David Edelstein Review: 'Tarnation'

DATE October 18, 2004 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Michael Moore talks about his career as a writer and
documentary filmmaker and his new film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," that was
just released on DVD and video
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Documentary films have played a surprisingly large role in this presidential
campaign. Today and tomorrow, we'll hear from the people behind two of these
films. Tomorrow, we'll talk with the director of "George W. Bush: Faith in
the White House," a movie in praise of what the film describes as Bush's
faith-based presidency.

Today, we hear from Michael Moore. His film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is very
critical of the Bush presidency, is the highest-grossing documentary of all
time, and one of the most controversial. It was just released on DVD and
video. Moore had expected his film to be shown on pay-per-view cable the
night before the election but the company canceled the program and, according
to the press release--I mean, and according to the Associated Press, Moore is
considering taking legal action against the company which he accused of caving
in to pressure from, quote, "top Republican people."

Moore has been touring the country in support of John Kerry, trying to
convince young people to register to vote. He has two new books, "Will They
Ever Trust Us Again?: Letters From the War Zone" and "The Official Fahrenheit
9/11 Reader."

We recorded our interview last Thursday.

Let me ask you, when you made "Fahrenheit 9/11," were you thinking, `I am
making this movie to defeat President Bush'?

Mr. MICHAEL MOORE (Documentary Filmmaker): No. In fact, when we started, I
had no idea--and this is always true with a documentary, when the thing would
be done. Sometimes films like this take years and, you know, my initial
motivation was just--I thought that there should be a record of how this
administration behaved after 3,000 people were killed on September 11th and
how they used this tragic event to justify their actions.

When we started making this, there was no Kerry vs. Bush or, you know,
anything like that and we didn't know even if it would get done before the
election. So...

GROSS: Let me ask you about one of the most talked about scenes from
"Fahrenheit 9/11" and this is the scene in which, you know, President Bush
is--on September 11th is sitting in a Florida elementary school classroom
listening to the students read from the book "My Pet Goat." As he's sitting
and listening, his chief of staff walks in to tell him that the second plane
has attacked the World Trade Center and that America is under attack. The
president continues to sit in the chair for another seven minutes, listening
to the children read from the book. Where did you get the footage from,
showing President Bush in that classroom?

Mr. MOORE: We just called up the school. We were just sitting around one day
and we'd only really seen the edited version, which the country has seen over
and over since September 11th. Andrew Card comes in the classroom, whispers
in the president's ear. He looks immediately concerned and then cut. That's
what we've seen for three years. And I got to thinking, `Jeez, I wonder
what's after the cut?'

And so we called up the school, thinking, you know, a big event like this, the
school must--somebody must have videotaped it. And they said, `Oh, yes.
Absolutely. We set up our little home video camera.' And we said, `Well, you
know, can we have a copy of the tape?' `Oh, yes. Of course. You know? It's
school property. I mean, it's open to the public.' You know, pay $5 for the
tape and, you know, the cost of it, and we'll make you a copy. And that's how
we got it.

GROSS: Did they know who you were and did they have any idea what the film
you were making would look like?

Mr. MOORE: Oh, we didn't know what the film we were making would look like
ultimately. So--but, yes, we always--we say who we are and I remember at the
time when we made the call, you know, it's a--a school in a predominantly
African-American part of town there and--Sarasota, and so, you know, people
were very friendly, and very willing to, you know, share the tape with us.

GROSS: President Bush sits in the chair for about seven minutes while the
children finish reading and you show, I don't know, maybe 45 seconds of that
or a minute. I don't think it's more than that.

Mr. MOORE: No. It isn't. We had an earlier version of the film where we
put five minutes of him sitting there and I got to tell you, it was so painful
to watch this. It seemed almost--it was just unbearable. I mean, imagine
sitting in the middle of this film and now for five minutes you're going to
see him sit there like a deer in headlights. And I thought, you know, we'll
make the point by just doing a basic--you know, sort of a time lapse here, you
know. I don't know. It's just--I don't--as much as I don't like Bush, I
also--anything else just actually seemed cruel, I think, because you just sit
there, going, `What is going on? What is going on here?'

