CANNES, France -- Michael Moore's controversial anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11" has debuted at the Cannes Film Festival to resounding applause from film critics.
Moore, who is facing an uphill battle to get his movie into U.S. theaters this summer as planned, offers a relentless critique of the Bush administration both before and after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
"You see so many movies after they've been hyped to heaven and they turn out to be complete crap, but this is a powerful film," Baz Bamigboye, a film columnist for London's Daily Mail newspaper, told The Associated Press.
"It would be a shame if Americans didn't get to see this movie about important stuff happening in their own backyard."
Even Moore's skeptics seemed impressed.
"I have a problematic relationship with some of Michael Moore's work. There's no such job as a standup journalist," said James Rocchi, film critic for DVD rental company Netflix.
But Rocchi said "Fahrenheit 9/11" contains powerful segments about losses on both sides of the Iraq war and the grief of American and Iraqi families.
"This film is at its best when it is most direct and speaks from the heart, when it shows lives torn apart," Rocchi told AP.
The film links Bush with powerful Saudi families, including that of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
It also includes pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused, as well as grisly images of dead Iraqi babies and children burned by napalm along with maimed and injured U.S. soldiers.
The film takes its title from Ray Bradbury's novel "Fahrenheit 451," which refers to the temperature needed to burn books in an anti-Utopian society. Moore calls "Fahrenheit 9/11" the "temperature at which freedom burns."
Moore, who won an Academy Award for his film "Bowling for Columbine," is sill arranging for a U.S. distributor for "Fahrenheit 9/11."
Miramax financed the movie, but parent company Disney blocked the release because of its political overtones.
Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein are working to buy back the film and find another distributor.
Outside the Cannes theater after the first "Fahrenheit 9/11" screenings, reporters asked Harvey Weinstein if the film would be released in the United States. Weinstein responded, "Have I ever let you down?"
Last week, Moore accused the Walt Disney Company of stifling free speech by blocking the distribution of his film.
Moore told CNN that Disney had said they did not want to upset the Bush family because of the risk of jeopardizing "tens of millions of dollars" in tax incentives.
The New York Times reported that Disney executives denied the allegation. One unnamed executive told the paper it did not want to be seen taking sides in the forthcoming U.S. election and risk alienating customers of different political views.
"We just chose not to be involved," Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner said.
Moore said media companies such as Disney must allow all voices to be heard.
"We live in a free and open society where dissent is not to be stifled or silenced. They have violated that trust," he said.
"We have only got a few studios left and if we get to a point where they can decide that only these voices can be heard, how free and open is our society at that point?"
posted by Michael Witmer @ Monday, May 17, 2004
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