Film Is a Battleground #1 (Fahrenheit 9/11, The Terminal)
originally published July 20, 2004
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (in theaters)
THE TERMINAL (in theaters)
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004)
** (Worth seeing)
Michael Moore’s long-standing method of confronting unawares those who exercise power uncritically has often undermined the legitimate points he attempts to illustrate. The sight of Moore waddling after mid-level executives or congresspersons, common people in tow to grant him moral legitimacy, has often made me uncomfortable, especially when I agree with the point being made. Moore’s willingness to behave as a disingenuous trickster highlights the complex, unacknowledged tension of his relationship with those whose cause he takes up. His predilection for turning protest into a self-aggrandizing performance piece often allows for just complaints to be easily dismissed. Moore’s work on film and television illustrates why socialism has failed to work for the American left. One’s desire for equality and justice for all does not preclude an equal or greater desire to succeed, nor does it diminish one’s ambition to transcend the station of the proletariat.
Times have become so strange and troubled that Michael Moore has exhibited his first signs of humility. The genuinely moving sight of an almost speechless Moore accepting the Palme D’or in May was an appropriate prologue to the film itself. The perfidy of the Bush Administration, their lack of shame and contempt for the concepts of truth and honor, has focused Moore’s anger. His desire to enact social change has surpassed his desire to provoke and preen.
Though Moore narrates the film, he keeps his on-screen appearances to a minimum, and uses his public stunts briefly, as buttons to punctuate his satiric points with a laugh.
With Moore’s penchant for self-aggrandizement held mostly in check and the object of his derision so deserving, the only complaint one can have regarding the film itself is that it merely scratches the surface of the regime’s corruption says more about the ingrained, long standing, and far-reaching nature of that corruption; a full study of which would be exponentially longer than FAHRENHEIT’s running time and necessitate daily updates. My reservations regarding the film are mostly extratextual.
Most importantly, the film is not a work of art, political or otherwise. PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET is political art. WEEKEND is political art. BOB ROBERTS is political art. THREE KINGS is political art. BULWORTH is political art. Those films engage and embolden both mind and spirit. FAHRENHEIT 9/11, though a useful, effective piece of political propaganda, contains nary an original thought (nor an obvious inaccuracy). Neither should Michael Moore be mistaken for a talented filmmaker. At best, he is a competent filmmaker in possession of a few rudimentary tools of the craft.
The outsized audience for the film so far (and again, I want to make it clear that the film offers merely an overview of the Bush Administration’s abuses of power) should embarrass the mainstream media for choosing to ignore and/or being complicit in suppressing much of the information in the film. Moore may have a conflicted relationship with working-class Americans, but that’s far better than the disinterest with which the political media treats anything occurring outside their immediate, insular world.
Given that the film intends to call the otherwise apathetic or uninformed to action this November, rather than examine how our nation might extricate itself from the compounding, destructive policies of the current administration, the degree of Moore’s success or failure will not be clear until the ballots are counted.
THE TERMINAL (Steven Spielberg, 2004)
*** (A must-see)
Unlike FAHRENHEIT 9/11, THE TERMINAL expresses its political criticisms through the artistry of its director. Sadly, Spielberg’s empathetic vision of American achievement and potential has been overshadowed by Moore’s polemic. Moore’s film will give you some of the news deemed unfit to print, but he lacks Spielberg’s ability to uplift the spirit.
Spielberg has often been criticized, accurately, for his unbridled optimism. I, for one, found SAVING PRIVATE RYAN to be the ultimate manifestation of Spielberg’s willingness to demonstrate his technical mastery unburdened by any ideas.
A.I., however, demonstrated a profound change in Spielberg’s methods. The emotional immediacy of his technique, for once, did not occur in a void. The cold ironies of Kubrick’s script brought the feeling Spielberg arouses from audiences into sharp relief. A.I., MINORITY REPORT, and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN all featured heroes emotionally shattered by the disintegration of the family unit. Those films’ individual and cumulative power derived from the self-destructive, obsessive attempts the heroes made to reconstitute their families. It’s interesting that the only false note in those three films occurs at the end of MINORITY REPORT, where the vision of a successfully reconstituted family undermines and diminishes everything that has come before. A.I. and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN are Spielberg’s masterpieces because Spielberg empathizes with his characters need to undertake their journey while understanding their efforts to be futile. He finally engaged themes worthy of his technical gifts and emotional facility.