You know? And we'd sit there in the edit room, somebody would say, `Well,
maybe he's just sitting there because he wants to hear the end of the story,
what happened to the goat.' You know? And another person said, `Well, you
know, there was--remember Cheney when he was talking to Tim Russert on "Meet
the Press," he told Tim Russert, you know, the Secret Service immediately came
in and got him in his office there in DC, took him down to the White House
basement to the Situation Room. You know, immediately went to work. And
somebody said, you know, `Maybe they forgot about Bush.' You know? Then
six, seven minutes somebody said, `Gee, he's still sitting there in that
classroom. Get him out of there.' You know?

GROSS: Now part of what makes this a Michael Moore movie is that in addition
to seeing this footage of President Bush sitting there, you're speaking and
you're describing what may or may not be going through his mind. Let me play
that excerpt from the film.

Mr. MOORE: Yeah.

(Soundbite of "Fahrenheit 9/11")

Mr. MOORE: As Bush sat in that Florida classroom, was he wondering if maybe
he should have shown up to work more often? Should he have held at least one
meeting since taking office to discuss the threat of terrorism with his head
of counterterrorism? Or maybe Mr. Bush was wondering why he had cut
terrorism funding from the FBI or perhaps he just should have read the
security briefing that was given to him on August 6th, 2001, which said that
Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America by hijacking airplanes. But
maybe he wasn't worried about the terrorist threat, because the title of the
report was too vague.

Dr. CONDOLEEZZA RICE (National Security Adviser): I believe the title was:
`Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The United States.'

Mr. MOORE: A report like that might make some men jump. But as in days past,
George W. just went fishing. As the minutes went by, George Bush continued to
sit in the classroom. Was he thinking, `I've been hanging out with the wrong
crowd'?

GROSS: That's a scene from "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Michael Moore, what your critics would say is you're kind of ascribing
intentions or feelings to President Bush that you have no idea if he has or
not and that you're using that moment to be very sarcastic. And I'm
wondering, you know, if you have any reservations about writing that kind of
copy when it's, you know--when it's the president that we're talking about,
when you don't really know what's going through his mind one way or another.

Mr. MOORE: Well, first of all, our Founding Fathers intended and hoped,
because he is the president, that we feel extremely comfortable making
sarcastic or satirical comments, statements, scenes or whatever about the man
in charge. That's the way our whole system was set up. And, in fact, satire
back then was considered a legitimate form of journalism. And, you know,
clearly I'm--I don't think those are the things Bush, you know, was saying to
himself inside his head. I'm writing what I hope is--are some lines that, you
know--I'm using a satirical device here, you know, to make the larger point.

I don't know. Do you think I should worry whether the audience is...

GROSS: Taking you literally?

Mr. MOORE: Yeah. I--you know, but I always start with the assumption that
the audience is pretty smart and that they are sophisticated enough. And if
they aren't, they'll come along. They'll come along and be more
sophisticated. You know?

GROSS: So what impact do you think that this scene has had on people who've
seen it, and it's also been shown as a clip on a lot of TV shows?

Mr. MOORE: I think that it forced a lot of people to run a scenario in their
own minds when they watch that scene. And I think the scenario--at last
I--from what I hear from people in reading the e-mail and whatever, is they
sit there and they look at that scene and they imagine John F. Kennedy sitting
in that classroom or Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or Eisenhower or maybe even
Bush's dad. And the chief of staff comes in and says, `Sir, America is under
attack.' Can you imagine what any of those presidents would have done? And
you cannot imagine any of them sitting there for the next seven minutes.

GROSS: You've said that you didn't make the film with the idea of defeating
Bush. When you started this film, you really didn't know what the shape would
be, but now you are working to defeat Bush and you're working to elect John
Kerry. Do you like Kerry or do you see Kerry as the lesser of two evils?

Mr. MOORE: I've always liked Kerry. I remember as a teen-ager in Michigan,
1971, Kerry and the other Vietnam Veterans Against the War coming to Detroit
to hold the--what they called the Winter Soldier hearings at a downtown Howard
Johnson's. And this is where they took testimony from Vietnam vets about the
atrocities in Vietnam. And I remember as a teen-ager, and I--and in the years
since--thinking that this was a very courageous man. This was a man of
conscience and this was someone who has seen the horrors of war and would not
wish that experience on anyone.

I remember my dad saying--my dad was in the Marine Corps, 1st Marine Division
in World War II, through all those horrific battles in the South Pacific, and
I remember my dad saying that, when we were growing up, `If you hear anybody
bragging about their war experiences, don't believe them because anyone who's
seen war, who's seen combat never wants to talk about it again and never wants
anyone else, really, to have to go through that.' And I believe that in John
Kerry's heart exists the strong desire to never send our young men and women
to battle unless it would be absolutely necessary for the defense of human
life. And I've always had these feelings about him.

