will certainly argue with that assertion, and may not have to go far to seek ammunition. The independent panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks recently reported that it believed that the evacuation was handled properly. And the family of Osama bin Laden disowned him in the 1990's and says that it has no relationship with him anymore. Adel al-Jubeir, foreign policy adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, said that any ties between Mr. Bush and his associates and prominent Saudi Arabians should not be considered odd. "Look at any Texas family that's involved in the oil or oil services, and you will find they have a lot of connections to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf," he said, referring to assertions that the connections add up to anything more than that as nonsense. After hearing a description of the some of the connections made in the film, Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, said, "It's so outrageously false, it's not even worth comment." Mr. Bartlett also said he had no comment on the sections of the film that address the war in Iraq, which include gruesome images of violence, like a man angrily holding up an infant's charred corpse after an American attack and the exposed bone of a shrapnel-infused leg. Jim Dyke, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he believed there was no need to prepare a public challenge to the film's validity upon its release. "People are smart enough to know that this is someone who is very angry, who has for some time had a clearly partisan agenda," he said. Just the same, Democratic operatives said they believed viewers' opinions of Mr. Moore would not matter if his film raised new or even old questions about Mr. Bush. May 17, 2004 Copyright � 2004 The New York Times Company |
Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by LiquidX --- I hope the AMERICAN people wakes up a bit.. |
Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by LiquidX --- I hope the AMERICAN people wakes up a bit.. |
Re: Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by Q5echo to what? put the movie and the hype aside. wake up to what? enlighten me, the sleepy American, oh great see-er. the great Chilean see-er of...things!!!? |
Re: Re: Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by Cyrus King Watch the movie Im sure it will clue you in to many things that are not surprising but informative. Its seems like you want to hate the film by bashing ala Ad hominem styles |
http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes20...1219269,00.html
it has been showed in canes now, i want to see it 
Re: Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by NeoPhono Wake up to what? The distorted facts, one-sided reporting and personal vendettas of Michael Moore? As the article said, this movie will do one thing if widely released. It will give the super-liberal Bush-bashers more fodder for their cannon and it will again prove to the middle-grounders and conservatives that Moore makes his money by selling his perverted view of reality to those he knows will buy it. |
Re: Re: Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r While trying to be informative, he distorts the real situation and blinds the watching public through his own myopic views. Sad really because he does have the potential of being great...if not for his own personal agenda. |
Re: Re: Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r *Nods head* Michael M. is way too Left-Wing for my liking... |
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| While trying to be informative, he distorts the real situation and blinds the watching public through his own myopic views. Sad really because he does have the potential of being great...if not for his own personal agenda. |
I've already posted my feelings on Moore a x1000 other times in previous posts, but it appears his film at the Cannes Festival had a pretty nice reception, even from some film critics:
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ...film/index.html
Here's Roger Ebert's review. Doesn't really give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" reply, but just gives an overall summary of the movie. I hesitate to imply any "tone" to his writing, since I got grilled on that in another thread, so I'll let you decide for yourself:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/eb-f...r-cannes18.html
Re: Re: Re: Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by arctic To be fair though, he isn't making unbiased documentaries, he's making opinionated films that make a point. of course his own personal agenda is going to come through, because that's what the entire film is based on. I won't argue with the distortion point, I'm generally called a left winger by most people and I believe that Moore is pretty much the left's version of Rush Limbaugh. He's a shock jock, plain and simple. |
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by NeoPhono The problem I see is that many times his movies are billed as journalistic documentaries or art house expose's. We all know that the average Joe will not go home and research what he sees on the screen, big or small, and that plays very much to the liking of Mr. Moore. People go to his movies with the idea that they will be shocked, but shocked by the truth, a truth which is hardly reality. I'm not sure what the solution is, since I don't think his movies should be outright banned. I don't know if a disclaimer is needed, or maybe just more truthful marketing, but people need to know that what Mr. Moore is selling is not in fact a piece of journalism, but a piece of propaganda. |
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Solution: Have Ann Coulter make a movie to even the movie propaganda war. |
The trouble is, since Bowling for Columbine people tend to see Moore more as a political commentator than what he actually is, namely a scruffy, working-class guy who enjoys taking the piss out of white, middle-class America. While many of his criticisms are necessarily political in nature, he's not a Noam Chomsky or a Rush Limbaugh, he's just someone with a sense of humour and a somewhat stilted, yet passionately held view on American culture. I reccomend you go and rent out some of the Awful Truth DVDs - not as political as his recent stuff - and most of the episodes are bloody hilarious (I'm thinking of the one where they get the Republican presidential candidate to jump into a portable mosh-pit in exchange for votes 
).
