One thing I’m amazed at is that during both of the
Politic-a-thons, I haven’t talked about any political themed documentaries.
Some of the best politically themed films to have come out in recent years have
been documentaries, from The Fog of War focusing on Robert McNamara to Five
Broken Cameras about the oppression of Palestinians under Israel (which is
really noteworthy considering what’s happening in Gaza now) to The Act of
Killing focusing on the genocide in Indonesia. But I think that for my first documentary
to cover on Politic-a-thon, it has to be one which was generally agreed to have
been a major player in an election and helped turn the wave of public opinion
against a President before his first term was up, that film being Fahrenheit
9/11.
The films of Michael Moore have always been of interest to
me. Despite all the grandstanding and his very simplistic style, a lot of the
things that Moore says in his films I agree with. Bowling for Columbine, Sicko
and Capitalism: A Love Story are amongst my favourite documentaries, and I may
cover them in future Politic-a-thons, but none of them has had the same impact
that Fahrenheit 9/11 has had. It was such an influential film that in meetings
between senior members of the Republican party in 2004, just before the
election, they said that if Bush lost the election then this film would be one
of the key factors why. The question is, does the film still have the same
impact now, with the benefit of hindsight, as it did back in 2004 and I think
it does.
The film focuses on the policies enacted by the Bush
government from 9/11 onwards, with the main focus being on the war in Iraq and
the belief that the reason for going to war given to the public, that of Sadaam
Hussein stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, was a fake and the real reason
why the US went in was for the oil and for profit. The film also shows the
impact that the war has had on the ordinary people of America and how the lower
classes are the ones who disproportionately see the harm caused by war, with
these people being the ones to sign up first meaning that the upper classes
don’t need to. Right from the offset, the film posits that the entire Bush
presidency was illegal, going back to the 2000 election and the widely accepted
belief that the election should have been won by Al Gore but the results in
Florida were rigged in favour of Bush (something which I think happened). This,
along with the fact that when members of the public (who were overwhelmingly
black) tried to contest the results in the Senate, not even one senator agreed
to support them, shows the belief that Moore has that the Bush administration
and the whole Washington system doesn’t care about the will of the public and
the will of the black population in particular, their focus is on the rich.
Throughout the film, more and more things are brought up to illustrate this
point and showing that the people in power don’t really take what is going on
seriously, including a clip of someone goofing around before announcing the war
in Iraq being shown. Probably the most horrifying example of this can be seen
through the fact that no-one in Congress read the Patriot Act before they voted
on it, meaning that the increased invasion of privacy was approved, without
anyone who voted on it knowing what they were voting on with the film showing
the danger that this act has brought, with any group or person who was critical
of Bush and against the Iraq war being spied on. There are a few parts of the
film where I think Moore went a bit too over the top with his grandstanding,
mainly when he goes up to the Capitol to try and get Congressmen and
Congresswomen to get their children to enlist in the army and when he reads the
Patriot Act to the public from an ice-cream truck, but the overall points that
Moore makes about how what the Bush administration did in regards to Iraq was
illegal, and the incredibly powerful and disturbing videos that Moore shows
about what happened behind closed doors is done brilliantly.
Overall, Fahrenheit 9/11 does still hold up and the impact
of the film still shines through. Due to many of the things that happened in
regards to Iraq being shown as true, along with the conversations between Blair
and Bush regarding Iraq being censored before they get released to the public
indicating that there is still a cover-up going on meaning that we will never
get the full details of what happened about the Iraq war, at least not in our
lifetimes. Sure some of the grandstanding doesn’t work but the overall truth
that Moore presents through the film more than makes up for it and the fact
that so many people saw this film does give me hope for America in the future,
at least until the next Republican is elected President.
My Rating: 4/5
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