Three stars. Rated R, for profanity and disturbing images
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.21.18
Half a dozen indignant documentaries ago, back in 2004, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 was a well-executed indictment of the over-reactive, post-9/11 policies that stoked public terror to foment what we now know were ill-advised wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: military endeavors that did nothing but further destabilize an already dangerous Middle East environment.
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| Unable to execute a citizen's arrest of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, filmmaker and provocateur Michael Moore settles for watering the man's home and front yard from a tanker truck laden with Flint's contaminated water. |
That film also quite mercilessly scrutinized the feckless, post-crisis response of the Republican president — George W. Bush — who seemed to have no clue how to handle the aftermath of such a situation.
So here we are, 14 years later, and Moore’s kinda-sorta sequel targets a different Republican president: one apparently hell-bent on transforming this country into a fascist dictatorship.
The picture ain’t pretty.
Neither is Fahrenheit 11/9 at times, which — even for Moore — seems unnecessarily disorganized. His shtick is quite familiar by now, and this new film is the usual mélange of unsettling facts, caustic commentary, damning archival footage, eye-rolling stunts and occasional street theater. But it’s harder to follow Moore’s chain of logic this time; the dots don’t connect quite as well.
Isolated sequences are far more persuasive — and shocking — than the package into which they’re wrapped. He repeatedly states the obvious: The country is in a bad place right now, in great part because of obscenely rich white guys who believe they can get away with anything, and are determined to consolidate their power at the expense of the other 99 percent.
Much of this information dump is depicted against Moore’s calm, well-modulated, off-camera narration. No matter how heinous the images — and some of the sequences are guaranteed to make your blood boil — he never raises his voice, at all times sounding like a longtime friend conversing over a cup of coffee on the front porch. It’s remarkably effective, since his tranquil, seemingly bewildered, occasionally mildly disapproving tone allows us to achieve rage or righteous indignation on our own.
Much smarter than hectoring viewers with shrill indictments.
But as to how we got into this mess, Moore’s cause-and-effect “explanations” function better as water cooler conversation-starters, than as useful theories. And as to how we solve the current crisis … well … suggestions aren’t terribly forthcoming. That said, Moore is buoyed by the efforts of Florida’s high school anti-gun activists, and their successful nationwide rallies; and by the West Virginia schoolteachers who shut down every single one of the state’s public schools, en route to successfully getting their modest demands, and of the copycat movements inspired by their actions.
We spend considerable time with these two events, both of which are undeniably uplifting. Moore visibly admires the young Parkland activists, and a brief conference room chat with them elicits a droll rejoinder. Responding to one student’s claim that they hope to rescue the country from the misguided efforts of previous generations, Moore suggests, “Well, we must have done something right; we raised you guys.”
“No,” one girl snaps back, with a grin, “I was raised by social media.”
I’m not sure whether to be impressed by her savvy, or worried by her statement’s implications.
Elsewhere, the film’s most hilarious line comes from Trump himself, back in 1998, when he and Moore were guests — yes, together — on Roseanne Barr’s ABC talk show. The conversation turns to Moore’s career-making 1989 film, Roger & Me, which Trump praises.
“I liked it,” Trump enthuses. And then, after a short pause, he adds, “I hope he never does one on me.”
Moore is less successful, however, when he attempts to draw a straight line to Trump’s civil rights-stripping White House reign, from the recent antics of Michigan governor Rick Snyder and his administration cronies. In April 2014, they orchestrated the heinous poisoning of an entire city, when the majority-black residents of Flint lost access to Lake Huron’s clean water, and instead began getting their water from the polluted Flint River.
The effects were immediate, and not just because the water looked and smelled bad. Despite public protests and increasingly desperate pleas from health officials who warned about the new system’s high concentrations of lead, Snyder and his colleagues continued to insist — for years — that the water was safe.
Moore’s jaw-dropping, on-camera “get” is an interview with former Genesee County Health Department secretary April Cook-Hawkins, who was told to falsify the results of blood lead tests conducted on Flint children. She was ordered to record that no child had an elevated level higher than 3.5 micrograms per deciliter — the official threshold for exposure — which thus would allow Snyder to continue claiming that no crisis existed. To her credit, she refused … and kept copies of the original reports.