You know, when Bush calls him the number-one liberal in the Senate, I mean,
he's not really telling a lie there. I mean, that's the--the reason he says
that is because Kerry has been so good on so many of the issues from the
environment to women's rights, civil rights, etc., etc. So, no, this is about
me feeling very good about John Kerry and about--and a strong desire to make
sure that Bush doesn't get another four years.

GROSS: It seems to me you're in a funny spot. Correct me if I'm wrong but I
think the Democratic Party has tried to distance themselves from you even
though you're working to register people as Democrats and to get out the vote
for Kerry. Your film is so controversial and you're such a lightning rod and
some people have accused the film of being more propaganda than documentary,
so I think, you know, that those are the reasons why, you know, the party is
trying to keep their distance. And I wonder how you feel about that.

Mr. MOORE: No, actually, it's the other way around. I'm trying to keep my
distance from them. I'm not a member of their party. I have been extremely
critical of Democrats in the past for being a bunch of wusses who just kind of
roll over and don't really stand up and fight for the working person in this
country. And it's just a personal thing with me. I don't personally want to
be connected to them or to the campaign. And in part be--when he becomes
president of the United States in January, you know, I see my role, my job is
to--is to keep then my camera trained on him, to make sure that he does the
things that need to get done. That would be a hard thing to do if I were on
the bus. So I--it's really more me that has kept the arm's-length distance
from the campaign.

GROSS: There's something of an industry that's developed around you, devoted
to attacking you: Web sites, books, movies.

Mr. MOORE: Yeah.

GROSS: Do you keep up with that?

Mr. MOORE: No. No. But I hear about it enough because I am--I'm laughing
because I--probably because I'm secretly enjoying it. I just literal--in the
last six weeks, I've heard of at least a half a dozen so-called, you know,
documentaries which are, you know, really these tapes that various right-wing
groups have put together about me. I've never heard in a six-week period of
time--and they've rushed these things together--in a six-week period of time
of a half a dozen documentaries being made on one subject. It's just--you
know, what--I guess they're upset, you know. You know, and they should be
upset. The film has had an enormous impact and it may alter the election.
You know, I only have to move 1 or 2 percent of the people. I don't have to
convince everybody with this film and with these books. I only have to move a
small percentage and, if I do that, it could impact the election. They know
that.

GROSS: My guest is Michael Moore. Tomorrow, on FRESH AIR we'll hear from the
director of the new documentary "George W. Bush: Faith in the White House,"
a film in praise of the faith-based presidency. The film is being marketed as
an alternative to "Fahrenheit 9/11."

We'll continue the Michael Moore interview after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

Today and tomorrow we're featuring directors of controversial documentaries
about the Bush presidency with opposing points of view about the president.
We hope that there's one thing our listeners agree on, which is that public
radio is important. This is the equivalent of Election Day for public radio.
The way to vote yes for public radio is to call with a pledge of support.

Thank you.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Michael Moore. His film "Fahrenheit 9/11" has just come
out on DVD. A cable pay-per-view company was expected to present the film on
the evening before the election, but they canceled the showing.

Let's get back to the interview I recorded with Michael Moore on Thursday. He
had found out there was trouble with the pay-per-view deal shortly before we
spoke.

Mr. MOORE: On the way over here I got a call saying that the pay-per-view
company was receiving enormous pressure to cancel the showing of the film and,
you know, I mean, literally, I just heard this minutes ago. And, you know, I
just--I thought, `When is this ever going to end with me?' You know, it's
just how--why is it each step of the way--haven't the things I've done been
successful enough, that made these people enough money to where they would
just go, `Well, yeah, you know, the Bush White House may not like this or
whatever, but damnit, we're going to make a lot of money off this guy.'

GROSS: Where is the pressure coming from?

Mr. MOORE: They wouldn't say. You know, they're always afraid to tell me
because they know that minutes later I'm going to be talking to you. And...

GROSS: Discretion, I guess, is not your middle name.

