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: 04-01-2004
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 4:47pm
But he hasn't claimed that the two documentaries are comedies. The book he made the statement about,"Stupid White Men", was never a documentary. I don't think you can fairly claim that he thinks of "Bowling for Columbine" or "Farenheit 911" as comedies. Never having seen either of them - one about the very unpleasant and uncomfortable subject of Columbine and the other not available to the general public yet - it would be hard to judge whether or not there were distortions or lies. IMO it is a rush to judgment to try to critize his current documentary without seeing it. IMO Moore is no worse than Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh who say some terrible things, many distortions of the truth, if not outright lies, to deliberately incite people. I've seen Rush in several interviews where he dismisses some the things he says as entertainment because he said that what he does - entertain. I was surprised that he thought he was being entertaining because when I used to listen to he said some very caustic things (That's why I don't listen to him anymore.) just as Michael Moore does from a different side of the political fence. They all pander to the extremes on the left or right. But what can you do? It's their first amendment right, is it not? Of course, if there were no market for this type of thing, I doubt that they would continue for long before having to find gainful employment elsewhere.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 5:02pm
And that's what I'm talking about, the fact that BfC and F-9/11 aren't comedies yet don't fit the requirements of documentaries. Documentaries aren't supposed to include fictional material, yet at the very least BfC includes such blatantly untruthful material in spite of it's label/category as a documentary. From the statement on CNN it appears he has taken the same liberties with F-9/11, at least in some regards.

I'm not arguing and would not argue that it isn't Moore's right to create his works as he see's fit. That's not the issue. The issue is the fictional material, overt lies and distortions as well as significant amounts of editorializing which permeates so much of his supposed "documentaries" which is what we take issue with.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2004
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 7:39pm
"We have the story you're refering to somewhere on the board" That may be where I read it. I have no idea. It sounds like something Drudge would have on his site and I have to reluctantly admit that I often use Drudge as a jumping off point for news and various columnists.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2004
Thu, 05-27-2004 - 11:34pm
"Documentaries aren't supposed to include fictional material, yet at the very least BfC includes such blatantly untruthful material in spite of it's label/category as a documentary."

Not necessarily. At least not in Florida. LOL Here is something I was trying to post from memory earlier today. Here are quotes from an actual article. “verdict on February 14 handed down by the Court of Appeals of the Florida Second District. In that verdict the court in essence said technically it is not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.

The three judge panel thus reversed the previous $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by FOX Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information concerning the widespread use of the Monsanto manufactured rBGH hormone.”

“Although the Florida jurors concluded she was pressured by FOX lawyers and managers to broadcast what the jury agreed was "a false, distorted or slanted story" and was fired for threatening to blow the whistle, that decision was reversed on a legal technicality when the higher court agreed with FOX that it is technically not against any law, rule or regulation”

http://www.populist.com/03.09.krebs.html

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 05-28-2004 - 2:59am
You're can't stamp out the intention, so the next best thing is to minimise the available means. I should have thought that was obvious. Standard risk management strategy.
Octagonal
Avatar for car_al
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Fri, 05-28-2004 - 3:02am
<<…, it's been pretty widely reported that Moore makes the claim that Bush stole the 2000 election.>>

Well if, in fact, he states what he and many others believe - and we both have read and heard others maintain this – then he is providing cultural and historical information, which is a valid objective in a documentary.

But again I stress that film is an art form and artists learn the rules not to follow blindly, but in order to stretch or even break them, if necessary for their creative vision.

You don’t have to see Moore’s film, if you think you’ll be disturbed by it. The rest of us will be happy to let you know our opinions of it, when we see it;-)

C

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Fri, 05-28-2004 - 8:34am
Disturbed by Moore's work? The only thing I'm disturbed by where Moore is concerned is how many otherwise intelligent people have bought into his particular brand of garbage.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Fri, 05-28-2004 - 8:39am
One of the "means" you're speaking of "minimizing" is one of an effective means of self-defense, not just a means of assault or the causing of harm on behalf of criminals or those with criminal intent. Which of course leads us to the curious problem of such laws... criminals ignore them anyway, and would have no problem acquiring firearms whether they're legally available to anyone else or not.

So your "standard risk management strategy" ignores several practical issues involved and would accomplish little of note even if enacted.


~mark~

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
Fri, 05-28-2004 - 9:02am

Disturbed by Moore's work? The only thing I'm disturbed by where Moore is concerned is how many otherwise intelligent people have bought into his particular brand of garbage.


I feel the same way about Rush Limbaugh.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Fri, 05-28-2004 - 9:30am
Except you can't argue with Rush's facts. They are carefully researched and documented. It is his *opinion* about the facts which is hated.

Michael Moore's facts are proven over and over to be incorrect. He makes up "facts" to fit his opinion. There is your difference.

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