The Sheriff of Hollywood: Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11


By John Davis

Fahrenheit 9/11 is like a modern day western, but this time the genre has escaped confinement of the big screen and is roaming around the real world scaring the hell out of the Republican Party. World truth and justice are at stake as a Michael Moore presents himself as substantive matter confronting his evil anti-matter dual self, GW Bush.


I thought that by attending the 11:30 PM showing at the plush Bridge theater in L.A. on opening day I could avoid the crowds. But even at that late hour I counted only two empty seats, with the rest being occupied by mostly late teen to early-30s patrons. It made me feel a little old until Moore introduced some of those great anti-war rock songs from the sixties, energizing everyone.

In the beginning Bush’s gang are swarmed over by hordes of cosmetologists doing their best to transform them into believable and credible media icons. Perhaps morticians could have done a better job.

A camera turned on any one of us for enough time would eventually reveal mistakes, a scratch in the wrong place for instance.

But Moore did not merely seek out mundane acts such as these to show the world, he revealed traits that show the internal thought process and even sexual workings of the Bush neo-con gang.

As Bush is caught waiting for the camera to roll, his beady eyes shift back and forth in a natural way before he locks them in place for the camera as if looking for the script he must read. He is also caught on camera bragging about his base, the “have mores,” without shame.

Paul Wolfowitz has been reported by other movie critics licking his comb as he was getting camera ready. That is not the case. He actually attempted to have oral sex with it, plunging it entirely into his mouth, moving in and out as if attempting to sexually gratify an inanimate object. The audience no longer seemed to trust him to invent policy for the most powerful nation on earth after that.

Bush, a transplant to Texas, tries his best to convince us he is an oil cowboy by wearing a big hat and buckle. He points that his dog is in a hole with another animal then talks dumb to what he must presume are people foolish enough to vote for him.

A master at understanding complex geo-political realities connecting the oil and war dependant industries, Moore boils it all down to barroom deals where the Bush gang glad-hands, backslaps, and embraces leaders of the Arab Oil empire. Most notably members of the Bin Laden clan are outed as having direct financial ties to the Bush family.

Michael is shown shouting a question to Bush to which he responds “Behave now, and get a real job!”
Then came the day we all remember and the movie once again shows the incredible scene of GW being notified of not one, but two attacks on America. After looking for someone to hand him lines, or cue cards or something the Commander in Chief made one of the most important decisions possible, he continued reading My Pet Goat to the children while America burned. He apparently got Mike’s goat.

But if you were a Saudi or Bin Ladden family member, no worries that day. They were whisked out of the country by the scores while all other passenger aircraft in the United States were grounded on orders from the highest levels of government.

The Gang’s public story then changes dramaticlly, now claiming that Iraq posed a direct threat the to US in contridiction to their prior statements. They all said the lies. Again and again, so many times that most of the Congress believed them. Some brave members did stand in opposition, speaking truth to power, but not one member of the Senate, not even liberal democrats would stand by their side to oppose what the movie shows to be an unjust war.

It was logical for the County to believe the President since GW had won the United States presidential election by a few hundred votes, maybe.

Moore allows for the faces of families and children of Iraq and the United States to populate the screen in peace and joy before the great bombing, giving faces to the faceless. It was clear that it was not only trucks and buildings that were bombed. Resturants, homes, and schools were hit too. And in the U.S. sons and daughters were lost durring and after the pre-emptive action. Some made it back in flag draped coffins the Government forbade the public from seeing and some without limbs and otherwise maimed now sit in Veteran Hospitals struggling.

GW portrayed himself as a war hero too, like his daddy, by landing on the Aircraft Carrier Lincoln making the hollow claim that all major hostilities were finished in Iraq. Funny thing about all this though, Moore’s portrayal shows he is not a hero but really a former National Guard member gone AWOL. Luckily, while he was on base you could be assured he was protecting Texas booze bars and cocaine venues from evil doers.

Figures are presented that validate members of our armed forces had their pay and benefits cut while Bush has been in office leaving one parent families to fend for themselves.

Stepping away, but not entirely, from his Capraesque every man video camera persona, Michael shows the real compassion of families affected in both countries. The indignities of war can affect anyone.

He slings that camera with the precision of a seasoned gunfighter. His camera still has notches carved into it from his last film, Bowling for Columbine. In the fifties, a Western, Johnny Guitar, introduced the notion that existing Government can go bad and that only a societal outsider can fix things right. But Moore is looking more like Gregory Peck in High Noon. After Bowling for Columbine Moore is now recognized as a real good Sheriff of Hollywood. Standing tall, and so strong he does not need the aid of society, he now walks down that western street, spurs a jingling, looking for the one known as Black George.

On November 7, a little after the film will be released on DVD, the two will clash.

The film is a matrix of clips creating a falling collage of information that can only be digested wholly by someone taking notes with a laptop. But the basics are there for all to see in the rawest of images. Government lies, grim war profiteers, love of life, and universal suffering spill over the screen with fingers pointing.

Moore is the type of hero America admires, genuine, unafraid, and willing to stand up for the common man. Of course he probably sees no harm in becoming the most successful and richest documentary filmmaker in history either. Sometimes the little guy wins.

Posted: Thu - July 1, 2004 at 07:08 PM          

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