Mr. MOORE: Not when it comes to protecting those who are trying to do deals
behind the curtain so that the public can't see how these decisions get made.
And I'm a big believer in informing people about things like this and so, you
know, I will find out who was behind this and let the people know. But,
Terry, it is a constant struggle and, you know, whether it was when we were
trying to get the film released and, you know, Disney wouldn't release it or I
had the same problem with my book, "Stupid White Men," already printed,
already sitting there at the printing plant, covers on the book, everything,
50,000 copies, but it was--you know, 9/11, it was just--and, you know, they
wouldn't release the book, the publisher. And it's just--I don't--I wonder at
what point am I just gonna go, `You know, this really is just too much'? And,
you know, I wonder when do I burn out?

GROSS: The movie "Stolen Honors" which is by the--that Swift Boat group, this
is the movie that attacks John Kerry's record in Vietnam. That's going to be
aired on stations that are part of the Sinclair group of broadcasters. Do you
see any comparisons between that film being broadcast on TV and that's been
contested because, you know, critics are saying, `This is a political film, if
you show that film, there has to be a counterpart, you know, you can't just
show it as news.' Do you see any comparisons between the broadcast of that
film and your attempts to get your movie shown on pay-per-view?

Mr. MOORE: No. Because that's clearly a long-form ad against a political
candidate that was done specifically for this election. My film won the Palme
d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. My film has broken box office records
across the country. It's a movie that has no connection to Mr. Kerry
whatsoever. I've never met the man. I've never spoken to him, never spoken
to anybody in his campaign. You know, I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a member
of the Democratic Party. You know, I'm a filmmaker and I set out to make
movies that I think are an expression of, you know, what's inside of me
and--now having said that, I think the other side is perfectly within their
right to produce their long-form ads and air them wherever and, you know,
whenever they can.

But it's interesting you brought this up because that, you know--as I was on
my way over here, when I was being told that our television viewing of our
film the night before the election may be canceled is because in part of the
pressure and the controversy that's surrounded the Sinclair Broadcasting
airing of this anti-Kerry piece, that they're afraid now of the White House,
the Republican Party coming after them. And--I don't know why it is--always
it seems on our side, boy, the knees are pretty weak and the first sign of
trouble or pressure or a phone call from just one person and then suddenly
everyone starts to cave. The other side, you know, they're not like that at
all. They're like, `Damnit, you know, we're going to air this and we're going
to put it on 62 stations and to hell with you.' And, you know, you can see
why they win a lot of times.

GROSS: Michael Moore--His movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" has just come out on DVD
and video. He has two new books, "Will They Ever Trust Us Again?: Letters
From the War Zone" and "The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader."

He'll be back in the second half of the show. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, we'll
hear from the director of "George W. Bush: Faith in the White House," which
is being marketed as an alternative to "Fahrenheit 9/11."

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coming up, getting slackers to vote. We continue our conversation
with filmmaker Michael Moore. His documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," is now out
on DVD and video.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Michael Moore, director
of the controversial documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," the top grossing
documentary of all time. Tomorrow we'll hear from the director of the film
"George W. Bush: Faith in the White House," which is being marketed as an
alternative to "Fahrenheit 9/11." Michael Moore has two new books, "The
Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader" and "Will They Ever Trust Us Again: Letters
from the War Zone." "Fahrenheit 9/11" has just been released on video and DVD.

I'm interested in hearing how the film has changed your life and how you see
yourself. I mean, I would have thought of you before as not being all that
interested in voting booth politics. I would--you know, I may be totally off
track here but I would have thought that you would have conceived of voting
booth politics as being kind of mainstream and not really changing things much
one way or another. And now, you know, you are working so actively to
register people to vote in this election. You think this election is really
quite important. Is that a recent change in your life?

Mr. MOORE: Yes and no. I mean, I've always voted and I've always been
interested in electoral politics. I was the first 18-year-old elected to
public office in Michigan when 18-year-olds were given the right to vote in
1972.

GROSS: What was your office?

Mr. MOORE: School board. I ran--I was in the last couple of months of my
senior year in high school and I ran for the school board and got elected.
But, you know, the same week I got elected to the school board, I was also
elected class clown by my fellow seniors in high school. So, you know,
there's always been those two parts of me. To be honest, the night I shot the
scene in the movie with the mother, Lila Lipscomb, who lost her son Michael in
the war. And we were sitting in her living room and she brought out his last
letter home to her. And she starts to read the letter. And I'm sitting there
behind the camera and I'm listening to this letter and then he comes to this
part where he's talking about, you know, just what the heck are we doing over
here. This is crazy. And he essentially makes his last request in this
letter, hoping that the American people do not, in his words, `return that
fool to the White House.' And I broke down and I'm trying not to let her see
me. I'm like, you know, back behind the camera and I'm just--you know, I have
a 23-year-old. You know, I'm--you think about what if this were your child
and why her child? Why did her child have to die? And I just remember
thinking right then, as I was listening to this--and it also got me just to
sort of stop crying--was basically, `All right. This is what I'm going to do.
I'm going to honor this man's last request. I am now going to do, you know,
whatever I can do to stop this man in the White House.'

