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.