Moore is less!

Well, of course it hasn't, my little straw-man stabber... We're quibbling over whether it is dishonest to present things as fact in a film when it is unclear what the facts are. Stay with me, baby.

Your assumptions do not add up to my facts.


He's not making a living as an entertainer, is he?

I don't think Heston's comments were very honorable. The rest of his life may be sterling, but the words that came out of his mouth (and for which he had to have signed a waiver for them to appear in Moore's film, let's not forget... it's not like he was filmed without permission while making a private statement) are what have smeared him, to whatever extent people believe he said them. All I'm saying is there is no cause for alarm over Moore's body of work, and no need to write him off as a filmmaker, just because he's not presenting factual material. What he IS doing is more important than what he isn't, in my opinion. In yours, not so much, but now we're talking about one point on which we simply disagree.

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And based on the nature of that rally, why shouldn't he leave that out?

It does assume choice. The NRA had all the choice in the world to do something better with that rally than what they did. After having studied the segment very carefully tonight, I am even more convinced that they saw this as a risk of being partly blamed for all of this and decided that an aggressive tactic was to prefer rather than a defensive and respectful one.


Ok, here's a transcript of the speech as it is showed in Bowling For Columbine. It includes part of a speech that a father to one of the Columbine victims held since it was edited in in the middle of Heston's speech. In the film of course only edited fragments of the speeches are being shown. I have tried to put different colors on the parts of Heston's speech that have been cut apart from each other, so to speak:

Heston:

"Good Morning."

cut from audience to Heston

"Thank you all for coming and thank you for supporting your organization. I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today."

cut to anti NRA protesters

"I have a message from the mayor,"

cut to still photo of the Denver mayor

"Mr Wellington Webb, the mayor of Denver."

cut to Heston

"He has sent me this, and it says: 'Don't come here. We don't want you here.'"

cut to anti NRA protesters

"I say to the mayor -- This is our country."

cut to Heston

"As americans we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land."

cut to cheering audience

cut to Heston

"Don't come here? We're allready here!"

cut to father of Columbine victim

"Father of Daniel":

"I am here today because my son Daniel would've want me to be here today. If my son Daniel was not one of the victims he would be here with me today."

cut to applauding protesters

cut back to father

"Something is wrong in this country when a child can grab a gun so easily and shoot a bullet into the middle of a child's face as my son experienced. Something is wrong."

cut to listening protesters

"But the time has come to come to understand that"

cut to father

"a Tech 9 semi automatic 30 bullet weapon like that that killed my son is not used to kill deer. It has no useful purpose. It is time to addres this problem."

cut back to Heston

Heston:

"We have work to do, hearts to heal, evil to defeat, and a country to unite. We may have differences, yes, and we will again suffer tragedy beyond description. But when the sun sets on Denver tonight and forever more let it always set on we, the people, secure in our land of the free and home of the brave. I for one plan to do my part. Thank you!"


If I understand you correctly you are upset over two things. Firstly, the fact that Moore has dramatized the segment by editing in the for the context totally unnecessary "I say to the mayor" bit. And, secondly, you are upset about the fact that Moore is leaving out the part where Heston talks about his army veteran merits, a part written for/by Heston to make him look good and therefore nothing useful for Moore in this case.

Ok, let's take away the "I say to the mayor" bit. Would that in any way change the message that Moore is sending us? No, not at all. Look at my transcript and show to me how the meaning of Heston's words would have been different without that bit.

Then moving on to the part of Heston's speech after "We're allready here!". I don't see your point. You think it is unfair that that part is not in the film? It's not like Heston's condescending tone would have changed all of a sudden if the rest of the part had been in there. Reading the parts you added does not in any way change the meaning or tone in the parts of Heston's speech that are in fact being shown in Moore's film.

And what about the last untouched part of Heston's speech in the film? What's the purpose of that? Because it can't exactly be to demonize Heston since it, on the contrary, rather depicts him like a very decent and responsible man in the eyes of patriotic americans. I think Moore shows us this last part of Heston's speech after that segment with the victim's father to focus on two interest groups that want somewhat similar things (a safe society) but with very different views on how to achieve this.

So is Moore's editing of Heston's speech dishonest? No not at all. Moore is highlighting the parts of the speech that he dislikes. They are taken out of context, yes, but are not misused to create false image of NRA. That's what I have to say about it after having read Yoda's post.

Come again?? In an earlier post you said:

"The "cold dead hands" part isn't all that damning to Moore, I agree. That's within the boundaries of honesty."

and now you say it's "fundamentally dishonest"? What's it gonna be?

In case you stick to the dishonest option I just would like to say: Different backdrops, different clothes, and even different hair. Come on....

Very much so. Heston's bombastic style resembles me of Bush in some ways.

And how did I know that?

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

--------

They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

I see chris that honesty is important to you, as it is to me, so I was wondering how you cope with the lies of politicians, I know you are a supporter of Bush, so how do you feel about his lies, just interested.

I have no strong feelings about Moore as I feel all truth is edited, even the news.

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Buddha

http://www.bowlingfortruth.com/bowli...stonrally1.htm

There you go.

Click it. It's good for you.

http://newsfly.org/news/moore_oreilly.htm

LMFAO!

O'Reilly is quite the arrogant jackass. He says all these things about lies and mistakes. It was an "intentional mistake". It's not a mistake then. A mistake is doing something with out knowledge and stuff. Here's a dictionary-ed :-p definition:
Intentional? Sorry, but you can not MIX intentional and mistake together...cause that's called ignorance! It's a frigging Similie.

Moore's worst friggin way to fight is using "will you sacrifice your child?" Moron, will you? I sure as hell wouldn't, but its not like parents sign em up...especially after 18 and what not. It's there ****ing decision. If called out, their parents can advise them to stay but if they chose to go, they go.

Enough ****ing said.

Edit: Saddam didn't support terrorism. He supported radicals that had the same ideas and views as himself. He didn't want to bring them to "power" because that would cause attention and he'd be ****ed.

Suffice to say, I also disagree with your assessment of the President's honesty, but even if he WERE dishonest

come on you have to be joking me. you cna like the guy by all means. but to say that hes an honest, good character is just pure ignorance

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Exactly.


Haven't seen the film but I have seen segments about what you're talking about. What I think Moore is getting at is that it is not many upper class boys going to war but it's the upper class that is responsible for it. Maybe the congressmen would feel differently if they thought there was a risk that their own sons would die.

haha and you people are arguing about taking things out of context!!!!!! look at what your doing

the scene in the film is regarding the impending draft which is as moore says and actual house resolution. Moore is asking politicians to sign their kids up to go fight before they make all of ours fight for their war.

ok, this is my only two cents in this whole thing. yes, I like michael Moore. Yes, i think that what he does is a good thing, and it has actually proven that NOTHING in farenheit 9-11 can be disproven as false. Moore had a team of fact checkers go over the film with a fine tooth comb and none of it is false. the 9-11 commision findings actually bear out most of the film. Is the film one sided? OF COURSE! is it manipulative? Yeah, even i found it pretty manipulative at points. but the fact that it's true is more nauseating than moore pressing people's buttons so obviously. feel free to tear what i have just said to bits. I would be disappointed if you didn't.

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"You, me, everyone...we are all made of star stuff." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

https://shawnsmovienight.blogspot.com/

i saw a terrible film directed by him today. it was called Canadian Bacon. i always thought that it looked funny but i never rented it. i never will again either. but there was one line that i loved: give us back honey pronto or we will level toronto. thats pretty original right there.

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-Ben Kingsley, GHANDI

"Snozberries taste like snozberries"

Upper class is not totally responsible for it. It's Mr. Bush that wanted this war, and he gave them the intelligance that everyone else had said. "Iraq has WMD" Of course our intelligence was wrong...waay wrong.

A War doesn't start when a member of congress says, "I was in a bar last night and some Russian **** just wouldn't shut up. Let's bomb them."

It takes time and patience for information to be processed and a war to start. I'm sure all of them aren't savages as Moore makes them look like.

I forget how many congress man there are, but one of them has a son in the war right now I believe. Now, if you took that number, wrote it down...pulled out a phone book of parents with children (yes, cheesy) and called them and asked if their son/daughter was in Iraq...you'd get quite a lot of no's

With the population of 280,000,000 of the US...you'd here a lot of No's

Also, I stand by the fact that its the kid that decides...I'm sure the kid would talk to their parents about it as well.

Really? I thought this movie was quite funny.

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I think Micheal Moore is AWESOME!!! I am Canadian and damn proud of it. I watched the movie Canadian Bacon written and directed by Micheal Moore, and I laughed throughout the movie. Yes it is making fun of Canadians but its okay because I as a Canadian am proud enough for this country not not take it to heart and even laugh at some of the silly things we do or find important to us. We realize that from the outside of this country we look like a bunch of wimps or do-gooders. But hey, I am proud of that too.
Micheal Moore takes the contraversial topics and digs down deep where no one else dares to go. He isen't a liar...he's actually trying to find the truth.

according to Republicans michael moore is a fat man.

But Moore's criticism isn't just about the nature of the rally, but by the fact that it took place at all. He even goes out of his way to drive the point home by saying they came "despite the pleas of a community in mourning."

