Picture This! Gives You The 411 on ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’

This is not a forum for typical movie reviews.

By Rebecca Redshaw

Reprinted from NotesFromHollywood.com

The 411 on Fahrenheit 9/11

Those of you who have been readers from the start of this column know that it’s not a forum for typical movie reviews. I don’t tell the story, rarely acknowledge the gross, and, generally, focus my thoughts on the bigger picture (bigger than the movie screen that is).

When I reviewed Bowling for Columbine last year, I pointed out that Michael Moore fans would undoubtedly see the movie and gun proponents and right-wingers would probably rely on talk radio rhetoric to formulate their opinions without plopping down the price of admission.

I hope this does not hold true for Fahrenheit 9/11. First of all, whether you choose to own a gun or not doesn’t really affect the world in which we live. Of course, if you use it to shoot your neighbor than he will surely beg to differ, if he survives. Secondly, in case you haven’t noticed, this is an election year and in spite of what I’ve heard spouted at the coffee shops, “all politicians are not the same.”

Moore has arrived as a filmmaker. His first efforts, Roger & Me, The Big One, and even Bowling for Columbine, were centered round his offbeat style and on-camera persona. Yet, his ever present baseball cap, the 20th century symbol of the common man, is rarely seen in 9/11.

One advantage of growing older is that one doesn’t have to read history books to know what happened a decade or two ago. The press/media has always found presidents easy targets for buffoonery. Gerald Ford tripping on the stairs, Jimmy Carter bitch slapping a rabbit, Lyndon Johnson picking his dog up by the ears were recognizable and available images to the public. My guess is that anyone with a camera pointed at them 24/7 could be edited to look like whatever a creative editor desired, so George W. Bush making goofy faces at the camera or cracking wise about golf swings would seem a no-brainer for the anti-Bush crowd. There is no shortage of these moments in 9/11 and they are good for a chuckle. (Although Bush sitting frozen in place in a second grade classroom, even after the second plane hit the tower, was truly frightening.)

But the strength in Fahrenheit 9/11 lies not with the editing or disturbing quotes from Cabinet members, but with the facts stated in the movie that have not been refuted – the Inauguration Day footage that never made it to network news, the Saudi/Bush financial entanglements, and the Bin Laden air exodus within hours of the World Trade Center attacks.

My sister, a Republican, saw the movie with her husband, a Democrat, and said that “even if only 5% of the movie was true”, she couldn’t vote for Bush again. As to the facts – Moore triple checked all quotes and data and even hired an outside source to verify every word of the script, fully aware of the political forces determined to undermine his statement.

The most disturbing aspect of Fahrenheit 9/11? People are walking away amazed at the information. Huh? Where have they been? Has the American public become so blasé about our government that it is accepting of this gluttonous and criminal behavior? Why does a glimpse of Janet Jackson’s breast bring outrage to the airwaves and even the congressional floor and yet as this country nears the thousand mark in fatalities and who knows how many wounded and scarred for life, one of the only persons we have making any substantial statement at all is a filmmaker from Flint, Michigan? Where are the protestors? Where is the outrage?

Talk is cheap and I suppose the written word is too but one uses the only tools with which one has to fight. Ah, yes, there is that other tool so often touted when we establish democracies around the world – the power of the vote. Let’s hope Americans will have the courage to make their voice heard in November with the same enthusiasm they squander on the next American Idol.

Rebecca Redshaw is the Arts& Entertainment Critic for www.NotesFromHollywood.com. She can be reached at r2redshaw@hotmail.com.