Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11
Well, I saw the movie tonight. A friend said that tickets could be bought and so I did so. The movie played to a packed house, and was met by applause after the movie, the first time I had ever seen that after a movie. The most heart-rending parts of the movie were the Iraqi woman who screamed about the sorrow that Americans caused her family and beseeching God to wreak vengeance on them, then asking where God was anyway, and the American woman who was beside herself because her son died in Iraq while serving in our Army.
I have heard it said that the film is a polemic, or a propaganda film. That it probably is, but no more than the average ad on TV or the average campaign ad in the newspaper. Most of what Moore says is either true or it can't be verified one way or the other. However, he puts the truths together in ways that fit the patterns that he wants to show. At least this is the impression that I get of it so far. I would like to find more details behind some of the events in the movie. There was one false statement in the movie. Moore said that Iraq had not attacked the US in its history. Then he went on to say that no American ever died in the hands of the Iraqis. That is not true. On 1987 May 17, an Iraqi fighter fired two Exocet missiles into the USS Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 crew members.
More on Moore later. I give the movie three stars.
I have heard it said that the film is a polemic, or a propaganda film. That it probably is, but no more than the average ad on TV or the average campaign ad in the newspaper. Most of what Moore says is either true or it can't be verified one way or the other. However, he puts the truths together in ways that fit the patterns that he wants to show. At least this is the impression that I get of it so far. I would like to find more details behind some of the events in the movie. There was one false statement in the movie. Moore said that Iraq had not attacked the US in its history. Then he went on to say that no American ever died in the hands of the Iraqis. That is not true. On 1987 May 17, an Iraqi fighter fired two Exocet missiles into the USS Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 crew members.
More on Moore later. I give the movie three stars.
