Lowering the Subtlety of Political Discourse-GOP backed 'Celsius 41.11'

[Clinton Crusader]

http://movies2.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/movies/22CELS.html?8mu

By MANOHLA DARGIS

If you didn't know where "Celsius 41.11" was coming from
you certainly get the picture when the filmmakers cut
from an image juxtaposing Michael Moore with Hitler
straight to an image of John Kerry and John Edwards. If
the juxtaposition weren't so shameless, if the political
climate were not so scurrilous, if the country were not
actively at war and men, women and children were not
dying in that war, this composite triumvirate of
Moore-Hitler-Kerry might be easy to laugh off. As it is,
it's a depressing indicator of our political discourse
and what passes as nonfiction film these days.

Directed by Kevin Knoblock, who has mainly knocked
around cable television, and written and produced by
Lionel Chetwynd and Ted Steinberg, "Celsius 41.11" was
made, according to a press release issued by Citizens
United, the group that produced the film, "to refute the
propaganda in Michael Moore's `Fahrenheit 9/11.' " On a
basic level, this new feature is simply another addition
to the mini-industry of detractors that has sprung up
around Mr. Moore and taken on a more feverish pitch
since his most recent screen success. This curious
mini-industry includes the book "Michael Moore Is a Big
Fat Stupid White Man," written by the Moore detractors
David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke, who both appear in yet
another anti-Moore film, "Fahrenhype 9/11."

Unlike "Fahrenhype 9/11," which makes a dedicated effort
to disprove some of the major claims in "Fahrenheit
9/11" (the Bush family's alleged ties to Saudi Arabia's
ruling elites, for instance), the filmmakers behind
"Celsius 41.11" spend surprisingly little time actually
going after Mr. Moore. What Mr. Knoblock, Mr. Chetwynd
and Mr. Steinberg want to do with their movie is make
you afraid — very, very afraid. And so, in between
talking heads expounding on American policy and
international politics and extolling the vision and
virtues of President Bush (commentators include the
Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes, the
American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael A. Ledeen
and, rather less to the film's credit, the critic
Michael Medved), the film presents a vision of the world
verging on the apocalyptic.

Less savvy propagandists than Mr. Moore, the "Celsius
41.11" filmmakers apply their thesis with a trowel. The
film opens with the image of the second World Trade
Center tower being hit by a plane, and returns to the
attack, with the towers in flames and then tumbling,
again and again. The filmmakers make their political
line of reasoning clear when they soon follow this Sept.
11 imagery with snippets of antiwar demonstrations. One
nitwit protester defends dictatorship (she is for it if
it means health care for everyone), a slice of loony
nonsense that is followed by images of dead children. As
with most of the news material folded into "Celsius
41.11," it is impossible to know who these children are
or who killed them. Other images, including that of a
woman in a burka being executed, remain similarly
unidentified.

<more>
:kick: