"Fahrenheit 9/11" **** (out of ****)
A businessman turned politician. A rigged election. A president with foreign ties and business transactions. No, I'm not talking about Chancellor Trump, I'm talking about George W. Bush.
In the immediate days following the 2016 presidential election, I kept thinking to myself, there are a lot of similarities between Donald Trump and George W. Bush. I predict Trump, like Bush, will be viewed by history as a failure.
Besides the previous mentioned connections both Trump and Bush are men that value loyalty. Both like to talk tough. Bush was a cowboy and Trump a street-wise New Yorker. Trump, like Bush, may gin up a war to create public support.
When I first saw Michael Moore's documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004), the country was in the midst of an election. "The most important election of our lifetime" they told us. Moore's intention was to influence the election results and make George W. Bush a one term president. The public was going to find out the truth about Bush's background and connections. It caused quite a controversy. At the time of its release, "Fahrenheit 9/11" stirred me. It made me angry. I called it one of the best films of the year.
After the election of 2004, I didn't watch Moore's documentary again until recently. The next two times I saw it, I felt distant. "Fahrenheit 9/11" seemed to be a time capsule. It was a documentary truly of its time. With more than a decade passed, "Fahrenheit 9/11" didn't effect me as strongly as it did when I sat in the movie theatre on opening day. But, having rewatched it a third time, my blood started to boil. The anger returned mostly because I see history repeating itself.
In "Fahrenheit 9/11" Michael Moore presents George W. Bush as a privileged man. A man who came from a wealthy family and used that to his advantage. He lacked a good business head and leadership skills. He remembered those that helped him and rewarded them once he was in a position of power. In Moore's view, Bush, his cabinet and the Republican party, played the American public for suckers, advancing an agenda long in the making, exploiting tragedy for their profit.
The thrust of Moore's documentary deals with the aftermath of the September 11th attacks and the way the Bush administration dealt with it; the passage of the Patriotic Act, color coded threat levels, creating a high level of fear in the country, and the lead-up to the Iraq War, which in Moore's view, was a war built on lies, deliberate lies. Moore also draws a connection between the Bush family and Saudi Arabia, claiming as president, Bush always considered what would be best for the Saudi's, due to the massive amount of money they have invested in America and because of both of their ties to oil.
Much of what Moore presents in the documentary was well known to the public prior to the election. Moore comments on the amount of vacation time Bush had taken. During the first eight months of his presidency, Bush was on vacation 42% of the time, like Trump on his weekend vacations on hotels with his name on them. Moore comments on Bush's connections with Florida, the deciding state in the election. And how Bush did not hold briefings on terrorism, much like how Trump doesn't have daily briefings, since he doesn't like (or maybe know how) to read.
But there is some shocking stuff in "Fahrenheit 9/11". It was Moore that obtained footage of Bush in the Florida classroom when New York was under attack and how Bush sat in the classroom for seven minutes after learning what happened. That became a major discussion during the time, with some believing any other person would have left the room. Moore also gets one congressmen to admit many do not read the bills they pass into law, like the Patriot Act. We saw this played out again when Republicans admitted they didn't read the repeal and replace legislation of the Affordable Care Act earlier this year.
With George W. Bush out of office, I find "Fahrenheit 9/11" to also be a commentary on our political system and the men (and women) that run for president. They all seem to have a self-interest in running. They aren't running for the "good of the country" but because there is money to be made for them, not to mention the attraction of being powerful. The Bush family had a long history of Saudi ties. There are financial connections. But, was Bush so different than other people that have run for president? Wasn't Trump's financial ties to other countries discussed and how Trump's brand could benefit from him being in the White House? Can the public be so blindly naive as to believe that never crossed Trump's mind or Bush's?
It is true, as Moore's critics like to point out, he does engage in a lot of antics and manipulation. In one scene, Moore decides to rent an ice cream truck and drives around the Capitol as he reads the Patriot Act through a megaphone, since no one knows what they voted on. In another scene he tries to get some in Congress to enlist their children in the Iraq War. If they voted for the war, they should share some of the burden and have their children fight.
But what Moore's humorless Republican critics can never seem to understand is that Moore is a filmmaker. If Moore is emotionally manipulating his audience, it is only because that's what movies do. If Moore exaggerates a premise for laugh, it is only because that's what comedy is, an exaggeration of the truth. If Michael Moore has an agenda and uses the medium of film to push forward that agenda, it is only because that is what documentaries do. They have a point of view. The documentarian had a purpose in making their documentary.
Is "Fahrenheit 9/11" anti-Bush? Yes! Is it fair to Bush and presents both sides of he argument? No. Michael Moore was not a Bush supporter but that doesn't mean the documentary doesn't present a lot of useful information. The way it is edited and packaged, it creates a damning portrait of Bush. It presents Bush's agenda and then exposes the real motivation behind it. Are the conclusions Moore jumps to accurate? Unfortunately that depends on your politics however Moore's conclusions are probably more accurate than what the White House told us at the time. Since when are politicians known to be honest?
When it was released "Fahrenheit 9/11" became the highest grossing documentary of all-time. I believe its success gave birth to the flood of documentaries released. Documentaries never received much public attention prior to Moore's movies. And not all documentaries were political. That changed after the release of this. Politics have taken over the documentary. Documentaries have become political tools.
Michael Moore has announced he plans to release a "sequel" to this called "Fahrenheit 11/9" about Donald Trump and the 2016 election. The 11/9 reference the date the election was held. Knowing what Moore did to Bush, it will definitely be interesting to see what Moore reveals about Trump.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" may not have stopped Bush from winning re-election but it is a great documentary. I believe it is Moore's best. Moore has rarely been as sharp and critical as he is here. Not to mention he finds plenty of opportunities for humor. Although it focuses on George W. Bush, there is still a lot that is relevant in today's world.
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