Whoah, let's back up here.
Can someone please tell me where all these supposed fictions lie in F 9-11? There's only so much "spin" one can put on certain facts that speak loud and clear when they are caught like deer in headlights on camera in an elementary school class.
I stick to my point that there is a big difference bewteen manipulation and having a point of view, and Michael Moore has a point of view. The same could be said that Leni Reifenstahl had specific point of view with her classic documentary The Triumph of the Will, which glorified the Nazi party and was propoganda. It's a classic, and it lies about and glamorizes its subject, but it's one of the best documentaries of all time. The point--she was Hitler's friend and it was her point of view.
This was discussed about MM when 'Bowling for Columbine' first came out. The response? Good documentary films/filmmakers are objective.
That leaves the rest and includes MM.
Who discussed this and issued the final verdict? Any great documentarian knows, from Morris to the Maysles to Moore, that the film has a power to change someone, whether it's exonerrating an innocent man in The Thin Blue Line or following Lila to the Capitol in F-9/11. We live in political times and the medium is not The New York Times, as one documentarian recently told me, it's a vehicle for argument as much as illumination.
Well, I did because I was a liberal defending liberals to my right-wing friends and all they were going on about was MM's "lies and propaganda" in the F 9/11 film. After a while I had to shut up because I didn't have a leg to stand on fact-wise. And neither did MM after the criticism came down on his head. After being touted as a 'documentary filmmaker' he eventually had to come out and say F 9/11 wasn't a 'documentary' but a political film. Had MM been less fast and easy with the facts, perhaps he would have reached the audience that mattered. The 50+% who voted for Dubya.
The belief that F-9/11 has been debunked is mystifying, as most I know consider it a great film and the criticism of it a knee-jerk reactionary and obvious scramble on the part of the right to save a very pale face. I believe it won an Oscar, made 120 million and deeply affected most people in this country who saw it. It is, on the whole, factually correct though the quibblers who like to take everything down, from A Beautiful Mind to The Hurricane, will find fault and defense.
My final thought is that this
lying, cheating, torturing, murdering, cheap, masquerading, attacking, sexist, homophobic, elitist, separatist, ignorant, warmongering adminstration has pulled enough wool over our eyes for too long and if Michael Moore wants to knit himself a sheepskin blanket, so be it. It will never amount to what they've done if we want to play point/counterpoint all the way to the next election. At least he won't be washing children's blood off his hands like they will be.
Incidentally, Eugene Jarecki's excellent documentary Why We Fight also explores the American war machine and its effects in Iraq, through the eyes of participants on both sides, and...GUESS WHAT? He reached the same conclusions -- murdered civilians in Iraq, willy nilly bombing, disenfranchised ex-adminstration members. Guilty, Guilty, Guilty.
Also, check out the doc Control Room....
Everyone can't be playing fast and loose now can they?
??
rt
