Saturday, June 26, 2004

Fahrenheit 9/11
Those Repubs are runnin scared alright. They're just sore that for some reason, they didn't have it together enough to make their own movie about how Dubya has been so good for the country, 'cause you know - if that movie had been made, it surely would have been a blockbuster in its own right -- what with all the compelling evidence and the like. They've not only created an organization called Move America Forward to pressure theaters into not showing the film, it they've also decided to attack it via the FEC route. This this latest attempt to curtail free speech is ridiculous. As with any attack on civil liberties, thinly disguised as "patriotism" -- where does one draw the line?

Michael Moore may be prevented from advertising his controversial new movie, "Fahrenheit 9/11," on television or radio after July 30 if the Federal Election Commission (FEC) today accepts the legal advice of its general counsel.

At the same time, a Republican-allied 527 soft-money group is preparing to file a complaint against Moore's film with the FEC for violating campaign-finance law.

In a draft advisory opinion placed on the FEC's agenda for today's meeting, the agency's general counsel states that political documentary filmmakers may not air television or radio ads referring to federal candidates within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election.

[...]
The FEC ruling may also affect promotion of a slew of other upcoming political documentaries and films, such as "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War," which opens in August, "The Corporation," about democratic institutions being subsumed by the corporate agenda, or "Silver City," a recently finished film by John Sayles that criticizes the Bush administration.

Another film, "The Hunting of the President," which investigates whether Bill Clinton was the victim of a vast conspiracy, could be subject to regulations if it mentions Bush or members of Congress in its ads.

I'm not quite sure what McCain-Feingold says exactly, and how the attorneys are parsing the statements of the bill to get at what matters to them most, but, in matters of free speech, one always has to ask, what about fictionalized or satirized characters who may resemble presidential candidates? What about portrayals of protesters carrying "Down with Bush" signs?

This article notes that it might take the FEC months to issue a ruling on the movie in any case, though with the Repub attack machine, I'm not banking on it.

I went and saw it last night, and want to see it again. It was, for the most part, a lot of material I'd already read and heard of put in cohesive narrative, but what really made it resonate for me was the footage he managed to obtain -- all those shots of the vapidness, the arrogance, the smug, selfish, completely oblivious emptiness of the appointed president's demeanor. One of the most damning shots of the Preznit -- apart from his 7-minute long blank stare in that Florida classroom after being told that the 2nd plane had slammed into the WTC -- is the bit, where he is shown in white tie and tails, addressing his audience thus: "This is an impressive crowd. The haves and the have mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base." That smugness, juxtaposed with the dead-end scenes of Moore's hometown, Flint, Michigan, and of the brutality in Iraq -- perfectly encapsulates the tenor of the film, which adroitly portrays the fucked-up manner this administration has run our country. It lacks in subtlety and nuance, but still -- Bravo, Moore.

The sold-out 11:50pm show last night was fun -- the audience eager, receptive, riled. It appears that the movie is doing brisk business indeed -- $8M in its first day -- which puts in on track to being the weekend's #1 film, despite being distributed in 3 times less the theaters than its nearest rival, White Chicks. Bravo, Moore.

posted by claudine |Added at 1:35 PM| | movies, politics