Fahrenheit
11/9 (2018): Written, directed, and narrated by
Michael Moore, produced by Michael Moore, Jeff Gibbs, Carl Deal, and Meghan O’Hara. Running
Time: 120 minutes.
Rating:
3/4
It’s a remarkable bit of symmetry,
so perfect it almost feels deliberately planned; one of Michael Moore's most
well-known and influential films, Fahrenheit
9/11 (the title is a play on the Bradbury classic Fahrenheit 451), was his big take-down of the Bush administration,
released all the way back in 2004 in the buildup to that year's Presidential
race. 12 years later, the disaster of the 2016 election happened to be on
a date that, when Moore got around to making the film we knew was coming, all
he had to do was flip the numbers around.
Michael Moore thrives on adversity,
in ways that is sometimes conducive to his filmmaking style, sometimes
detrimental, and occasionally both at the same time. His formulas for
provocation worked to (mostly) great effect in Fahrenheit and Bowling for Columbine, which so far account for the high point of his filmmaking
career in terms of stature and influence within the American Left. Since then, though, his stature has faded a
bit, part of progressive America’s post-Bush sink into political malaise. Personally, I found his previous film, Where To Invade Next, to be quite good, but as far as I can tell I’m one of the few on the planet who actually
saw it. And let’s face it, as easy a target as Bush was, Trump’s even
bigger. One of the biggest laughs the
film gets is from a moment of Trump admitting on-camera that he likes Moore's
films and hopes he's never the subject of one,
Because of this, what surprises most
about Fahrenheit 11/9 is that its
focus on Trump and his hobgoblin family is fairly minimal. It would have
been so easy to just pummel the Trumps for two hours- God knows, there's
material enough there for a whole mini-series with Ken-Burns-level runtimes- but
Moore decides to cast a much broader net, looking at the really big picture of
how the fuck this all happened. Like with most of his works, he succeeds brilliantly
in some moments and falls flat in others, but thanks in no small part to the
white-hot fury animated every frame of the film (as well as every molecule of
my body while watching it), it ends up being easily his most affecting and
effective work since those far-off days of 2004.
The opening itself- contrasting the
overflowing of emotion people around the country in anticipation of the first
women Presidency with the utter despair that set it when “it” happened- is more
than enough to set the tone. It’s been
over two years, and I realized while watching this that I myself still have not
yet been able to fully come to terms with that night. I think many, if not most of us, still haven’t. Like 9/11 itself, it was traumatic in
different ways for different people, and those of us who were there will likely
need a long time indeed to fully process it.
That said, Moore’s treatment of the
2016 election is where the film is at its weakest, mostly because he devotes a
whole segment to further stoking the “Hillary and the DNC rigged it all and
denied the ONE AND ONLY TRUE PEOPLE’S CHOICE of victory” conspiracy theory that
far, far too many on the Left continue to cling to. It is a narrative as simplistic,
uncomplicated, and ego-salving as it is utterly false. His manner of “proving” this is to focus on a
cadre of disappointed Sanders supporters in West Virginia (the whitest,
least-educated state in the entire country), where the state Democratic Party
did indeed pull some shady shit, with the clear implication being that, “and of
course, this happened EVERYWHERE.” As
far as tactics go, this is particularly ham-fisted. Hillary Clinton won more states and votes
outright than Bernie Sanders, with especially big margins from minority voters,
who very clearly were not buying what Sanders was selling. But sure, the white voters feel
disenfranchised, and that’s what really counts, right? It is a frustratingly stupid argument, and I
couldn’t help but feel disappointed that Moore decided to give it voice in his
movie.
And
yet, the greater problems posed by the GOP to America, and indeed the world,
are far greater and more consequential than internal DNC strife, and to his
credit Moore knows this. Once he moves
on from 2016, the movie really hits its stride, especially in the segments
where he delves into the tenure of former Michigan Governor Rick “Fuckface”
Snyder, whose game of footsy with industrial water companies was the direct
cause of the ongoing water crisis in Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan.
If you thought
you knew just how twisted and evil the entire development of the Flint water
crisis was, you are mistaken- it was, and is, much worse than that. Moore is always at his sharpest, wittiest,
and angriest when it comes to things affecting his hometown; one of the
highlights of the entire film is when he does a classic Moore and drives right
up to Snyder’s home to spray his driveway with water straight from the polluted
taps of Flint. It’s almost as if Moore
wanted to redo his visit to the home of Charlton Heston in Columbine, minus the awkward baiting of a man suffering from
Alzheimer’s.
The film further
takes itself up a notch when it looks to “today” (meaning, the activism
building up prior to the 2018 midterms), and does a round-robin of the many
different people and groups that have risen up to challenge the GOP kleptocracy
since 2016. There are a lot of names and
faces that pop up, all worth your time, so I won’t try to parse out a full list
here. Suffice it to say that the people
Moore got to speak with for the film, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Richard
Ojeda, and Rashida Tlaib, are just the tip of the iceberg.
For my money,
though, the absolute best part of the movie is when he takes us to meet the
student activists from Parkland, a true example of the next generation rising
up to do the work their parents failed to take on. These scenes tie in to what
I feel is the movie’s greatest strength, and what ultimately sets it apart from
its spiritual predecessor. Looking back
at Fahrenheit 9/11 over a decade
later, it seems clear that Moore believed (as did most of us at that time) that
all that was needed was to point out how obvious the cruelty and corruption of
the Bush administration was to get people to wake up and respond. We were wrong. Just pulling out the facts into the light
will not alter or counter those who simply don’t care about the truth,
especially if it threatens their power or perceived status.
And so,
returning to the well of the political diatribe, Moore seems to have learned
what many of us have been forced to learn since 2016; calling out evil by its
name is not enough, even though it should be.
As important as it is to look the terrible situation of the world in the
eye, the negativity has to be countered with some form of hope, with equal
consideration of the people and groups that are still out there, doing good
work and fighting the good fights. There
is so much left to be done and it will be frightening, exhausting, and
draining, but we still can’t stop. If
the Parkland students are willing to step up, what excuse could we ever cling
to?
-Noah Franc
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