I was in the mountains of North Carolina this holiday weekend with my girlfriend and a few members of her family. Her sister really wanted to see Fahrenheit 9/11, and because she has a 6 month old baby, figured this would be her only chance to see it -- she could leave the kid with her parents. Thanks to the distribution triad expanding the film's release to twice as many theaters, that meant that even the Regal Cinemas in Boone, NC was showing Michael Moore's film. And inside that theater, at 2:30 PM on Sunday, July 4, a crowd of about 200 people (my estimate of number of seats in the just-about-full theater) decided to spend their Independence Days watching what plenty of their neighbors in this "red state" probably call the most unpatriotic of films.
Yeah, I saw it again. It wasn't exactly by choice; but there wasn't anything else at this theater I hadn't seen, and I thought it might be interesting to watch the film with an audience that most likely was fairly different from the one with which I saw the movie at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on the Upper West Side.
But it wasn't. Not really. That was evident from the very beginning when Wolfowitz and his comb received gut-busting guffaws. Of course, it's easy to split this country into red and blue states politically while forgetting that in every state there is a minority -- and often a large one -- that disagrees with the color. Take North Carolina for example. Bush handily won the state with over 56% of the vote. But there was still 43% that went to Gore. In popular vote tally, it was the difference between 1,631,163 for Bush and 1,257,692 for Gore. (Figures from InfoPlease.) So finding a couple hundred people out of that 373,471 difference might not be all that difficult.
I did notice a couple things in this second viewing, however, that I either forgot to mention before -- yes it is possible -- or I hadn't noticed. 
For example, one of my favorite moments in the entire movie is Moore's treatment of Bush's now infamous landing on an aircraft carrier to announce that "major combat operations" in Iraq were over with that "Mission Accomplished" banner hanging off the control tower in the background. I wonder if using the song "Believe It or Not" was too obscure a reference for some people, especially those more recently of voting age who were not watching William Katt's uncoordinated, bumbling attempts at flying (and falling) in the silly but fun The Greatest American Hero. If you were like me, who at 10 years old watched that show religiously, hearing the theme song instantly changed Bush's flight suit to the red alien suit worn by our hero and made that entire prefab celebration even more ridiculous (especially in hindsight) than it already was.
Particularly striking to me during this second viewing was how much more powerful Moore's beginning of the movie really is; even more so than I had believed before. Moore had received a lot of criticism over not showing the planes hitting the Twin Towers, instead just playing the sound over a black screen. Critics of the film claimed that Moore didn't want his audience to actually see the images because it would remind them of the horror of the event and therefore rile up their patriotism and bloodlust and, obviously, support for the Iraq war. Of course, this is total bullshit. As I mentioned in my previous post, the sound and black screen produces a much more dramatic and powerful moment than actually seeing the pictures again could have ever done. I also said that the black screen lasted for a few minutes as did the montage of Manhattan onlookers crying and screaming ... and looking up.
Wow, was I wrong about the timing. The black screen: 30 seconds. Maybe a full minute. The post-crash montage: the same 30 seconds to a minute. But the moments are so powerful and moving -- at least they were to me. They brought back a flood of memories: where I was, what was I doing, what was I thinking? Utter disbelief; originally thoughts of "How will they fix that?" to my later nightmares of imagining what it must have been like to sit in a window office and see this enormous plane coming right at you -- someone had that terrible experience; what was he or she thinking? No wonder it seems like Moore is leaving you there forever -- that day and the ones that followed less than three years ago can still be fully experienced with the slightest trigger, and Moore presents that catalyst masterfully.
Part of me wants to be done talking about this movie, and most likely, I won't dwell on it too much further in this space. But I'm still waiting for anyone to contradict the majority of the facts and evidence presented by Moore in the film. I really want to read these arguments. Not the ones that say even with these connections, Bush has shown no favoritism to the Saudi government, or that simply complain about editing, because ultimately on some level, all of that is unimportant. It boils down to the issue of judgment and opening oneself up to the perception of impropriety. Everything in politics is based on perception. Why would we want a president who has produced enough evidence on film or tape to allow someone like Michael Moore to edit it all together into such a convincing argument against him and his actions? 
Outside the theater in Boone, an older couple had a table set-up with signs asking everyone to register to vote. Were any members of this audience in a position to change their minds, people who could help turn North Carolina (the home state of the new Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, Senator John Edwards -- way to go New York Post!) from red to blue? Let's hope ...
Please note that Boone is really a college town (Appalachian St. U.) that has a very liberal student body. 9/11 I'm sure played very well there.
Posted by: preston | Friday, July 23, 2004 at 06:08 PM