Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Wins at Cannes

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Registered: 03-25-2003
Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Wins at Cannes
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Sun, 05-23-2004 - 3:13am
'Fahrenheit 9/11' Wins Top Prize at Cannes

By A. O. SCOTT

CANNES, France, May 22 - At the awards ceremony that wrapped up the 57th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday night, the jury gave "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's stinging critique of the Bush administration's foreign policies, the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize and one of the most coveted honors in international cinema.

The announcement, made by jury president Quentin Tarantino, met with enthusiastic cheers from the audience in the Grand Théâtre Lumière, where Mr. Moore's film had received what many thought was the longest standing ovation ever at Cannes when it was screened here last Monday. "What have you done?" Mr. Moore asked Mr. Tarantino as he accepted the prize, looking both overwhelmed and amused. "You just did this to mess with me, didn't you?"

It was a night of many surprises: a 14-year-old boy won the award for best actor; the first Thai film ever placed in competition shared a jury prize with an American actress; and all three French films in competition were given awards.

But Mr. Moore's victory outdid all of them. For one thing, Cannes is notoriously indifferent to documentaries. "Fahrenheit 9/11" was one of only three nonfiction films allowed in competition in nearly 50 years.

The meaning of Mr. Moore's Palme, however, extends far beyond the cozy, glamorous world of Cannes. "Last time I was on an awards stage in Hollywood, all hell broke loose," Mr. Moore said in his acceptance speech, referring to his antiwar remarks at the Oscars last year. His new film, which does not yet have an American distributor, has already begun to stir passions in the United States, as the election approaches and the debate over the conduct of the war in Iraq grows more intense.

With his characteristic blend of humor and outrage - and with greater filmmaking discipline and depth of feeling than he has shown in his previous work - Mr. Moore attacks Mr. Bush's response to Sept. 11, his decision to invade Iraq, and nearly everything else the president has done.

"I did not set out to make a political film," Mr. Moore said at a news conference after the ceremony. "I want people to leave thinking that was a good way to spend two hours. The art of this, the cinema, comes before the politics."

He also said that Mr. Tarantino had assured him that the political message of "Fahrenheit 9/11" did not influence the jury's decision. "On this jury we have different politics," he quoted Mr. Tarantino as saying. It is also a film financed by Miramax, which distributes Mr. Tarantino's movies.

Mr. Moore noted that four of the nine jurors were American: Mr. Tarantino, Kathleen Turner, the director Jerry Schatzberg, and the Haitian-born novelist Edwidge Danticat. "I fully expect the Fox News Channel and other right-wing media to portray this as an award from the French," Mr. Moore said. Only one juror, the actress Emanuelle Béart, is a French citizen.

"If you want to add Tilda," he said referring to the British actress Tilda Swinton, "then you could say that more than half came from the coalition of the willing." (The rest of the panel was made up of Benoit Poelvoode, a Belgian actor; Peter von Bagh, a Finnish critic; and the Hong Kong director Tsui Hark.)

The jury's other decisions ranged far and wide over the competitive slate, recognizing both audience-friendly commercial movies, and challenging art-house films, and acknowledging the strong Asian presence at the festival this year.

The second prize went to Park Chan Wook's "Old Boy," an action-filled South Korean revenge drama. The Thai film, "Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Tropical Malady," a dreamy fable, irritated some critics with its slow pacing and enthralled others with its mysterious sensuality. It shared the jury prize with Irma P. Hall, the landlady in Joel and Ethan Coen's "Ladykillers."

Ms. Hall, hospitalized in the United States, was not able to attend the ceremony. Nor was Yuya Yagira, the young Japanese actor honored for his role in Hirokazu Kore-Eda's "Nobody Knows." Mr. Yagira had exams to take back home, so Mr. Kore-Eda accepted the award on his behalf.

The prize for directing, was given to Tony Gatlif, an Algerian-born French filmmaker, for "Exiles," a ragged, sexy road picture about a young couple's journey across Europe and North Africa. Agnès Jaoui, the director of the sophisticated French comedy "Look at Me," shared the screenwriting prize with her ex-husband Jean-Pierre Bacri, who appears with her in the film. The prize for best actress went to Maggie Cheung, who plays a recovering addict in Olivier Assayas's "Clean."

http://nytimes.com/2004/05/22/movies/23canne.html

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Sun, 05-23-2004 - 7:54am
Yep, another round of Moore BS (hey, that works on several levels!) to confuse and conflict those individuals who don't know any better and who take him and his work way too seriously. From what has been said from Canne's and in various articles on this film it's no more a "documentary" than BfC was, and just as filled with inaccurate tripe and fictional accounts of factual events. Moore's stock in trade, in other words. Constructed for entertainment and not enlightenment, at least not to anyone interested in the objective truth of many of the matters he addresses.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 05-23-2004 - 10:07am

>"Constructed for entertainment and not enlightenment, at least not to anyone interested in the objective truth of many of the matters he addresses."<


I have

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 05-23-2004 - 10:10am
I was just going to post the story, you beat me to it.

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sun, 05-23-2004 - 10:20am
Am I the only one who thinks this is a thump for Bush rather than an accolade for Moore? Saying something about freedom of speech, i.e., Disney's failure to release the film in the US was a political not a business deciaion.


Edited 5/23/2004 10:22 am ET ET by hayashig
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 05-23-2004 - 10:40am

I think Disney is

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2003
Sun, 05-23-2004 - 10:49am

<>


This movie and the Columbine movie have won awards for being "documentaries" though. They shouldn't win awards in the documentary section because they are not based on fact.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
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Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 05-23-2004 - 11:08am

As I mentioned before

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Sun, 05-23-2004 - 11:43am
<>

Does it matter? Disney declined to distribute the movie because they would tax advantages in Florida. The fact that Jeb Bush has such power he can affect who gets tax breaks, says that this is a vindictive threat.

I haven't seen any of MM movies, but he does create a whirlwind. He has brobably gained more publicity from Disney's refusal than he would have if Disney had just quitely distributed it. I am really disturbed by the Republicans efforts to restrict freedom for the media. Are we headed for a facist state?

"The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism" by Dr. Lawrence Britt :

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or ev

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections."

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 05-23-2004 - 12:26pm

>"I am really disturbed by the Republicans efforts to restrict freedom for the media."<


Agreed. The "liberal press" manta is part of this. I'm bright enough to recognize bias & because something is the truth, plain & simple, doesn't make it "liberal".


>"

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Sun, 05-23-2004 - 12:32pm
>>>"Isn't that the whole point that they're for entertainment?"<<<

BfC was billed as a documentary, objectively meaning it was supposed to have some meaningful relationship to the facts of the events surrounding the shootings at Columbine. But that's not what we got. We got distortions, misrepresentation, and occassional outright fabrication, all tied up under the guise of a "documentary".

Now, if Moore was just out to tell a story, and the actual facts of the matter weren't an issue, it shouldn't have been called a documentary, either by Moore, his publicists, or by the nominating group which gave him an award for it. But they did, and it wasn't.

As for this... "Many believe all or some of this", I'm sure some do. As you note we've encountered plenty of them here and elsewhere on Ivillage. But "believing" something doesn't make it the truth or factual, and it's been pretty well established that nobody stole the 2000 presidential election. It may be more comfortable for Moore to say that, and perhaps even believe it, but that doesn't make it so. It's just another excuse to slam someone he doesn't agree with on the issues.


~mark~

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