In other words, Moore knew they had to come, by law, and Moore knew they scaled back their procedings out of respect for the tragedy. And not only did he decide to omit both facts, but he actually made a specific point to accuse them of defying the community. How is that not dishonest?


With Moore's edits, it looks as if Heston is openly defying the mayor, despite the fact that he had no choice.

That's not what bothers me most about that part, though. It bothers me more in that it shows just how far Moore's "editing" will go. Do you really think editing statements mid-sentence so that they sound continuous is something any documentarian should be in the habit of doing?


To the contrary; the edits changed Heston's message quite a bit. After the editing, it looks as if Heston is saying "you don't want us here? Too bad, here we are." In reality, Heston said "we're already here," and explained that he was referring to the fact that NRA members already live in their community, and communities all over the country, and that they are "there" whether a rally is being held or not. This message is very clear in the transcript, but it is entirely absent in Moore's version of the speech.

Moore also left out the part where Heston expresses sympathy and regret at the tragedy. Clearly, this is done to assist Moore in his attempt to make Heston appear ruthless and uncaring.


That could be. I'm not saying everything Moore does is evil and dishonest. Sometimes he's fair, funny, and any number of positive things. Unfortunately, these traits are dwarfed by his willingness to go to virtually any lengths to further his cause.


How do you figure that? The two are stikingly different. Let's compare:

In Moore's version, Heston chooses to hold a "large pro-gun rally" in Columbine just 10 days after the tragedy. The mayor asks him not to come, and he openly defies him, telling him that they can go wherever they want.

In reality, Heston held a rally he was obligated to, made the rally as small as legally possible, and told the mayor that they didn't have to "come" to Columbine, because the community is already full of members. He also offered his sympathy and grievances for the victims.

You're trying to tell me there's no real difference between the two?


When I say it "isn't all that damning," I merely mean that it's not really a smoking gun (no pun intended) against Moore. I think it's sneaky, but I'm not going to pretend it's hard evidence of Moore's dishonesty. If there was any confusion on the matter, my apologies. Also, regarding the different clothes/backdrops...I consider myself reasonably observant, and I sure as hell didn't notice it. Did anyone here, the first through?

That said, I think Moore's use of the line is very emotionally manipulative. Imagine, for example, that I created a short film about the automobile industry. It begins with a sweeping shot over a leather interior. A voiceover describes the car's many features. Right about the time it gets to the number of cupholders, the screen changes.

WHAM!

Suddenly, we see the site of an accident. A young woman is being loaded onto a stretcher as we glimpse the car that was just being described to us, totaled beyond recognition.

Cut back to the commercial, as it boasts of airbags. Back to the scene of the accident, where we see blood stains on those same airbags, fully deployed after the crash. Back to the voiceover, enticing us with air conditioning and a GPS navigation system. Back to the crash, where the ambulance drives away, sirens blaring.

Then, imagine cuts between two interviews: one with the young woman as she lay in casts in a hospital bed, and the other with an executive from the company which produces the aforementioned automobile. Imagine the footage spliced together, so that we see the executive's assurance that the car is a safe, fine product alongside the young woman's slow, painful words describing the accident.

If I did this, the automobile executive would come off looking cold-hearted and self-interested, wouldn't he? That's how I feel about Moore's use of Heston's "cold, dead hands" line. You can make many reasonable things look terrible by juxtaposing them with horrific images. It's a very intellectually lazy way to make a point.


I think a more appropriate word would be "charisma," which I regard as a positive character trait.


I'm not sure what, if anything, you're getting at.

Sorry, I know I'm resurrecting an ancient thread. My bad.

Are you referring to the existence of WMDs? If so, I don't feel he has lied, for a number of reasons. I've detailed them in other threads, but would certainly be willing to do so again.


Nothing in Fahrenheit 9/11 can be proven as false? Ooooo...I'd take that bet.

I saw the defense of the film that Moore posted on his website (I presume that's what you're referring to? If not lemme know), and it didn't address most of the primary complaints with the film at all. It showed, at best, that there was no blatant, outright lying, which I happen to agree with. Moore did not say 1 + 1 = 3 when he knew quite well that 1 + 1 = 2. What he did do was show you that 1 + 1 = 2, and that 2 is part of 23, and 2 when added to 3 make 5, and 5 invested in the parent company which owns a subsidary which has ties to the Bin Laden family.

I wrote a basic summary of my contentions (and those of some others) back in August. It can be found here. It was longer, initially, but I tried to slice it down to a more reasonable size. I do hope you'll read it if you have a few minutes.

No, no. Good. I've got plenty of mammoth and semi-constructive posts you haven't answered . But this arg is a good'un for you to ressurect.