In THE TERMINAL, Tom Hanks portrays an obsessive acolyte of the family. Stranded in the International Terminal at JFK because his home nation fell into civil war while he was in flight, Viktor Navorski (Hanks) finds himself a man without a country and thus unable to be processed through the system. Upon arrival Navorski does not speak English. Thus he must express himself physically.
Hanks hasn’t really had a chance to exhibit his skills as a physical comedian since BIG. His skills have matured since then even though he’s too rarely taken roles worthy of his talent. The precision of intention and execution he brings to the film’s physical moments have drawn just comparisons to Tati. It’s a tremendously inventive and accomplished performance. Though his character’s physicality dominates the first third of the film it does not disappear once his character learns English and establishes his verbal intelligence and wit. Viktor Navorski proves to be a gifted artisan, and it’s this element of his physicality that makes it clear that though he is stranded, he is not helpless.
Spielberg also gets an outstanding performance from Stanley Tucci. Playing the putative villain, Tucci rejects the opportunity to manifest oppression. His petty torment of Navorski is motivated by short-sighted self-interest rather than innate malevolence. His growing resentment of Navorski remains impersonal; he doesn’t like the man simply because his presence exemplifies systemic inefficiency and failure. He wants only to make this unclassifiable man someone else’s problem. Tucci’s reticence and sublimity is repaid in a scene where, upon the occasion of Navorski’s arrival, he coolly and clinically informs an uncomprehending Navorski of the impossibility of his situation. Tucci has always been at his best in two-handed scenes where some unspoken resentment or slight informs a surface of polite conversation. Hanks provides him his best foil since Oliver Platt in THE IMPOSTORS. The scene plays like the lost segment of Jarmusch’s COFFEE AND CIGARETTES, the cross-cultural exchange of polite good intentions ineffectually disappearing in the void between them.
Though THE TERMINAL offers a much sunnier world view than do Spielberg’s previous three films, the lives on view exist in the context of war, dislocation, poverty, bureaucratic power, and adultery. Though most reviews have accurately compared certain sequences to Tati, the film put me more in mind of Preston Sturges. Sturges always presented his social satire in an optimistic context, though Spielberg’s optimism is relentless where Sturges found optimism to be a slightly absurd mental state. In our current climate of fear orchestrated by an Orwellian executive branch, optimism, especially the multi-ethnic, land of opportunity optimism Spielberg practices here, seems less naïve than a form of social protest.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (in theaters)
THE TERMINAL (in theaters)
FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004)
** (Worth seeing)
Michael Moore’s long-standing method of confronting unawares those who exercise power uncritically has often undermined the legitimate points he attempts to illustrate. The sight of Moore waddling after mid-level executives or congresspersons, common people in tow to grant him moral legitimacy, has often made me uncomfortable, especially when I agree with the point being made. Moore’s willingness to behave as a disingenuous trickster highlights the complex, unacknowledged tension of his relationship with those whose cause he takes up. His predilection for turning protest into a self-aggrandizing performance piece often allows for just complaints to be easily dismissed. Moore’s work on film and television illustrates why socialism has failed to work for the American left. One’s desire for equality and justice for all does not preclude an equal or greater desire to succeed, nor does it diminish one’s ambition to transcend the station of the proletariat.
Times have become so strange and troubled that Michael Moore has exhibited his first signs of humility. The genuinely moving sight of an almost speechless Moore accepting the Palme D’or in May was an appropriate prologue to the film itself. The perfidy of the Bush Administration, their lack of shame and contempt for the concepts of truth and honor, has focused Moore’s anger. His desire to enact social change has surpassed his desire to provoke and preen.
Though Moore narrates the film, he keeps his on-screen appearances to a minimum, and uses his public stunts briefly, as buttons to punctuate his satiric points with a laugh.
With Moore’s penchant for self-aggrandizement held mostly in check and the object of his derision so deserving, the only complaint one can have regarding the film itself is that it merely scratches the surface of the regime’s corruption says more about the ingrained, long standing, and far-reaching nature of that corruption; a full study of which would be exponentially longer than FAHRENHEIT’s running time and necessitate daily updates. My reservations regarding the film are mostly extratextual.
Most importantly, the film is not a work of art, political or otherwise. PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET is political art. WEEKEND is political art. BOB ROBERTS is political art. THREE KINGS is political art. BULWORTH is political art. Those films engage and embolden both mind and spirit. FAHRENHEIT 9/11, though a useful, effective piece of political propaganda, contains nary an original thought (nor an obvious inaccuracy). Neither should Michael Moore be mistaken for a talented filmmaker. At best, he is a competent filmmaker in possession of a few rudimentary tools of the craft.
