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The experience of watching Fahrenheit 9/11 this weekend was something of a surprise to me. Not because of the controversy surrounding the film, nor the hard-nosed polemic contained within. Truth be known, I’ve already had just about all I can take with the media discussion of the movie. That, on top of the fact that Carlisle, PA isn’t the most left-leaning town in the country made me think there would be little, if any, local presence at the showing. In support of this theory, President Bush even shamelessly kissed my state’s ass at the same time (something he’s been doing with a vengeance lately).

The reality, though, was something entirely different. The theater we sat in was packed. Shoulder to shoulder, there were the adults watching a political documentary in total silence as Spider-Man 2 blasted down the hall (respectively packed with kids, I’m sure). To my astonishment, this was happening weeks after the movie had been picked apart, defended, praised, demonized, and regurgitated back up all over my cable TV remote.

I found the film itself engaging. It asks some important questions which truthfully could have been narrowed down for more focus, such as in Bowling for Columbine. Moore has an innate ability to ask innocent questions and can pursue their answers as if no innocence were presumed. Some of that felt forced in F9/11. But it is still powerful in many ways. One can only see it to find out how.

Now, a lot of the talking heads are calling Michael Moore bad names. They’re calling him un-American. They’re saying he’s rooting for the “other side.” Christopher Hitchens, an academic Englishman about as physically intimidating as Benny Hill, sounds as if he wants to take Moore into a back alley to break a bottle of Scotch over his head.

This kind of stuff wreaks of people with too much invested in their own Iraq theories. I can remember Hitch on a talk show not long after 9/11. Having already distanced himself from the left-leaning Nation magazine publicly, he’d taken a stance in full support of an “inevitable” war, and made a statement that flabbergasts me to this day in its arrogant supposition. Support for the Iraq war and for the President was at an all time high and could only mean one thing for the Democrats. “They’ll just go the way of the Whigs,” he said in his stealthy sit-back manner.

Looking at some polls today, I guess we’ll see about that one.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 12th, 2004 at 1:56 am and is filed under film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.