Moore means less

Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 is the most commercially successful documentary film ever made. It received a prolonged standing ovation from critics at the Cannes film festival where it became the first non-fiction film to win the Palme d’Or. If it does not win an Oscar at the next Academy awards, then do not rule out Moore making a documentary about the right-wing conspiracy at the heart of Hollywood.

The acclaim, it has to be said, appears to have gone to his head. One can forgive the sort of puff his publishers and publicists put out on his behalf, but a little modesty from the great man himself would have been becoming. He loathes the smirking self-certainty of President Bush. He should look in the mirror. ‘Bush’s dad called me a bunch of names, and their mouthpiece pundits in the media went on all the talk shows to trash me and the movie,’ writes Moore before rejoicing that they had failed to fool all the people all of the time. Instead,

theatre managers across the country reported crowds in tears, audiences standing and cheering a blank screen at the end of the movie. So many people stayed in the theatre to talk to the strangers around them that the theatres had to schedule more time between screenings.

Having helped Bush to win Florida in 2000 by endorsing Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign, Moore has devoted most of his energies recently to getting Kerry elected. The film was part of that agenda. His first public reaction to the electorate’s verdict has been to dismiss it on the grounds that ‘51 per cent of the American people lacked information, and we want to educate and enlighten them,’ adding, ‘They weren’t told the truth.’