February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
That was Monday’s final figure for Michael Moore’s controversial new film, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which took the top spot in its opening weekend, no small feat for a documentary that was shown on a mere 868 screens.
The film, being touted as the little movie that could, didn’t flounder without distribution for long. After its rousing reception at this year’s Canne’s film festival, where Moore scooped up the Palm D’Or, Miramax rescued it from the cutting room floor when Disney refused to release it.
Rushed to theaters for a summer release, the movie has tongues wagging, with no shortage of those defending it, those ready to critique it.
While President Bush was facing prying cameras, overeager reporters, and an onslaught of protesters in Ireland, the heat in County Clare was easier to handle than his portrayal in Moore’s film.
Moore, a self described “working-class guy” from Flint, Mich., first shot to fame with “Roger & Me,” his take on his hometown’s main source of work and pride, a GM factory, moved to Mexico and left much of Flint looking for work.
Since “Roger & Me” came out in 1989, Moore has been stirring up all sorts of trouble for corporations and anyone he considers not to understand the plight of the working man.
Never has he taken on such a debate, however, as he does in “Fahrenheit 9/11.” His tying of Bush into Saudi oil money accounts for “6 to 7 percent” of the United States’ worth.
In the film, Moore looks to some prominent Irish Americans to help his cause.
Representative Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington State, and a well-known rabble rouser in his state, uses his background as a psychiatrist to talk about the level of fear that the Bush administration ensured would keep support for the war on terror.
McDermott spoke to the L.A. Times before the movie was released.
“It will have an impact of some sort,” he said, “but I’m not sure what.”
Moore also interviewed Jack Cloonan, a retired senior agent on the joint FBI-CIA Al-Qaeda task force, though it is not clear when he retired from that post or why.
Cloonan spoke of how he could not understand why members of Osama bin Laden’s family were allowed air travel out of the United States on Sept. 13, 2001, when all planes were grounded, with what he felt were no questions asked.
“I would have given them the subpoena,” Cloonan says in the movie, “and just asked them some questions. All we wanted do was ask some questions.”
“Fahrenheit 9/11” has ignited dialogue between moviegoers as well.
At one Friday evening showing in Greenwich Village, the movie let out to a wave of chatter among patrons.
Rosemarie Duprey, a manager at Loewes Bay Terrace, one of only two screens showing the film in Queens, was not impressed with the reaction of the droves who came to see it.
“There is no action,” she said. “It’s mostly seniors. . . . I think people are more curious than anything.”
Duprey noted that it did sell out when it opened Friday night as well as for Saturday.
Frank O’Reilly of Forest Hills, Queens, saw it differently. He was at a Saturday afternoon showing.
“I found it riveting, especially the scene of the woman who lost her son,” he said. “It became hard to contain yourself.”
Indeed, some people did. There were tears leaving some theaters, as well as anxious conversation. Michael Moore himself waited outside one Grammercy Park cinema to meet and greet people leaving the film, and to gauge their reactions.
O’Reilly equated “Fahrenheit 9/11” to a Vietnam War-era documentary, “Hearts and Minds.”
“But I actually found this movie to be stronger. . . worse, in a way,” he said. “It was very effective. It turned serious toward the end, which was quite a change from the way it was funny at first.
“I didn’t find it to be manipulative. I just didn’t think it would be that powerful.”