Michael Moore had a commanding presence at the world-renowned
Cannes Film Festival, where his new Bush-bashing film,
“Fahrenheit 9/11,” received the highest award and the
longest standing ovation in its history.
But it would be misleading to say the award and applause were
directed to the film itself. The movie could be, as most of
Moore’s other works are, a piece of poppycock littered with
lies, and Moore would still have been honored.
Hollywood sees in Moore an incredibly passionate, violently
absurd, cartoonish character who will do anything to recruit people
to his cause ““ even if it means faking the cause. So
Hollywood has secured for Moore a mass following that bows at his
shrine in blind idolatry. Those who are only cautiously supportive
are quickly blinded by his sub-JFK looks and charm.
I think Moore is confused. He hates corporations, but he has
worked for them all his life. He seems to hate the United States
and yet owns a home in one of its finest cities. He spurns
firearms, yet claims to be a lifelong member of the National Rifle
Association. But to say his work is a product of this confusion is
to be divinely generous.
In his last blockbuster, “Bowling for Columbine,”
Moore deliberately deceived the viewer in several cases. In one
scene, for example, Moore is seen walking into a Wal-Mart in
Ontario, Canada. He tells the viewers, “Look what I, a
foreign citizen, was able to do at a local Canadian
Wal-Mart.” We watch, astonished, as he proceeds to buy a few
boxes of ammunition with no difficulty, and no questions raised by
the vendor. “That’s right,” he says. “I
could buy as much ammunition as I wanted, in Canada.”
This is, quite simply, false. According to officials at the
Canadian Firearms Center, anyone purchasing ammunition in Canada
must show appropriate identification. Officials have sent an e-mail
to Moore to uncover what actually happened. There has been no
response.
But complaints of Moore’s deceit are not unique to
“Bowling for Columbine.” A quick Yahoo! search of
“Michael Moore” and “lies” yields almost a
quarter million Web sites that deal with lies contained in his
books and his films.
But the popular filmmaker has struck something new with his
upcoming movie, in which he tries paradoxically to expose President
Bush to be at once a brainless idiot and a world conspirator. He
has proven that documentaries do not have to meet any truth
criteria at all.
New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick, who gave “Bowling
for Columbine” a triumphant four stars, found Moore’s
most recent work disappointing. He writes in a review: “The
sheer scope of the material he’s trying to cover in a
two-hour documentary ““ the Sept. 11 attacks rate maybe five
minutes ““ leads to incredibly superficial and misleading
treatment at times.”
But Moore does not stop with lies. He lies to promote his
lies.
In the press frenzy preceding the opening of the Cannes
festival, Moore made all sorts of allegations against the Walt
Disney Company for refusing to distribute “Fahrenheit
9/11″ as a schematic plot to undermine the filmmaker. The
following day, The New York Times ran a front page story about the
“censorship” and an editorial condemning Disney ““
calling it “craven” and “cowardly.”
But who would have guessed that this was all a publicity stunt?
Within 24 hours of making his claims, Moore was on CNN, admitting:
“Almost a year ago, after we’d started making the film,
the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset
Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it.”
Michael Moore’s talents as a propagandist are real and
dangerous. Today, his films are shown on campuses throughout the
United States, including the University of Minnesota, Boston
College and Oberlin College. “Bowling for Columbine” is
required viewing for a Jewish experience class I am taking here at
UCLA.
The man has become an icon, and his words and pictures are
admired and adored in universities across the nation.
But Moore is wrong. He is wrong to deceive the public, and he is
wrong always to blame America first.
In his acceptance speech at Cannes, Moore dedicated his
prestigious Palme d’Or award to his daughter and “all
the children in America, and in Iraq and around the world who have
suffered from our actions.”
Moore forgot to mention the children who have been murdered in
Russian gulags, killed in mass graves in Indochina, and starved to
death in Cuba ““ by socialists like himself. Moore forgot to
mention the thousands of children who were imprisoned and murdered
in Iraq until that nasty behemoth called the United States did
something about it.
I do not know where it is that one can get an artistic license
in Hollywood. But I do know that Michael Moore has abused his. And
the public must revoke it.
Hovannisian is a first-year history and philosophy student.
E-mail him at ghovannisian@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.