This week's Time Magazine has Michael Moore on the cover... and seeing that i'm interested in the potential effect his recent documentary might have in the current US political climate, I grabbed it.
The main article compared Fahrenheit 9/11 to The Passion of the Christ (both of which i've seen); the political left to the religious right. Both have made lots of money, both are preaching to the converted, both are one-sided.
I am glad to have seen both films, for quite different reasons. 9/11 was interesting to me, because even though I (thought I) knew that the Iraq war wrongfully declared, I didn't know many of the details which Moore revealed in the film, about the Florida scams, or the Bush family's relationship to the BLs, for example. It was startling. (Moore has offered $10k to anyone who can find something untrue in his content.)
On the other hand, I wasn't "pleased" to see the Christy one... I found it pretty repulsive actually. There's something about sacred works - if you can call that film sacred, and I would argue you can - I see a sense of faith in and love of religion/god/creation in the work. This was particularly obvious in Gibson's brutal, violent, mystical, downright gory film. "Look what He did for us... look how much it hurt. You're not sure? Let me make it very clear for you." In Gibson's case, there seems to be distillation (or distortion) to the nth degree, in search of some clear point to make to the audience to move them, or get them moving.
Anyway, my favourite thing about the article was a quote from Moore:
The main article compared Fahrenheit 9/11 to The Passion of the Christ (both of which i've seen); the political left to the religious right. Both have made lots of money, both are preaching to the converted, both are one-sided.
I am glad to have seen both films, for quite different reasons. 9/11 was interesting to me, because even though I (thought I) knew that the Iraq war wrongfully declared, I didn't know many of the details which Moore revealed in the film, about the Florida scams, or the Bush family's relationship to the BLs, for example. It was startling. (Moore has offered $10k to anyone who can find something untrue in his content.)
On the other hand, I wasn't "pleased" to see the Christy one... I found it pretty repulsive actually. There's something about sacred works - if you can call that film sacred, and I would argue you can - I see a sense of faith in and love of religion/god/creation in the work. This was particularly obvious in Gibson's brutal, violent, mystical, downright gory film. "Look what He did for us... look how much it hurt. You're not sure? Let me make it very clear for you." In Gibson's case, there seems to be distillation (or distortion) to the nth degree, in search of some clear point to make to the audience to move them, or get them moving.
Anyway, my favourite thing about the article was a quote from Moore:
"You can't declare war against a noun."