The outsized audience for the film so far (and again, I want to make it clear that the film offers merely an overview of the Bush Administration’s abuses of power) should embarrass the mainstream media for choosing to ignore and/or being complicit in suppressing much of the information in the film. Moore may have a conflicted relationship with working-class Americans, but that’s far better than the disinterest with which the political media treats anything occurring outside their immediate, insular world.
Given that the film intends to call the otherwise apathetic or uninformed to action this November, rather than examine how our nation might extricate itself from the compounding, destructive policies of the current administration, the degree of Moore’s success or failure will not be clear until the ballots are counted.
THE TERMINAL (Steven Spielberg, 2004)
*** (A must-see)
Unlike FAHRENHEIT 9/11, THE TERMINAL expresses its political criticisms through the artistry of its director. Sadly, Spielberg’s empathetic vision of American achievement and potential has been overshadowed by Moore’s polemic. Moore’s film will give you some of the news deemed unfit to print, but he lacks Spielberg’s ability to uplift the spirit.
Spielberg has often been criticized, accurately, for his unbridled optimism. I, for one, found SAVING PRIVATE RYAN to be the ultimate manifestation of Spielberg’s willingness to demonstrate his technical mastery unburdened by any ideas.
A.I., however, demonstrated a profound change in Spielberg’s methods. The emotional immediacy of his technique, for once, did not occur in a void. The cold ironies of Kubrick’s script brought the feeling Spielberg arouses from audiences into sharp relief. A.I., MINORITY REPORT, and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN all featured heroes emotionally shattered by the disintegration of the family unit. Those films’ individual and cumulative power derived from the self-destructive, obsessive attempts the heroes made to reconstitute their families. It’s interesting that the only false note in those three films occurs at the end of MINORITY REPORT, where the vision of a successfully reconstituted family undermines and diminishes everything that has come before. A.I. and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN are Spielberg’s masterpieces because Spielberg empathizes with his characters need to undertake their journey while understanding their efforts to be futile. He finally engaged themes worthy of his technical gifts and emotional facility.
In THE TERMINAL, Tom Hanks portrays an obsessive acolyte of the family. Stranded in the International Terminal at JFK because his home nation fell into civil war while he was in flight, Viktor Navorski (Hanks) finds himself a man without a country and thus unable to be processed through the system. Upon arrival Navorski does not speak English. Thus he must express himself physically.
Hanks hasn’t really had a chance to exhibit his skills as a physical comedian since BIG. His skills have matured since then even though he’s too rarely taken roles worthy of his talent. The precision of intention and execution he brings to the film’s physical moments have drawn just comparisons to Tati. It’s a tremendously inventive and accomplished performance. Though his character’s physicality dominates the first third of the film it does not disappear once his character learns English and establishes his verbal intelligence and wit. Viktor Navorski proves to be a gifted artisan, and it’s this element of his physicality that makes it clear that though he is stranded, he is not helpless.
Spielberg also gets an outstanding performance from Stanley Tucci. Playing the putative villain, Tucci rejects the opportunity to manifest oppression. His petty torment of Navorski is motivated by short-sighted self-interest rather than innate malevolence. His growing resentment of Navorski remains impersonal; he doesn’t like the man simply because his presence exemplifies systemic inefficiency and failure. He wants only to make this unclassifiable man someone else’s problem. Tucci’s reticence and sublimity is repaid in a scene where, upon the occasion of Navorski’s arrival, he coolly and clinically informs an uncomprehending Navorski of the impossibility of his situation. Tucci has always been at his best in two-handed scenes where some unspoken resentment or slight informs a surface of polite conversation. Hanks provides him his best foil since Oliver Platt in THE IMPOSTORS. The scene plays like the lost segment of Jarmusch’s COFFEE AND CIGARETTES, the cross-cultural exchange of polite good intentions ineffectually disappearing in the void between them.
Though THE TERMINAL offers a much sunnier world view than do Spielberg’s previous three films, the lives on view exist in the context of war, dislocation, poverty, bureaucratic power, and adultery. Though most reviews have accurately compared certain sequences to Tati, the film put me more in mind of Preston Sturges. Sturges always presented his social satire in an optimistic context, though Spielberg’s optimism is relentless where Sturges found optimism to be a slightly absurd mental state. In our current climate of fear orchestrated by an Orwellian executive branch, optimism, especially the multi-ethnic, land of opportunity optimism Spielberg practices here, seems less naïve than a form of social protest.
Labels: documentary, fahrenheit 9/11, michael moore, stanley tucci, steven spielberg, the terminal, tom hanks
posted by Bret LaGree at 13:20
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