[lit-ideas] Re: Fahrenheit 911

A group of us saw F.911 a few days ago. We had dinner afterwards and talked 
about it. Here's
several comments.

- It's powerful, yes, but you feel that you're being manipulated. Emotional 
persuasions are
used instead of factual arguments.

- Michael Moore is Rush Limbaugh's mirror twin. Neither of these obese 
populists are
involved in politics in a meaningful or constructive way. Both use appeals to 
emotion. Both
attack their targets relentlessly, but there's not really a reason for that 
attack. Moore,
despite his appearance as a "man of the working class", has never really held a 
working
class job. He's always been in media in one way or another. Why does Moore hate 
Bush? For
the same reason Limbaugh attacks Clinton: it draws a paying audience. Both are 
entertainers.

- The movie is not a documentary. It is a mishmash of facts, innuendos, 
personal attacks,
jokes, and everything else, but it's not a documentary. A friend who is an 
expert on
documentaries laughed and said "no documentary film maker would make such a 
film".

- The movie would have made better sense if he made his points and then at the 
end, repeated
those points. Instead, you come out feeling as if you had just seen Moulin 
Rouge (the recent
movie): a long series of this, that, and something else. But Moore wasn't 
making a
documentary or any kind of reasoned argument. It's just entertainment.

- Moore's Columbine made $21 million. F.911 will easily make more. Moore will 
be rather
wealthy, very powerful, and utterly intolerable. He will get funding for 
whatever project he
dreams up. A recent New Yorker article on Moore pointed out that Moore is 
self-centered and
difficult. He has left a long string of wrecks behind him. Add millions of 
dollars to such a
personality, plus a few major awards, and you get bad news: another Limbaugh, 
televangelist,
or Father McCoughlin.

- Regrettably, success sells. Moore's Columbine made $21 million. This one will 
easily make
more. Moore's "style" may become the new style of "documentaries". We will see 
politics sink
yet further into rants and wild accusations.

- The Right's complaints about Moore are amusing: they have Ann Coulter, Rush 
Limbaugh, Pat
Robertson, and the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal. They certainly 
know about
rabblerousers.

Yes, the movie is worth seeing, to know what he is doing.

yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com

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