Moore’s polemic is the most significant ilm of our age

ONE time, if artists or writers wanted to influence the shape of public debate they wrote topical plays or long poems.

In later centuries, polemists wrote weighty political pamphlets which, although published to a relatively small audience, often had a dramatic effect on political events. When politics became a mass participation activity at the start of the 20th century, political movements - including our own independence movement - needed to have their own newspaper in order to communicate their message to the widest possibly audience.

Now in the early part of the 21st century, it looks like cinema is becoming the communications weapon of choice for those who want to move public opinion, especially in the United States.

For more than a century, cinema has played a role in chronicling and reflecting social changes. In more recent decades there have been a few mainstream movies which have managed to influence or even define our understanding of certain historically events. For instance, David Puttnam’s The Killing Fields powerfully told the story of the Pol Pot atrocities in Cambodia. Perhaps the most significant contribution of cinema to public debate was Spielberg’s Schindler’s List which hauntingly captured and communicated the true horror of Hitler’s genocides.

However these films were all made after the event - they were retrospectives. Now some movies want to have a more immediate impact. This year there are at least two films going on general release which are specifically designed to influence the outcome of the United States presidential election.

Later in the summer, Morgan Freeman is among those who will star in a movie called The Hunting of the President which claims to tell the story of a multi-million dollar right-wing conspiracy which managed to dig up every bit of dirt that money could buy about Bill Clinton’s in order to undermine his presidency.

The other election campaign movie, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, went on release this month. Fahrenheit 9/11 is not an epic. Moore does not even come close to Puttnam or Spielberg for scale or impact. In many places, Fahrenheit 9/11 is not even strictly accurate. However, it is the most significant film released in years. That significance lies not in its cinematography but in its potential to have a major political impact.

Many movie reviewers have panned Fahrenheit 9/11 for its lack of a clear plot. Some commentators have also denounced it for some of its inaccuracies. However, they both miss the point. Yes there are many intellectual gaps in the way Moore makes his argument in this film but the film is not designed to be intellectually persuasive. It is a political movie and therefore it deals more in emotions than intellect. It is not a movie in the traditional sense, nor is it a documentary; it is a political pamphlet on screen. In fact it is akin to a movie-length party political broadcast. The overriding purpose of this movie is to change the outcome of the presidential election. That is precisely why it is so significant.

There are passages in the movie where Moore can’t help himself and comes close to rant. He also is also guilty in places of stretching the bounds of truth and credulity - especially when he draws a web of indirect business connection between Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich ruling families, including the Bin Ladens, and the Bush administration.

The strength of this film as a political weapon however, is that it is not all about pandering to Democratic or anti-Bush biases. In fact most of the film is given over to an argument most likely to succeed with middle-ground voters and even with sections of Republican grassroots support.

The best scenes in the film are those which involve US troops sent to Iraq or their families back at home. The film makes the point that in the United States it is the poorer communities, from whom the army recruits and reservist fighting the war in Iraq have come, that are paying the real price for this war. By comparison, Moore shows how it is the oil industry and other wealthy republican business interest who have most to gain.

Moore superimposes this image of money being made on the back of the war beside stomach-churning graphic shots of the horror of the war itself.

There is much footage in the movie of bombings, bodies and bloody injuries. There are also poignant scenes of injured soldiers in long-stay hospitals back in the United States. Although some of these scenes are particularly graphic they probably do no more than redressing a balance in the United States, where few news networks have focused on the war dead, and where there are even restrictions on photos or footage of soldiers’ coffins returning home.

MOORE pitches the argument directly at the Republican base, in voices and in language with which they are familiar. In Fahrenheit 9/11 there are also powerful clips of US soldiers based in or near Iraq wondering why they are there fighting this war.

The film, for example, also tells the story of the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq. She had previously voted Republican but now she emotionally denounces Bush and his war at the gates of the White House. Instead of parading clips from academic of international relations analysts about why the war was wrong, Moore uses clips of old folks discussing the war over lunch in a day care centre. It may be less intellectually persuasive but it is certainly more politically effective.

Of course, Moore’s film cannot influence the election if it is only seen by people who wouldn’t vote for Bush anyway. However, all the indications are that in the United States Fahrenheit 9/11 is being seen by much more than Moore’s traditional liberal left audience. This is perhaps because the summer is a quiet time for film releases and therefore there is little competition in the movie houses of the United States at the moment. It is also partly because of the publicity the film got from a row which Moore had with Disney over its distribution some months ago. Maybe some Bush supporters are going to see Fahrenheit 9/11 so that they can trash it afterwards.

Whatever the reasons, Americans are going to see Fahrenheit 9/11 and are going to see it in large numbers.

The Iraq war is now one of the most important issues in the US presidential campaign. In a country which is now very evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, even the slightest shift in opinion could change the overall result. If the race is again close, Moore’s movie could be as important as anything John Kerry or John Edwards say or do.

I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 on Saturday night and there was a sustained round of applause when the movie finished. I haven’t seen that happen in an Irish cinema for a while (although it is easy for an Irish audience to enjoy a movie which has a go at George Bush). But it’s the response from audiences in the United States that will matter most.