My Fahrenheit 911 Review

[Almighty Colin]

Fahrenheit 911 is witty, tight, and at times brilliant. It is easy to see why it deserved the Palme d'Or. There’s some very clever cinematography here. The film is also, at times, boring. Once Moore began connecting the dots of the great oil conspiracy I caught myself yawning a few times. See, I’m not one of those who are usually persuaded by conspiracy theories. They usually require long chains of probability which fall apart somewhere in the middle.

One of those long chains involved demonizing the Saudis. The Saudi coup de grace, the one in which I heard members of the audience gasping at, was that the Saudis own 7% of America. “The Saudis are coming! The Saudis are coming!” Moore’s categorical demonization of the Saudis was decidedly illiberal. During this long segment, I caught myself thinking of D. W. Griffith's “The Birth of a Nation”. Enough said. Not enough Saudis in the US to cause a riot at the theaters though. Well, I guess they all escaped on September 13th.

Content-wise, the film is a bore. Moore has simply recycled the best of the theories from the popular conspiracy websites, mixed it up with some clips of Bush as Jedd Clampett and thrown in a little class warfare for good measure. Fahrenheit 911 is an incredible package though. The intro is grand, the narration funny, the humor biting, the choice of music flawless and Moore’s delivery and timing is sensational. In short, there’s no doubt as to why this film deserves to win every major documentary film award there is. It is one of the best documentaries of all time.

The theme which ties together Columbine to Fahrenheit is fear and there’s plenty of it.
Yes, be afraid of the Bushes. Be afraid of the people in power. Be afraid of white people. Be very, very afraid of conservatives. “The Republicans are coming! The Republicans are coming!”

Yes, there were people clapping during the film. This phenomenon has been reported ever since the film’s showing at Cannes. Who was clapping, I wondered? Have people been clapping because they thought the film was a cinematographic masterpiece or were they clapping because of its well-known political content? I thought I knew the answer before I went but it was one puzzle I wished to solve for good. Being an observant guy, I noticed that people clapped before the film even started. Check one for my theory - unless the audience was clapping because the 20 minutes of previews were finally over. I also noticed the biggest applause of all occurred not at the end of the film but when the words “Vote Democrat” were spoken in the middle of it. Check two. That's all I need. Armed with this knowledge I can safely give my rating for this film.

Democrats 5/5
Independents 4/5
Republicans 3/5
Saudis 0/5