Film League Screens Fahrenheit 9/11: Documentary or "Documentainment"?

Matt Razak Staff Writer

What do you say about Fahrenheit 9/11, most talked about movie of the past year? What new insight can one bring to a film that has been dissected by so many people, political parties, and reviewers that no one really cares anymore? Not much. And why is it that Michael Moore now wants to submit his film for the Best Picture Oscar?

A flat-out review of this film would invariably involve political views and personnel opinions that do not even pertain to film or filmmaking. So, here are the facts about how Moore makes his films so you can make your own decision, before attending the Film League’s screening this week.

In recent weeks, Moore has stated that he is refusing to submit Fahrenheit 9/11 for the Best Documentary Academy Award this fall. Instead, he wishes to enter the Best Picture category, previously dedicated to fictional dramas and comedies. However, Moore’s agenda is not dedicated to winning this coveted prize. Sure of the power and overall popularity of his film (the $6 million film collected $117.3 million in the United States), Moore believes that his movie could substantially affect the outcome of the upcoming presidential race. He has even said that his documentary was the best and most informative movie of the year.

In a press conference held in early September, Moore declared that by removing himself from the documentary category, he will “Remove the 800-pound gorilla from [the documentary] Oscar category and let the five films who get nominated all have the attention they deserve.”

Still, there lies a more important ulterior motive to his decision to pull out of the documentary race. Academy Awards bylaws dictate that any film in the Best Documentary category cannot be shown on any form of television prior to the ceremony. However, there are no such rules governing the Best Picture. Ultimately, Moore cares more about influencing the upcoming presidential race than receiving a second Oscar to place on his mantle.

So just what is so controversial about this film? Just in case you have been in a cave for the past few months, Fahrenheit 9/11 is Michael Moore’s documentary on the Bush administration and their reaction to the attacks of Sept. 11, reinforcing his theory that the Bush administration used the tragic event to push its agenda. In order to understand what is right and wrong about how Moore goes about this, it is important to understand Moore’s style.

To start, Moore is a filmmaker, not a documentary maker. He admittedly creates his documentaries in order to incite, entertain and push buttons, not to document. Fahrenheit 9/11 is barely a documentary, but merely a collection of clips from news shows and situations set up by Moore.

However, the situations he creates do prove his point, and he is behind the camera much more than in his previous films. This fact, coupled with the fact that the remainder of the film is mostly news reels and documentary footage (not filmed by Moore himself), does give the film a much less personal feel to it than his previous films, which can be good or bad.

Moore works in a new genre of documentary that might best be called as documentainment, a sort of documentary that places audience interest over pure facts. Moore has said many times that he may change or not present certain facts in order to make the film move faster and more interesting to the viewer. This style of documentary is in part responsible for the surge of documentary films hitting the mainstream.

Here is where Fahrenheit 9/11 is a dangerous film. Moore edits scenes from years apart, juxtaposes clips that have nothing to do with each other, and uses strong and emotional scenes to drive home less powerful news clips. Thus, he presents his film as fact and not personal opinion.
In his previous films, Moore’s strong presence in front of the camera gave a somewhat more clear indication that the film was documentainment, not documentation. Without Moore’s presence, even the scenes he sets up create the idea that he is capturing life and not setting it up beforehand.

Moore is an excellent story weaver and a brilliant editor. Fahrenheit 9/11 is an expression of his political views (that Bush should not be re-elected) that everyone just happened to go see–it had the largest opening of a documentary both in terms of cash and the number of screens it played on. If you go into the theater realizing this, you're fine. But the problem comes when Moore does not give this disclaimer anywhere in the film, and thus when the audience believes every word he says.

These ideals apply to the entire realm of documentary. Moore gets picked on, however, because he makes entertaining films that people want to see. Fahrenheit 9/11 was half-controversial because of its subject matter and half-controversial because of the fact that it was the next Michael Moore film. Moore needs to learn that with great power comes great responsibility.

Politics and this film just cannot be divided.

Rated: R
Runtime: 122 minutes
When: Fri. Sept. 24 and Sat. Sept 25 at 7p.m. in Blodgett Auditorium

Contributions by Andy Berger, Staff Writer