I like Michael Moore, not because I agree with his socialist political outlook (on the contrary - I'd probably disagree with more than 50% of what he says), but because he has a knack for seeing through bullshit and getting up people's noses. So long as it lays mercilessly into Bush, I'm sure I'll like this movie too.
Crap! Another positive review:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/artic...,638819,00.html
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fahrenheit 9/11
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Solution: Have Ann Coulter make a movie to even the movie propaganda war. |
well well well, Mr. Moore's film wins the Palm D'Or and it was considered a long shot by many...
Cannes used to be a prestigeous awards ceremony but I feel that in recent years it has been over-commercialized and slowly taken over by Hollywood actors or maybe thats just because thats the only part you get to see in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Unfortunatly in the last several years actors/musicians have taken it upon themselves to use their fame as a soapbox to preach their slanted political views at increased levels. The irony in many of their views is amazing. You have actors that get paid millions per movie talking about the plight of the poor and the evils of the rich. I'd love to see what one of them would do if asked to donate even a fraction of their wealth to any of these causes. The second an actor agrees to work for minimum wage will be the second I even begin to listen to what they have to say about giving to the needy. With that being said, it's cool and trendy to be political in Hollywood, and this "movie" winning comes as no suprise to me. It's more about politics and the statement you can make than the quality of film.
hehe his newsletter 
"Fahrenheit 9/11" Wins Top Prize in Cannes
May 23, 2004
Friends,
Hello from Cannes! Im sure by now many of you have heard the good newsFahrenheit 9/11 has won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It is the first time in nearly 50 years a documentary has won the Palme dOr (the Golden Palm).
Myself and twenty-six members of our crew are here in Cannes and we are in a state of shock. None of us expected this. First came the critics reviews on Monday (The New York Times called it my best film ever), then the audience reaction at our premiere (a 20-minute standing ovation, a new all-time record for the festival), the International Federation of Film Critics Award on Friday, and then the best film prize last night. Its all been an incredible week for us and I cant wait to get back home and show you all this wonderfully powerful film weve made.
No, we still dont have a distributor in America as I write this but after winning the worlds top film prize Id give it about one more day (if that) before we have someone brave enough (and smart enough) to show Americans what the world can already see (Albania, this week, became the final countryother than the U.S.to sign on with a distributor).
I am still hoping for a July release (4th of July weekend?) both in the U.S. and around the world.
I fully expect the right wing and the Republican Party to come at me and this film with everything theyve got. They will try, as they have unsuccessfully in the past, to attack me personally because they cannot win the debate on the issues the film raisesnamely, that they are a pack of liars and the American people are on to them. And, if the early screenings of Fahrenheit 9/11 are any indication, those who see this movie will never view the Bush administration in the same way again. Even if you already cant stomach George W. Bush & Co., I think this movie will take you to places you havent gone before, with laughter and with tears.
I will let you all knowas soon as we have a distributorthe date the film is opening. Until then, check out some of the articles that have been written, and check out the awards ceremony from Cannes.
Thanks everyone for your support.
Yours,
Michael Moore
[email protected]
www.michaelmoore.com
P.S. When you hear the wackos on Fox News and elsewhere refer to this prize as coming from the French, please know that of the nine members of the Festival jury, only ONE was French. Nearly half the jury (four) were Americans and the President of the jury was an American (Quentin Tarantino). But this fact wont stop the OReillys or the Lenos or the Limbaughs from attacking the French and me because, well, thats how their simple minds function.
I understand why some people dont like Michael Moore's seemingly one-sided arguments but it has to be done that way. In a land where Americans have made the less than balanced O'Riley one of the most influential t.v. personalities around you need a counter-balancing leftist view.
Enter Michael Moore. I say more power to him.
