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Erebus
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1834 Posts |
 Posted - 06/21/2004 : 09:13:02
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Saturday, June 19, 2004
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2004/06/should-ray-bradbury-be-mad-at-michael.html
[excerpt]
The Straits Times reports:
"Bradbury, who hadn't seen the movie, said he called Moore's company six months ago to protest and was promised Moore would call back.
"He finally got that call last Saturday, Bradbury said, adding Moore told him he was "embarrassed."
"Joanne Doroshow, a spokesman for Fahrenheit 9/11, said the film's makers have the "utmost respect for Ray Bradbury.""
Six months to return a phone call to a person you have the utmost respect for? All I can say is it's too bad an indie film crew wasn't following Bradbury around all that time while he was trying to get in touch with Moore. It might have made a funny documentary that could have been called "Michael and Me."
But to answer my own question, Ray Bradbury should be mad, and not just about the long wait time for the phone call. Moore's title will pop into people's heads when they see Bradbury's title. And Moore's documentary is very strong stuff, designed to elate Bush-haters and be completely unwatchable for people who aren't already quite opposed to Bush. From what I've heard from my son, who saw the film the other day in New York, the film is a disjointed montage of clips that doesn't even make an attempt at providing coherent information. It is just: images to hate Bush by. Why should Bradbury want his great classic book linked to that? If "utmost respect" were really felt for Bradbury, his title would not have been used without his permission.
I'd like to hear Moore or Moore's spokesperson attempt to say something credible about why the claim of "utmost respect" isn't a blatant lie. And I'd like an obnoxious interviewer to hold a microphone in his face and ask the question, then follow him around re-asking the question, and film the whole set of encounters, and edit the film into a montage that makes Moore look as bad as possible, then spend as much time as possible trying to get Moore to watch that film and film those efforts to reach Moore. If you don't end up with enough material for the film "Michael and Me," just edit in various news clips that will make it seem like he's responsible for ... Oh, I can't even write it. It's all too mean and unfair to make a movie Michael Moore-style. [end excerpt]
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Erebus
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1834 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 16:02:16
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If you really care to read about what a beast Moore is, you will read this Christopher Hitchens slate.com commentary in its entirety. Here are excerpts:
Unfairenheit 9/11
The lies of Michael Moore.
By Christopher Hitchens; June 21, 2004
http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/
[snip] With Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, however, an entirely new note has been struck. Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl.
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.
[snip] We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation." (In fact, Iraq's "sovereignty" was heavily qualified by international sanctions, however questionable, which reflected its noncompliance with important U.N. resolutions.) In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic.
[snip] But if you leave out absolutely everything that might give your "narrative" a problem and throw in any old rubbish that might support it, and you don't even care that one bit of that rubbish flatly contradicts the next bit, and you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft. If you flatter and fawn upon your potential audience, I might add, you are patronizing them and insulting them. By the same token, if I write an article and I quote somebody and for space reasons put in an ellipsis like this (…), I swear on my children that I am not leaving out anything that, if quoted in full, would alter the original meaning or its significance. Those who violate this pact with readers or viewers are to be despised. At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to be objective. At no moment does he pass up the chance of a cheap sneer or a jeer. He pitilessly focuses his camera, for minutes after he should have turned it off, on a distraught and bereaved mother whose grief we have already shared. (But then, this is the guy who thought it so clever and amusing to catch Charlton Heston, in Bowling for Columbine, at the onset of his senile dementia.) Such courage.
[snip] Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (...) is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:
“The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …”
And that's just from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.
If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.
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noexx
= Cult of Ray =
361 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 16:34:49
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erebus sounds upset....well, with other people's words though.
as i have said before....there is no copyright on the word 'farenheit'. use it at will.
shouldn't the relatives of the person who came up with the word 'farenheit' for measuring temperatures get angry with bradbury for using it in his books title? no...
bradbury did not invent the word and therefore does not need an apology or even a courtesey phone call.
i saw the movie last night...i see why republicans are so mad now. oh wait, they are always mad...mad with money. |
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Erebus
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1834 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 16:40:01
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| That ANYBODY could feel anything positive about the work and existence of such a loathsome worm of a being who is so utterly devoid of ethical and intellectual integrity calls into question the sanity of the entire species. No, I'm not upset. |
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noexx
= Cult of Ray =
361 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 16:43:59
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| i see...republican by chance? |
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Erebus
* Dog in the Sand *
USA
1834 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 16:48:21
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| No. Libertarian, but I refuse to vote. Just someone who thinks people ought to at least take a stab at faking virtue. |
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noexx
= Cult of Ray =
361 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 16:56:56
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do you really think michael moore is more loathsome than george w. bush and/or a lot of the u.s. government?
as far as i know there is no evidence to show that michael moore has ever had any nation bombed, any person living harmed physically or have a working relationship with the middle east.
if all of that is integrity then i will stand by the great g.w. bush and vote for him. but, to me none of that seems ethical or intellectual.
michael moore made a 2 hour movie that did not physically harm anyone involved. over 80% of the film is actually footage from other sources than his own. none of it was digitally altered and no voices were dubbed in. so when you see george bush shaking hands with the bin laden family or you see and hear george bush being the great public speaker he is and you see him declare war on the innocent people in iraq that is 100% true. so who are we to loathe? the person bringing this stuff to light or the person doing the un-ethical things in the film?
i dunno...i don't usually get political...
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TheCroutonFuton
- Mr. Setlists -
USA
1728 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 17:04:58
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Right. But it is a flat-out parody of Bradbury's novel. I think he does need a courtesey phone-call since Michael Moore said he would.
Oh, and keep on stereo-typing, it's really good for you. Have you ever noticed that it's only the FAR left or FAR right people who are so crazy? Most people are in the middle. Your stereotyping of republicans is like condemning all of the Islamic religions just because of extremists like Bin Laden, etc. etc. Politics are dumb. I don't consider myself either republican or democratic.
Also, I read that article, Erebus. Very enlightening.
"Freedom is a state of mind and the condition and position of your ass. Free your mind and your ass will follow." - Funkadelic |
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noexx
= Cult of Ray =
361 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 17:12:26
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| yes i condemned them all..... |
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TheCroutonFuton
- Mr. Setlists -
USA
1728 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 17:14:05
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i saw the movie last night...i see why republicans are so mad now. oh wait, they are always mad...mad with money.
i see...republican by chance?
....And sorry, but if you didn't notice the whole Islamic religion thing was a metaphor...
"Freedom is a state of mind and the condition and position of your ass. Free your mind and your ass will follow." - Funkadelic |
Edited by - TheCroutonFuton on 06/21/2004 17:15:24 |
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noexx
= Cult of Ray =
361 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2004 : 17:17:11
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i don't claim to be perfect. my parents are republican though....and i like them a lot. and they are mad with their money....just a little something i learned living with them.
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Ray Bradbury: "Michael Moore is an asshole"