GROSS: Right now you're on a tour trying to register young people to vote.
You're calling it the Slacker Uprising Tour. What's your technique?

Mr. MOORE: Well, I'm embracing them, first of all. I do not criticize them
for being slackers, for being lazy, for not voting. I come to these--to each
city and we've been having these huge turnouts, 10,000, 12,000, 15,000 people
coming out in places like Reno, Nevada, and Gainesville, Florida. And
basically I say to them, you know, `I'm here to honor your slacker ways. If
you believe all politicians suck, don't change that viewpoint. It's a good
place to be. Just stay right there. You know, I don't want you to get up out
of the La-Z-Boy except maybe for just 10 minutes on November 2nd. And here's
why.' And then I give the reasons why and then I ask people in the arena
who--especially people over the age of 22 who did not vote in the last
election or maybe older people who've never voted in their lives to please
stand. And then it's an amazing sight you see. Hundreds of people stand.
And then I ask them if they would be willing to pledge in front of these
thousands of people that they will vote in this election. I will give them
their choice of door prizes--a week's supply of the sustenance of slackers
everywhere, Ramen noodles; for the guys, a clean pair of underwear. I have
offered to go and clean their dorm rooms on college campuses, do their
laundry, whatever it takes so that they don't have to change their slacker
ways but if they will promise to me that they will get out and vote, that's
how far I'm willing to go for them.

GROSS: Now are you still being sued for this by the Michigan Republican
Party?

Mr. MOORE: It wasn't a suit. They actually filed a criminal complaint
against me...

GROSS: I see.

Mr. MOORE: ...with prosecutors in the four counties in Michigan because, you
know, you cannot bribe people to vote and you can't offer people like money or
whatever to vote. Now one thing in each of these events every night, I don't
ask them who they're voting for and...

GROSS: Does that protect you from criminal charges?

Mr. MOORE: Well, see, I'm just working on my defense line right now. I
don't know. I haven't been back to Michigan yet. I don't know if I'm on the
lam here or not. But I did read--one of the prosecutors said that he was too
busy trying to keep guns and cocaine out of the hands of young people and not
clean underwear. In fact, as a parent, he was happy that Michael Moore was
getting college kids to change their underwear.

GROSS: Your life has changed a lot in the past few years. You know, your
image is the working-class guy from Flint, Michigan, but, let's face it, your
books and your movies have made you quite wealthy. Is there a disconnect in
your life between the persona of Michael Moore and the reality of how Michael
Moore lives or is capable of living now that you're truly a wealthy man?

Mr. MOORE: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I think when you grow up
working class, it's like if you grow up Catholic. Even if you don't go to
Mass every Sunday, you know, you really are always Catholic. You know, it
just doesn't leave you. And it's the same thing, you know, growing up, you
know, the son of a man who worked on the assembly line at General Motors.
That person is still the same person. If you knew me before this and you knew
me now, you'd see the same person who, you know, sort of thinks and acts and
behaves the same way. And, you know, I still have my same friends and, you
know, still married to the same woman and just, you know, have the basic same
life I had beforehand. The difference is is that people have decided to buy
my books and go to my movies. And that has generated income.

And--but, to be honest, the more it's happened, the more responsibility I
feel. And it becomes even a greater burden. You know, what am I going to do?
Are you doing enough, Mike? You know, I mean, these are the questions I ask
myself. And because I was raised in this Irish Catholic household with a
belief system that was, you know, instilled in me and one that I subscribe to
to this day, that, you know, we will be judged by how we treat the least among
us. I believe that and so it's very important for me to make sure that, you
know, I give a large chunk of the money to things I believe in and then put
the money into the work I do so I can continue to work and feel blessed and
privileged as a result of it.

