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Articles: Don't overrate Moore's influence

Posted by admin on Friday, May 14, 2004 - 12:43 AM

To listen to Michael Moore, his new film Fahrenheit 911 will have Americans rioting in the streets — or at least voting their President out of office.
His documentary examination of links between U.S. President George W. Bush and shady Saudi oil and terror interests will, he seems quite sure, explode out of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, where it is scheduled to receive its world premiere on Monday. It will then rocket into regular theatres, where packed audiences of concerned citizens will respond with shock and awe, changing the course of world history. That's Moore's plan, at any rate. It makes for great copy, and Moore is nothing if not great copy, even if the facts don't always add up. The skilled media ringmaster started another circus last week when he slipped to the New York Times the scoop that Fahrenheit 911 was so hot, Disney Corp. was "blocking" its subsidiary firm Miramax Films from releasing the film. After the dust had settled and the headlines were safely clipped for the Fahrenheit 911 promotional kit, a less draconian story emerged. Disney is indeed distancing itself from Moore's film, being as reluctant to upset Republicans in 2004 as it was to enrage Catholics in 1999, when Kevin Smith's religion satire Dogma was making Mickey go goofy. Yet Disney isn't "blocking" the release of Fahrenheit 911. It will allow Miramax chiefs Bob and Harvey Weinstein to buy back the rights to the film and sell them to another distributor, as the Weinsteins did for Dogma. It won't hurt one bit if Fahrenheit 911 is promoted as "the film Disney didn't want you to see." For all I know, since I haven't seen Fahrenheit 911, the movie could indeed be the most explosive thing since they split the atom. Maybe Moore secured secret infrared footage of George Bush high-fiving Osama bin Laden after the terror attacks of 9/11. Maybe Dubya helped give flying lessons to the terrorists. I am skeptical, though, of suggestions that the film will prompt a massive public reaction, apart from selling a lot of tickets. There will loads of press reaction, to be sure, as there was when Moore brought his anti-gun movie Bowling For Columbine to the Cannes and Toronto festivals in 2002, followed by a theatrical release that set new attendance records for a documentary film. But the media isn't the public, as much as we in the business like to think of ourselves as having the common touch. The hard fact is that Joe and Jane Moviegoer don't react to films in predictable ways. Sometimes there's no reaction at all. I have seen no statistics suggesting that gun ownership or gun deaths have declined since Bowling For Columbine skewered America's insane lust for firepower. I have also seen no evidence that people are driving fewer General Motors cars or wearing fewer pairs of Nike shoes, after the corporate insensitivity revealed in Moore's earlier films, Roger & Me and The Big One. I don't mean to pick on Moore, or to suggest that his films have no impact. On the contrary, they help set the agenda for informed public discussion, which is also the role of newspapers and other media. But I've become increasingly wary of the utopian notion that film has the power to change public attitudes or actions in a direct fashion. Back in 1989, when Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing premiered at Cannes, there were dire predictions from critics that it would cause race riots upon its release in America. It will be interesting to see what happens with Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, the Sundance hit now in theatres that kicks fast-food culture in the stomach. The movie is doing well — it's on track to earn an astounding $1 million at Canadian theatres — but I wonder how long its message of healthy eating will remain in the public mind. Will it just take one week of 49-cent Big Macs to get people heading back to the drive-thru at the Golden Arches? It's part of the romance of film to think that it is more than just entertainment. Movie buffs don't want to believe that something that so stirs them is incapable of doing so in a general fashion, although they paradoxically tend to shy away from films that have broad public appeal. It may all have something to do with the cacophonous media exposure we are subjected to in North America, where so many voices are talking to us, we tune them right out. In countries where there are fewer media voices, film seems to have a greater impact. The thesis can be proved in part by a fascinating short film program called Hammers & Mirrors: WWII Propaganda Film From The NFB screening Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Isabel Bader Theatre, part of the Worldwide Short Film Festival (May 11-16). NFB curator Eric Shinn will be presenting eight propaganda films made by the National Film Board in the 1940s to advance the Allied cause and to discredit the Nazis. Their messages are direct and frequently harsh, as in Keep Your Mouth Shut, a 1944 short directed by the great NFB animator Norman McLaren, who was assisted by George Dunning, who would later direct the Beatles' Yellow Submarine animated movie. The film shows a ghastly skull, congratulating chatty Canadians for accidentally revealing Allied secrets. "Carry on, gossipers and blabbers!" the skull roars. "Your words are dynamite for Nazi bombs!" Films like these had a powerful impact on their viewers, Shinn said, because in many cases, people were seeing films for the first time and the messages were taken as gospel. The NFB films were taken to rural communities and factories to persuade people it was worth the sacrifice to join European Allies in the fight against Hitler. The films were also distributed to the U.S., Shinn said, where they played an invaluable role in persuading reluctant Americans to join the fray. But even these films didn't always have the desired result. Shinn also told me about a NFB film from 1941, which he isn't showing Sunday, called War Clouds In The Pacific. It warned of an impending attack by the Japanese. Did it do any good? Probably not. "The film came out about five days before Pearl Harbor," Shinn said.

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