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H'wood hot for Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Despite (or because of) controversy, film expected to be hit Monday, May 24, 2004 Posted: 9:23 AM EDT (1323 GMT) LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- The White House calls the film "outrageously false," but Hollywood is hot for "Fahrenheit 9/11," documentary filmmaker Michael Moore's caustic broadside at President Bush. A day after the film won the top Palme d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival in France, industry observers Sunday predicted the controversial movie would be a box office hit, even if some early reviews have hardly been favorable. "I think it will be hugely successful," said D.A. Pennebaker, veteran documentary director whose films include the Oscar-nominated 1992 election campaign saga "The War Room," which he made with Chris Hegedus. "It's going to get a lot of publicity, and this country is really in the mood for somebody to tell 'em what they should think, what to do." In "Fahrenheit 9/11," Moore takes aim at Bush's handling of Iraq and the war on terror and traces links between the Bush family and prominent Saudis including the family of Osama bin Laden. It was greeted with a rapturous standing ovation at its Cannes world premiere, but not everyone was impressed. Dan Barlett, the White House communications director, was quoted by the New York Times last week as saying of the film "it is so outrageously false, it's not even worth comment." Also critical was the review in the entertainment industry journal Daily Variety which called the film a "blatant cinematic 2004 campaign pamphlet" and said it "fails to provide any hard facts or make any incriminating connections that a reasonably informed person doesn't already know about." That may not matter to the fans of the man behind "Roger & Me," and the anti-gun documentary "Bowling for Columbine." Moore, in fact, laid the groundwork for "Fahrenheit 9/11" a year ago when he accepted the Oscar for "Columbine," and launched into a tirade against Bush on worldwide television. A few weeks ago he was back in the news again, complaining that Walt Disney Co. had prevented its Miramax Films unit from releasing "Fahrenheit 9/11." Disney said it did not want to be associated with a political hot potato in an election year, and noted that Moore had known this for a year. Miramax co-chairmen Harvey and Bob Weinstein are in the process of buying the movie with their own money and lining up a distributor, which is not expected to be a big problem. Thanks to Moore's knack for self-promotion, "everybody in America is going to know about this movie, if they don't know about it already," said Michael Silberman, president of distribution at IDP Distribution, which recently released "Super Size Me," a documentary about the perils of fast food. "Bowling for Columbine" is the most successful documentary in North America with ticket sales of $21.5 million. His new one should at least match that, industry executives say. "Whether you like Harvey or not, he's a die-hard Democrat and he's going to see to it this film gets exposed. It's going to make a lot of money," said T.C. Rice, president of distribution at New York-based independent studio Manhattan Pictures. Moore has said he wants "Fahrenheit 9/11" to come out as soon as possible so that it will influence the November presidential election and send Bush back to Texas. That could be a tall order, according to Kim Serafin, a politically moderate radio talk show host in Los Angeles. "He'll have lots of applause from the people he's already preaching to, the people that already like him and believe in him and think he's a great filmmaker," she said. "And the people who don't ... they weren't going to see this movie anyway." On the other hand, the Cannes win has given the film some legitimacy, and the film could bring out Moore-haters if only so that they can "know thy enemy," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. "When people are talking about a movie like this, they want to see what all the fuss is about. In an election year it's all the more appealing to people because everybody's in this political mode," he said. http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/24/film.moore.reut/index.html |
"Also critical was the review in the entertainment industry journal Daily Variety which called the film a "blatant cinematic 2004 campaign pamphlet" and said it "fails to provide any hard facts or make any incriminating connections that a reasonably informed person doesn't already know about.""
perhaps the film just isn't for the political elite...
"it is so outrageously false, it's not even worth comment." --Dan Barlett, the White House communications director
ehm, have the white house already seen the movie? 
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| Originally posted by MisterOpus1 ... I hesitate to imply any "tone" to his writing, since I got grilled on that in another thread, so I'll let you decide for yourself: |
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| Originally posted by St_Andrew "Also critical was the review in the entertainment industry journal Daily Variety which called the film a "blatant cinematic 2004 campaign pamphlet" and said it "fails to provide any hard facts or make any incriminating connections that a reasonably informed person doesn't already know about."" perhaps the film just isn't for the political elite... "it is so outrageously false, it's not even worth comment." --Dan Barlett, the White House communications director ehm, have the white house already seen the movie? |
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