GROSS: My guest is Michael Moore. He'll be back after a break. Tomorrow
we'll hear from the director of "George W. Bush: Faith in the White House,"
which is being marketed as an alternative to "Fahrenheit 9/11." This is FRESH
AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Michael Moore and his film,
"Fahrenheit 9/11," has just been released on DVD. He also has a new book
called "The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader" and another book called "Will
They Ever Trust Us Again: Letters from the War Zone."

Some of the footage in "Fahrenheit 9/11" comes from American reporters and
reporters around the world and this is footage that we hadn't--I'm referring
now to footage we hadn't seen before, say, on network TV news. I'm wondering
if you spoke to a lot of reporters who expressed any frustration that they had
footage that they couldn't actually use because--for whatever reason?

Mr. MOORE: Well, I--you know, look. There are good people at work in all the
network news departments and on our daily papers. And some of them do have a
very hard time getting the story out. And I've been fortunate in recent
years, because they know of me and my work, where they will slip me tapes or,
you know, information or whatever that they're having a hard time getting out
there. Now obviously I cannot, you know, tell you specifically which scenes
in the movie that this relates to because I don't want to get anyone in
trouble, but it's interesting you bring up this question, because it is the
number one thing that I hear from people, either after they, you know, leave
the movie or people who have e-mailed me after seeing the movie. The number
one thing I hear are not comments about, `Oh, that George W. Bush, I can't
stand him.' That is not the number one thing I hear. The number one thing I
hear is, `How come I didn't see that scene ever? You know that one scene?
You know that scene where the black congressmen aren't allowed to speak, you
know, when they were verifying the Florida vote there in Congress? Or the
Inauguration Day riot that took place where Bush's limousine was pelted with
eggs? I never saw that on the nightly news.' And no one saw it. None of us
saw any of this stuff and that's the question people--the movie, in a way that
I didn't really intend, ended up outing our mainstream media.

GROSS: There's a scene in which we see an injured Iraqi on a stretcher and he
is--I don't know how to phrase this exactly. Why don't you give it a go.

Mr. MOORE: Yeah. Right. This is one of the scenes that was shot by one of
our free-lancers. The US Army had gone in and rounded up a bunch of Iraqi
citizens in a village early one morning. And they were holding them. They
were trying to find--they thought one of them might have been, you know, one
of the insurgents. And there was an elderly man that had a bad knee and so
they put him on a stretcher. And he had a blanket over him. And for whatever
reason, he started to get--you know, he had an erection. And you could see it
clearly through the blanket. The soldiers saw this and they decided to have
some fun with it and they took turns touching the erection through the blanket
and humiliating him. At the same time, the other soldiers were putting bags,
hoods over the detainees' heads and then they would stand there and pose for
photos, putting their arms around the detainees while the bags were over their
heads, to send home. I think one said he was going to make a Christmas card
out of it or whatever.

GROSS: You know, what was the state of that footage before you got your hands
on it? Like--I know you don't want to tell us who gave it to you, but what
can you tell us about how you found that footage?

Mr. MOORE: No, I can tell you because he was one of the free-lancers that we
were using to gather footage there. His name is Ervin Hamid(ph) and he's part
Iraqi and part Swedish. And he was shooting the footage and after he shot it,
he was trying to get--you know, trying to give it to various networks. They
wouldn't take it. Now this happened in December of '03. So this is a few
months before the whole Abu Ghraib thing, you know, broke. And he wasn't
getting anywhere with it and then, you know, finally--this is the point then
where we sort of hooked up with him the first time and he gave it to us and we
decided to put a portion of it in the film.

GROSS: Your film is such an example of how divided America is now. People
who are so passionate about your movie who've seen it several times; so many
people coming to your screenings and to your slacker tour, in which you're
trying to register young people to vote. At the same time, there's an
industry that's grown around attacking you and a lot of people who aren't part
of that industry, just like film critics and journalists--many of them--I
mean, there's been a considerable amount of criticism leveled by them at your
film, so I thought I would just read an excerpt of one critical thing and this
is somebody who is not a professional partisan.

