Fahrenheit 11/9 – Movie Review

This week at The Film Society Of Lincoln Center, I attended the New York City Premiere of Michael Moore’s new documentary, “Fahrenheit 11/9”.

Synopsis

In The Trump Era, political documentarian Michael Moore poses (and attempts to answer) two questions:  How did we get there? How do we get out?

Story

How did a nation as great as The United States of America manage to elect Donald Trump to be its President?  Moore summarizes this in a single word: Compromise. Going back to Bill Clinton’s presidency, he points out that Clinton enacted many programs that made the GOP happy in order to keep his own power base.  From that point on, Moore insists, the Democrats in Congress were to ready to sublimate their own interests to conform to what the Republicans wanted in order resemble progress. Also, rather than listening to the will of the people when nominating candidates, the Democratic Machine would instead foist their own people on the public.  All of this resulted in an increasing amount of the citizenry growing disaffected and choosing not to vote at all – which is part of the reason why Republicans gained control.

How do we fix this problem?  Moore maintains that the nation overwhelmingly believes in Democratic ideals.  The reason why they don’t come about is due to voter apathy. He posits that in order to get Democrats elected, people need to be motivated to vote.  While roughly 130 million people voted in the 2016 presidential election, there are millions more who did not vote at all; these are the people that need to come out and vote because, in Moore’s opinion, if they do, then they will vote for the Democrat.  In addition, Moore reasons we must abolish The Electoral College; he thinks it’s an antiquated concept that’s no longer necessary, especially considering Democrats have won the popular vote in most of the presidential elections for the past quarter century. 

Review

Even if you are a fan of Michael Moore’s documentaries and share his political views, there are nevertheless easily-identifiable problems in much of his work.  One of them is his ego: he typically finds a way to make whatever subject matter he’s covering all about him. This continues to be the case with “Fahrenheit 11/9” as he manages to insinuate himself into the conversation, above and beyond any interviews.  That said, if you don’t mind it so much, “Fahrenheit 11/9” is the must-see film of the year, especially given that midterm elections are coming in November.

This documentary is rather like foul-tasting medicine:  unpleasant to ingest, but in the end, good for you. If you haven’t been motivated to vote, then seeing “Fahrenheit 11/9” will likely change that –  if not, check your pulse (you may be dead).  At this screening, the cut of the film ran about two hours in length – a bit long for the average documentary, but in this case, quite necessary because it’s so fascinating. Those who expect that this will just be non-stop bashing of Trump will be greatly surprised; many Democrats take a beating, too.  These include Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and yes, even Barack Obama. Institutions are not immune to Moore’s attacks as well – the Democratic party and The New York Times are two that come immediately to mind.

One criticism is that it seems to go off-topic at various points.  Instead of just focusing on Trump, Moore extensively explores the crisis in Flint, Michigan where the citizens  are forced to drink, bathe and wash clothing in contaminated water. In trying to tie all of this into Trump, he points out the state’s Governor, Rick Snyder, a former businessman (ex-CEO of Gateway Computers) is a good friend of Trump.  It seems Moore wanted to make two movies on different topics but only had the bandwidth for one, so he included the Flint situation with his anti-Trump screed. Quite frankly, it’s a bit of a reach.

Following the screening, there was a question and answer session with Michael Moore.  In the documentary, Moore interviews John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Chairman.  Moore mentioned that in editing the film, some of that interview was cut; one of the questions omitted had to do with Clinton’s failure to campaign in several key states she lost.  According to Podesta, the team gave her bad advice: they told her not to go to those states because they believed visiting them would do more harm than good. For example, she didn’t go to Michigan because Bernie Sanders won that state in the primary; she wound up losing there in the general election by 10,000 votes (averaging something like two votes per precinct).