Farehnheit 9/11

[House of Mustard]

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

The intro to the article states: "The point is not that Bowling is biased. No, the point is that Bowling is deliberately, seriously, and consistently deceptive."

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

thank you for the link...

[EUOL]

I can see where Bradbury is coming from.  When I first heard the title of the 9/11 movie, I thought "Oh!  The Bradbury movie is coming out!"  Morag thought exactly the same thing (we discussed our disappointment at writing group.)

Best Western successfully sued Best Inn and Suits over the word 'Best' in their title simply because people would often go to the wrong hotel, getting them confused.  If there is a reasonable chance that people would go to Moore's movie thinking that it's a Bradbury flick, then Bradbury has legal grounds to make a case (though I think his is weaker than the Best Western one.)

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Honestly everyone who makes that mistake should be shot just to clean up the gene pool. I mean if you mix Fahrenheit 451 with Fahrenheit 911 you need to go out and read.    

[House of Mustard]

Well, the backlash is coming:  Here's an article from a former staff writer of The Nation (so you know he has to be pretty dang liberal).  It trashes Moore pretty bad.  It's long, but worth the read.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/

Here's an excerpt:

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

[Spriggan]

Ya that's a good article, I'm surprised that Slate actualy published it considering how much they loath Bush.  Another intresting article on Slate is how Moore is now threating to sue anyone who says his movie isn't 100% fact.  And now like all the major news orginizations are takeing him up and doing similar articles.  It's almost as if Moore wants to be disproven.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Im surprised no ones sued him for slander and libel.

[House of Mustard]

He'd probably like it if they did.  It's the controversy that sells his movie.  Probably the best thing that happened to him was having Disney refuse to distribute it.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

the thing is that by not suing him for libel they tacitly admit he's telling the truth.

[House of Mustard]

Not necessarily.  I don't think anybody sued him over Bowling For Columbine, but nobody really believes that was true.

Also, from what I remember of my few media classes, people who willingly put themselves in the public eye (politicians, movie stars, etc.) have a very very difficult time winning a libel case.

[Entsuropi]

Read that page guys. He details why the few lawsuits (there have been some) against Moore have failed - because he has been very careful about edging around the law.

[Fellfrosch]

As one who deals with very tricky matters of copyright law every single day at work, I can assure you that Farenheit 451 and Farenheit 9/11 are incredibly similar, and that Bradbury would almost certainly win his case if he ever made one. Trademarks and copyrights are defined very loosely: you don't have to be exact in order to infringe on a copyright, just "confusingly similar". I, like EUOL and Morag, immediately assumed that Moore's movie was Bradbury's movie when I first saw the name; beyond that, pretty much ever well-read person in the English speaking world made the mental connection when they saw the title, even if they didn't actually confuse the two. That mental connection is exactly what Moore was looking for, obviously, but it's a strong enough connection to get him in legal trouble should Bradbury decide to sue.

That said, he could conceivably defend his title with the parody clause, but if he labels his film a parody I don't know what that says about its nature as a documentary.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

I had as well assumed it was some kind of film about Bradbury's work. Until I saw Moore's name, then figured it was going to be another crappy documentary. Why can't he just go back to making films like Canadian Bacon?

[42]

Moore enjoys being sued. I know of people who filed suets against him for Bowling for Columbine. I think Moore like the attention. And he's a big time power tripper with it comes to legal fights. He appears to be of the opinion that Free Speech is only for those that agree with him.

I have yet to read a reviw of Moore's work that claims that he actually tells the truth in his documentaries. For people familiar with his work it's common knowledge that he only tells half-truths.

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

Indeed, even speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker's voice, but which were not sentences he uttered.

I find this hard to believe.  Short of Digital editing, which Moore didn't have, it would be nearly impossible for any amount of work to lead a smooth sentance which was a plice.  There is head position, transaction of lips, sounds in the backround, inconsistant lighting, ect. that would stop Moore from actually making sentance that didn't exist.  I think this is an utterly ridiculous claim, in all honesty.  There is no possible way for Moore to make sentances that didn't exist from words in a chain of sentances.  Couldn't be done without a great deal of highly sophisticated visual digital editing.

However, it is possible, and likely, that Moore used sentances out of context, but I can't name a documentrist that doesn't.  It is something that you have to deal with when a non-fiction work comes out.  Nothing you see is entirely true nor is it entirely in context.  Even those articles you posted slamming Moore for being false and saying it's the truth have falsities and examples that are out of context.

Your impression: Heston did something 48 hours after she died. Why else would "his" webpage note this event, whatever it is? What would Heston's action have been? It must have been to go to Flint and hold the rally.[/.quote]

I also don't like this quote, and quotes like it, simply because it tells me what I thought.  I did not think this when I saw Bowling for Columbine so this "author" has no right to claim I did, or would if I had seen it (this being for the instance of the point of view of someone who hasn't seen Bowling for Columbine).  

I don't like how this first article, being the onje I am currently reading, targets an audience that hasn't seen the movie, or so it strikes me, telling me what I should think when I see this scene.

Bowling goes on to depict Klansmen becoming the NRA and an NRA character helping to light a burning cross.

It obviously states in this sequence, much clearer than this article admits, that the NRA and the KKK are completely seperate organizations and have no legal connection, I don't have the excact quote on me.  But it does clearly state this fact.  

This muckraker is no better than Moore, so I find it ironic that anyone would try and use this article to prove how wrong Moore is to do what he does, since this article is doing the same thing.

Even the title "Documentary or Fiction?" makes the reader think about Bowling for Columbine as fictionous, making it easier for them to be persuaded, a phscological technique used in speeches, debates and yellow journalism.  By making the title of a work seem to tell the reader that what the author is tryiong to prove is correct, it makes the reader start to agree, or be easily persuaded, before the "facts" actually show up.

In reality, this article is excactly like Bowling for Columbine, loosly based on the truth but changed, like all media, to prove their side.  I am not trying to say Bowling for Columbine is true in all aspects, I am trying to sy you should be proving it with something that doesn't use the same techniques.