This is a comment from Scott Simon of NPR and this was from an op-ed piece in
The Wall Street Journal. So here's a couple of lines from that. `Trying to
track the unproven innuendos and conspiracies in a Michael Moore film or book
is as futile as trying to count the flatulence jokes in one by Adam Sandler.'
He goes on to say, `In what is perhaps the most wrenching scene in the film,
an Iraqi woman is shown wailing amid the rubble caused by a bomb that killed
members of her family. I do not doubt her account or her sorrow. I have
interviewed Iraqis about US bombs that killed civilians. People who agree to
wars should see the human damage bombs can do. But reporters who were taken
around to see the sights of civilian deaths during the bombing of Baghdad also
observed that some of those errant bombs were fired by Iraqi anti-aircraft
crews. Mr. Moore doesn't let the audience know when and where this bomb
dropped or otherwise try to identify the culprit of the tragedy.' What's your
reaction to that?

Mr. MOORE: That's--I read that when he wrote that. And I just thought,
`Where is this man's heart?' That was my first thought. You know, to compare
what he calls the few errant missiles being fired by Iraqi artillery against
what The New York Times told us this summer, that of the first 50 air strikes,
when we started bombing Iraq, we were 0 for 50 in hitting our intended target;
0 for 50. Who do you think then got hit? Who do you think died? We killed
thousands of civilians as a result of our bombing and it--you know, that
mother that comes out of the rubble there--and frankly, you know, it
ultimately really doesn't matter which bomb hit her family. The fact that
there had to be any missile or bomb at all, who's responsible for that? Who
is responsible for that? I'm responsible for that. You're responsible for
that. We pay our taxes. We helped to pay for those bombs or we created a
situation where the Iraqis had to try and defend themselves. And when she
comes out of that rubble and calls upon God to curse all of us for killing her
family--I'll tell you, every time I see that scene, it's piercing. It just
pierces me and it--because I believe on some level we are cursed. We are
cursed through our actions.

GROSS: One last question. As you travel around the country, does it feel to
you that America is divided in a way that it's never been before and reaction
to you is, you know, just one example of that division?

Mr. MOORE: No. It's always been divided, ever since I was a kid. It was
divided with the civil rights movement. It was divided through the women's
movement. It was divided with the Vietnam War. It's...

GROSS: Actually, I should also say that a lot of people would say your film
is an example--your film is an example of that division a lot of people would
say that.

Mr. MOORE: No. You know what they mean?

GROSS: Yeah. Go ahead.

Mr. MOORE: Here's--when they say the country's divided or the film is an
example of that division, what they're really saying is that liberals, for
decades now, have not fought back. They're fighting back this time. They're
standing up and being counted. And this film goes right after the man sitting
in the Oval Office and does so, throughout most of the film, in his own words.
And I think it feels more polarized or more divisive or--you know, the anger,
whatever that seems to be there now is only because we've just gone through
20-plus years of Republican right-wing, Christian conservative. You know,
they've sort of set the agenda. Even when a Democrat like Clinton was in
office, you know, they set the agenda and that he essentially in many ways
had to follow or adjust, you know, with his way. But now liberals are
fighting back and I think that people are kind of like, `Whoa. What's
happening? Oh, now there's all this divisiveness.'

I think it's good. I think it's healthy. I think it's always great in a
democracy when you've got strong viewpoints. People stand up for what they
believe in. I'll say this. I'm of the belief that anyone who engages in the
debate, whether they're liberal or conservative, I believe they're engaged
because they love their country. I would never make the accusation that the
other side, simply because I don't agree with them, are somehow un-American
or, you know, they hate their country. I don't think they hate their country
at all. I think they love their country and they have a certain road map that
they wish the country would follow.

Finally we're hearing from the other side. And it's why it's very funny
listening to the conservatives complaining about, you know, `Well, it's not
fair and balanced. We're--you know, his film's out there and so now, you
know, we--you should put our film out there.' These are the same people that
got rid of the Fairness Doctrine because--and after they did, they took over
AM radio. And now when our side finally rises out of its slumber, they're all
like, `Oooh. You know, why can't we all just get along? Why do we have to
have all this polarization?' You know, it only feels that way because we've
taken enough of it and we're not going to take it anymore and we're going to
remove this man from the White House.

GROSS: Michael Moore, thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. MOORE: Thank you, Terry.

GROSS: Michael Moore's movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" is out on video and DVD. His
new books are "The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader" and "Will They Ever Trust
Us Again: Letters from the War Zone." Tomorrow we'll hear from the director
of "George W. Bush: Faith in the White House," which is being marketed as an
alternative to "Fahrenheit 9/11." This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: New documentary "Tarnation"
TERRY GROSS, host:

With the advent of compact video cameras and computer-based editing programs,
cinematic memoirs might become even more common than their literary
counterparts. Film critic David Edelstein says Jonathan Caouette's
"Tarnation" sets the bar high, both in terms of the protagonist's hellish life
and the quality of his filmmaking.

