Fahrenheit 9/11: Michael Moore Heats It Up

Filmaker Michael Moore is both idolized and demonized. His indictment of the Bush administration's rush to war against Iraq, Fahrenheit 9/11 established box office records for a documentary film. Some critics, however, accused the Academy Award-winning director of producing a piece of propaganda comparable to Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1934). Such comparisons seem overwrought, as Moore hardly employs the resources of a national propaganda machine.

If one accepts the definition of propaganda as the systematic propagation of a given allegiance or value system, then Moore may qualify as a propagandist. On the other hand, if we are going to pin the propaganda label on Moore, then it would seem only fair to place a similar description on Pentagon press conferences, the reporting of embedded journalists, and what passes for "fair and balanced" reporting on such news networks as Fox. While Moore insists that he wants to make films that entertain people while they are munching their popcorn, he made it no secret that the intention of Fahrenheit 9/11 was to assure the electoral defeat of President Bush.

In fact, Moore is most consistent in persona, tone, and message with his cinematic work. So what is all the fuss about? Did political conservatives expect Moore to embrace the administration's case for war? Perhaps the problem is that some would define the documentary film as presenting a factual case. Of course, the question then is which facts and from whose perspective? Documentary films are hardly objective as simply the placing of a camera to record events tends to alter reality. Moore is what film scholars David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson would label a maker of rhetorical documentaries who seeks to convince an audience. So the real question is not whether Moore is partisan in his politics, but how strong is his case against the President?

Moore begins his film with the disputed election of 2000, a topic which the filmmaker explored in some depth with his best-selling book Stupid White Men. The film depicts a bumbling President whose legitimacy is tainted. However, everything changed on the morning of September 11 as planes crashed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Moore does not contend, as some conspiracy theorists allege, that the Bush administration orchestrated the attacks. But Fahrenheit 9/11 does assert that the President and his advisers were negligent in their response to the Al Qaeda threat. While his conclusions here are in agreement with many of the reservations expressed by the 9/11 Commission and former terror czar Richard Clarke, Moore chooses to make his point visually through focusing upon the dazed expression on the President's face as he continued to read along with Florida school children for ten minutes after being informed that the nation was under attack.

Figure 1.

Moore, however, does appear to drift a little more into the conspiracy camp as he examines the relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi dynasty. Retracing the ground plowed by authors Kevin Phillips and Craig Unger, Moore establishes that the Saudis have personal and financial ties to the Bush family through such international conglomerates as the Carleigh Group. The filmmaker suggests that the Bush family may have more loyalty to the Saudis than to the American people, but it is somewhat unclear as to where all of this is leading. Moore seems to conclude that there is a connection between 9/11 and the Saudis (After all, most of the terrorists were Saudis, not Iraqis.), but here Moore is perhaps more akin to director Oliver Stone's JFK. Motivations for conspiracy are established, but little convincing evidence is offered.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is on a firmer foundation when Moore turns his focus upon the Bush fixation with Iraq. The film convincingly argues that the Bush administration manipulated the terrorist threat to foster fear among the American people and build support for an invasion of Iraq. Moore documents the misrepresentations, or dare we say lies, of the President and his advisers regarding Saddam Hussein's acquisition of weapons of...