As of today, as this column is published, we are 1,615 days into Flint’s water crisis. The community’s children and parents — and everybody else who drank the water — are irreversibly poisoned by lead, with resulting health issues that will afflict them for the rest of their lives. Snyder — and an untold number of state officials — knew this was happening. The mind doth boggle.
Can you imagine this going down in Beverly Hills? Ah, but who cares about the poverty-stricken residents of Flint?
(As of August 1, after production on this film was completed, U.S. District Judge Judith Levy cited a bogus technicality and dropped Snyder and a few other officials from the class-action lawsuit against Michigan and Flint officials. To borrow the rallying cry from the Parkland activists, I call BS.)
Moore suggests that Snyder’s behavior in Michigan can be viewed as a foreshadowing of things to come from Trump, but that’s a push. Far more obvious blame belongs to then-President Obama, during his too-long-delayed visit to Flint on May 4, 2016. Local media footage shows the city’s excitement, over the fact that “their” president had arrived, and would make a difference.
Then eager anticipation turned into disillusionment, when Obama made a point of drinking some local water, as if to imply that nothing was wrong with it. And — on camera — scoffed at the notion that children would be harmed forever by their exposure to lead-contaminated water.
Even the most ardent Obama fan cannot possibly come to grips with such tone-deaf behavior. What the hell was the man thinking?
And — just like that — most of Flint’s residents, justifiably feeling betrayed, likely became non-voters. With government “friends” like that, who needs enemies?
Moore stands on firm ground during such moments, stoking our outrage while visiting his former stomping grounds in Flint, which has become even sadder, and more dilapidated, since the events captured in Roger & Me. He’s equally compelling while indicting the behavior of establishment Democrats who, during their 2016 convention, undemocratically screwed Bernie Sanders by falsely claiming numerous states had “overwhelmingly” backed Hillary Clinton.
As one example, every single one of West Virginia’s 55 counties gave the primary vote to Sanders … but the last-minute actions of “super delegates” gave the state to Clinton.
No surprise, Moore observes, that people abandoned the Democrats’ tent. No surprise, as well, that our country’s largest political “party” is that of those who refuse to vote. And this is where Moore’s cause-and-effect analysis doestake root, because the tyrannical Trumps of this world only come to power via the indifference of people who’ve given up.
While one cringes at Moore’s stunt of splicing various Trump speeches into archival footage of Adolf Hitler inciting his followers, there’s absolutely no question that Trump’s playbook, from the start, has craftily mimicked the rise of the Nazi party in 1930s Germany. The consolidation of power. The “war” with an established judicial branch. The outrageous vilification of a “lying media.” Refusing to take questions during press conferences, and expelling reporters who dare challenge him. And, yes, the vile racism.
Moore cannily cherry-picks clips from Trump’s speeches during gatherings packed with followers. He’s soimpishly “cute” when he disses journalists covering the event, then insists “…but I wouldn’t want to kill them.” He pauses, milking that comment for laughs (which he gets). Then he reflects, as if thinking it over, and adds, “Well…”
At other times, he jokes about continuing his reign far beyond 2024. Four terms, like Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even more.
“These are trial balloons,” notes a concerned on-camera analyst. Repeated often enough, and loud enough, they become a “truth” to Trump’s credulous followers.
Highly disturbing.
But then, just as swiftly, Moore wastes time with irrelevant sidebars, such as a strangely creepy montage of Trump’s seemingly lurid relationship with his daughter, Ivanka. (Everybody knows he’s a sexual predator. Apparently, none of the right people care.) And what’s with the footage from Hawaii’s false missile alert, this past January? That’s a weird way to (almost) conclude a 128-minute film which, by this point, has long worn out its welcome.
Successful documentaries bring fresh viewpoints, in an effort to further the debate and change minds. Fahrenheit 11/9 does none of this; Moore plays to his base — his faithful — much the way Trump plays to his.
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