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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Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 3:48am
It took awhile, but I realized it has to be the one posted before you 'time wise', not in the order of posting the outline shows. You're right it is a nuisance;-)

I did read this on the Politics board, but as Libraone pointed out – the media did carry the story, so Moore didn’t fabricate it.

But as I posted to Mirage, I think we’ll all have a chance to decide the films merits on our own.

C

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 8:35am
Actually, I'm making those distinctions and attributing them primarily to a movie already made and seen, BfC, though I seriously doubt Moore's tactics in the making of F-9/11 will display any more integrity than in his previous works.

Like I said earlier, it's been pretty widely reported that Moore makes the claim that Bush stole the 2000 election. That, like so many of his claims in previous movies and books, isn't factual. It's an opinion, editorializing, and documentaries aren't supposed to involve such things, but merely allow the facts of the matters being addressed speak for themselves and allow the viewers to draw their own conclusions.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 12:15pm
<>

Hmmm, sounds strangly similar to our honest George.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2004
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 1:15pm
Mirage and Iminnie - That quote was taken out of context. It was a quote about " Stupid White Men" which was a comedy. If you haven't read it, you couldn't know that. It's comedy with a bite to it. Kind of like Rush, only slanted to the left.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2004
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 1:31pm
Guns just make it so much easier for people to kill people. Imagine Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States without them. It certainly would make combat much more up close and personal.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2004
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 1:53pm
This reminds me of that case in Florida where the Florida Appeals Court ruled that Rupert Murdoch's Fox didn't have to tell the truth. In 1998 or 1999 one of their reporters sued because Fox compelled her to use distortions or lies in a -get this- DOCUMENTARY. She sued, won and was awarded damages. When the case made its way to the Florida Appeals Court in 2003, they ruled that it is not against the law to deliberately lie or distort the news. To this day I don't trust any media source associated with Rupert Murdoch, not even TV Guide.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 3:11pm
Except that George isn't who we're discussing and he isn't going around making "documentaries" that aren't. Beyond that you "may" be correct to some degree.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 3:13pm
If there was no intention to commit the crime, the ease of it wouldn't be an issue. And almost all weapons make it easier than having no weapon at all.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 3:16pm
I'll accept that. The problem there is that he applied the same logic to BfC, and didn't care about such things as factual information and pertinent context. That's what he does... when it's not being actively challenged, he allows his claims to stand. When they are challenged, he writes it off as "comedy" or "humor".

Unfortunately, he can't have it both ways, especially in such works as BfC.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 4:41pm

>"I don't trust any media source associated with Rupert Murdoch,"<


You feel as I do about Murdoch. Only time I watch anything on Fox is NFL football.


We have the story you're refering to somewhere on the board.

cl-Libraone~

 


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