I hope that little Mooreish spin you put on the Saudi-relationship thing (oops, nother accidental pun in there i think ) was due to hurried editing then

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It might have been dishonest if what the things you are saying in the quote above were facts, but they're not. It is nothing but your opinion.

First of all, the rally wouldn't even be mentioned in the film if it had been carried out in a respectful way. It wasn't. Secondly, how do you know that Moore knew they had to come by law? Is Heston mentioning this in his speech? Not in the transcript you presented to me anyway. And why not? Wouldn't it be in its place to apologize for being there but explaining the legal background instead of turning the rally into a power demonstration? They came "despite the pleas of a community in mourning". Well, didn't they? Heston even quotes the mayor and then says: "Don't come here? We're allready here!". Does he go on to explain to the audience that they are "here" only because they are bound to by law? No, and why not? Because they were "here" not because they had to but because they wanted to. If NRA don't think it's necessary to give all the details, then why should Moore?


If that is how far Moore's editing will go, then I don't know why you are so worried.

No, I think that specific editing when Moore actually takes two things and make them sound as they are from the same sentence is totally unnecessary. It doesn't serve no purpose since it doesn't alter the meaning of what Heston is saying in any way, it just spices it up a little. This is annoying, and nothing a serious documentarian should engage in, but it's not dishonest. And there are a lot of news reporters and documentarian that are a lot worse. I am surprised nobody has mentioned this when talking about the documentary Outfoxed. Or that nobody has mentioned Fox News in general.

And Heston is defying the mayor, no matter how much you wish he wasn't. Heston is defying the mayor, despite there's no need for it.

Sounds to me you would only be satisfied if the whole speech was in there....

The part where Heston expresses sympathy may have been left out, but that is compensated by the fact that the last thing that is being shown from the speech that Heston made, is this part:

"We have work to do, hearts to heal, evil to defeat, and a country to unite. We may have differences, yes, and we will again suffer tragedy beyond description. But when the sun sets on Denver tonight and forever more let it always set on we, the people, secure in our land of the free and home of the brave. I for one plan to do my part. Thank you!"

If you have ever taken a rethorics course you would have learned to always put your strongest argument last when writing a speech. Why would Moore place this part, Heston's "best" part, at the end if he wanted him to come out as downright evil? Why is Moore choosing this part as Heston's "last words"?

[EDIT] And also... Heston is given a lot of time and space in the film to actually say things with his own words. First, in the speech, and second, in the intreview where it's true that he is totally taken by surprise when Moore's real intention for the interview gets clear to him. On the other hand, I think it's surprising, judging by Heston's answers, that the chairman of the NRA does not seem to be aware of this kind of criticism.


And I agree with you somewhat. But the part we are discussing here I don't think is one of those occasions where he has gone too far.

Your reading of the first quote I agree with, except I believe that the "the community is allready full of members" part is being transmitted in that quote as well. And this is pretty much what I believe is being said in the entire speech + the sympathy part, only in a more detailed way.

What happened in reality according to you might be true as well, but we're talking about the speech here. No matter how you twist it and turn it around, there is no way you can make the speech to be about what you're saying in the second "quote". Those things were not expressed in the speech and even if Moore had put the entire speech in the film, it still wouldn't have expressed those things (except for the sympathy part of course, but I have allready mentioned that before).


The first time I saw the film I got the impression that the Heston fragments were collected from more than one occasion. And that is the honest truth.

Michael Moore sees the cause to youth violence as being guns. Does he accuse the gun manufacturers? No, and WHAM! there falls your analogy. And no one would take that short about automobiles seriously anyway because everyone knows that cars, unlike guns, aren't designed to kill.

Michael Moore is being manipulative, yes. Just like every man or woman working in media and who is not restricted by rules about objectivity.

And you might be right about it being an intellectually lazy way of making a point, but that's perhaps because you're intellectual above average. When it comes to catching the attention of average people though, it is nothing less than brilliant. He actually is quite honest. If Moore tried to come out as objective, then it would be bad, but he doesn't. If he was a news reporter on a major news channel, then it would be bad, but he isn't that either.

What we started to discuss here was whether Moore is dishonest or not (in Bowling For Columbine) and I think I have proven that he is not. Now you have drifted away and started talking about him as manipulative and biased and yes he can be, but that's a different thing all together.

I was talking more about the speech itself more than personality. It's quite possible to deliver a bombastic speech and be charismatic while doing so. Heston is very charismatic, his impressive record in Hollywood is enough proof of that. Bush is not charismatic at all to me. But he loves bombastic speeches.

Oh I am not getting at anything at all. It's just that you said what I allready knew.

Whether you agree with Michael Moore or not, his agenda seems to have backfired on him.

But as least he has another four years to bitch about George W. Bush.