DAVID EDELSTEIN reporting:

"Tarnation" is a memoir written on film, written you might say over a 20-year
span and then rubbed and buffed on a Macintosh computer with the program
iMovie. My press kits heralds it as a revolution in the audio-video
confessional, which gives me as a film critic the heebie-jeebies. That's all
we need, more exhibitionists with ready access to cameras and editing
software.

Probably after the 5,000th arty home movie collage of someone's lousy
childhood, I'll rue the day I called "Tarnation" a masterpiece. But a
masterpiece it is of a mind-bending modern sort. This story of a 31-year-old
man and his mentally ill mother is right on the border between what shrinks
call immature acting out and mature artistic sublimation. Jonathan Caouette,
the filmmaker and protagonist, takes psychodrama shot in the middle of the
madness and weaves it together with revelatory photos, surreal montages of
Texas landscapes, found footage, clips from "Rosemary's Baby" and "Best Little
Whorehouse in Texas" and interviews that swerve right back into psychodrama.
You can feel every second the cost to Caouette of what he's showing. The
sounds and the images are a pipeline from his unconscious to the screen.

Caouette narrates "Tarnation" in the third person. He begins with his
grandparents, Adolph and Rosemary, and his mother Renee, a beautiful girl, a
child model, relatively normal, until she fell off a roof and was partially
paralyzed for no clear physiological reason and had shock treatments every
three weeks for two years and was still beautiful but began to unravel even
before her brief marriage to Jonathan's dad. Then Renee impulsively took
Jonathan from Houston to Chicago where, right off the bus, she got raped in
front of her son. On the bus back, she and the boy were thrown off for
disturbing the passengers. Renee was jailed, then institutionalized while
Jonathan ended up in a foster home, where he was abused until his grandparents
managed to adopt him.

Caouette speaks of becoming more and more detached from himself and his
feelings and so his third-person storytelling feels apt. And then he shows us
something uncanny, a film of himself as an 11-year-old in makeup and a female
wig reciting a monologue by a Southern rape victim with a young son. On one
level he's appalling. He's mannered. He's overacting. He keeps touching his
face compulsively. But he's not overacting as an 11-year-old boy. He's
overacting as a 30-year-old woman and he's weeping and losing control as a
30-year-old woman. He's clearly overidentified with his mother and is acting
out some fantasy version of her hell.

Renee didn't actually raise Jonathan. His grandparents did. And so she's
never quite the oppressive gorgon of other monster mother sagas. She was lost
to him and he adores her, even as he documents her unravelling on camera.

(Soundbite of "Tarnation")

Unidentified Person #1: How do you get in with the face looking into the
camera lens?

Unidentified Person #2: Or somewhere else?

Unidentified Person #3: Yeah. Into the camera lens.

Unidentified Person #1: I would like to display my earrings which are--I
bought them at Elizabeth Taylor's boutique in California, yes, in San
Francisco. And she also has a boutique in Houston. These are what she wore
in her White Diamonds commercials. And I've become overwhelmed by these
earrings because they are white diamonds and they are an authentic possession
that Elizabeth Taylor once wore. I got to run over to my apartment in LA and
pick up some items and bring them to my son who is in Houston, which makes no
sense, but that's all I can think of.

EDELSTEIN: Caouette sees his mother Renee as a casualty of the mental health
system, as someone who didn't start out schizoid, but ended up that way after
those shock treatments and years of hospitalization. I don't know if he's
right about that, but his empathy is a counterweight to his exploitation. We
see his mother through his eyes and her illness tears us up. More important,
we see the roots of Caouette's artistic impulses, how it began with
self-dramatization--he's a real drama queen--how self-dramatiziation runs in
the family and how the boy discovers underground filmmaking and gropes to find
a way to act out in a strange new medium. His debt to gut bucket horror
movies and musicals and David Lynch and Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho"
is obvious. Van Sant even became an executive producer, as did John Cameron
Mitchell of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," but the kaleidoscope that is
"Tarnation" is all by itself in its cathartic blend of biography and
hallucination. I don't know where that title comes from. It's never
explained, but as I watched, I thought, in breathless admiration, what in
tarnation?

GROSS: David Edelstein is film critic for the online magazine Slate.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.