-----Original Message----- From: Scribe1865@xxxxxxx Sent: Jun 29, 2004 11:59 PM To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [lit-ideas] Denby on Moore's flick In a message dated 6/29/2004 4:00:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time,=20 straker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/?040628crci_cinema ____ Thanks to Stephen for posting this rather even-handed review of the film. M= y=20 last point about motives preceding judgments was raised by Denby in this= =20 acute paragraph. -EY ____ The great documentary filmmakers of today=E2=80=94Frederick Wiseman, Marcel= Ophuls,=20 and Andrew Jarecki (of =E2=80=9CCapturing the Friedmans=E2=80=9D)=E2=80=94k= now that truth in an=20 absolute sense is unattainable. It=E2=80=99s not even imaginable. Who would= validate it? Who=20 could say that another interpretation besides the filmmaker=E2=80=99s was o= ut of the=20 question? Movies are made by men and women, not by gods hurling thunderbolt= s=20 of certitude. But the great documentary filmmakers at least make an attempt= ,=20 however inadequate, compromised, or hopeless, to arrive at a many-sided=20 understanding of some complex situation. Michael Moore is not that kind of = filmmaker,=20 nor does he want to be. He calls himself a satirist, but he=E2=80=99s less = a satirist=20 than a polemicist, a practitioner of mocking political burlesque: he doesn= =E2=80=99t=20 discover many new things but punches up what he already knows or suspects; = he=20 doesn=E2=80=99t challenge or persuade an audience but tickles or irritates = it. He=E2=80=99s=20 too slipshod intellectually to convince many except the already convinced, = too=20 eager to throw another treated log onto the fire of righteous anger.=20 A.A. Michael Moore out and out said in an interview on Booknotes that he do= esn't like Bush and will use whatever money he makes to attack Bush by maki= ng movies about him. He said it in so many words, so he is being totally a= bove board with this movie. =20 I still think that Bush is getting a much fairer shake with this movie, whi= ch at least is based in truth, however fast and loose Moore plays with time= lines and settings, than Clinton ever got from what the American Spectator= did, which was publish out and out hysterical fiction that wasn't even rem= otely related to reality. No one was aghast at that and Clinton survived i= t just fine. Poor cry baby Bush needs the whole country to know how unfair= ly he is being treated. Maybe Bush should let his actions and policies spe= ak for him. If the country was doing well, who would care what Moore put i= n his movie. Andy Amago ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html