I just got home from the 10:05 PM show of Fahrenheit 9/11 at the Lincoln Plaza. I started writing a full critique in the form of a long post and then I just realized that along with being very tired, I need to let things settle a bit more. The post I started to write … I scrapped it (something I never do), and I’ll try again tomorrow.
But as a preface, I just wanted to note that I went into the film wanting very badly to separate the movie from the politics. It is something that I generally believe I am able to do, as I hope I managed to at least some degree in my discussion of The Passion of the Christ. But I found it nearly impossible to approach Fahrenheit 9/11 in a similar manner. Michael Moore’s abilities and talents as a filmmaker are exactly the things that manipulate the audience enough to be emotionally moved by this film and therefore open up to its politics. I make no secret of my own liberal tendencies, but I also consider myself closer to the center than Moore, and I’ve been in plenty of political arguments discussions with people pointed far further left than myself. And while I left the theater agreeing with at least 90% of Moore’s argument, there are also several moments in this film that I think unfairly manipulate the audience in a direction that it doesn’t need to go; moments that are pure Bush-bashing for reasons unnecessary to the arguments and discussion at hand, but will make the audience laugh.
Anyway, I’ll get back to this tomorrow when I can discuss it more coherently. Meanwhile, I also want to preface whatever I write tomorrow with one other point: aside from the David Denby review in The New Yorker, I actually stayed away from reading any criticisms either by the paid critics or by people who actually know what they’re talking about when it comes to film criticism, such as fellow bloggers Filmbrain and Karen Cinecultist (except when it comes to Buffalo ’66 of course, in which case they’re just wrong!). I did hear plenty of commentary on the radio and TV news about the film, and if anything shocked me about the movie, it was realizing how much there was in the movie that I hadn’t heard discussed; that has gone unmentioned and more importantly not refuted.
OK … time for sleep.
Out of Focus 