/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-U.S.: ‘Docs’ Become Surprise Election Year Weapons

By Haider Rizvi Reprint | | Print |

Haider Rizvi

NEW YORK, Jul 6 2004 (IPS) - Millions of Americans are seeing something at movie theatres they have never witnessed in an election year.

Thousands of cinemas across the United States are showing a number of political movies pointedly directed against the Bush administration and the growing influence of big businesses on U.S. politics.

The enormous popularity of the movie ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ by Oscar-winning director Michael Moore and other political documentaries represent a phenomenon that could unnerve the professional campaigners and pundits who set the tone and props of the U.S. political stage play before November’s voting.

Moore has broken his own box-office record of over 21 million dollars in ticket sales for a non-fiction movie (‘Bowling for Columbine’). His new release has already earned 23 million dollars, and analysts say the movie – now playing in more than 1,000 mainstream cinemas across the country – could reap as much as 100 million dollars.

While the current occupant of the White House is prepared to dole out millions of dollars to look good on television, the challenger to President George W Bush is more or less equally dependent on the multi-billion-dollar image-making industry, dominated by giants ABC, CBS and NBC.

The networks have already decided to cut their coverage of the presidential race by 40 percent this year. That means candidates will have to spend more on TV ads to get their message across, a necessity that Moore and many of his fellow citizens see as a tactic to prevent the electorate from making informed choices.

Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry has already spent more than 120 million dollars on his campaign, with a large chunk of that going to the advertising industry, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based group that monitors the influence of money on U.S. politics.

By contrast, the Bush’s Republican Party campaign has spent just over 150 million dollars.

While Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ targets Bush by exposing his double-speak on the war on Iraq and terrorism and reveals the Bush family’s close links to the Saudi royalty and business, two other independent filmmakers focus on the role of U.S. corporations in politics and independent media coverage of Iraq.

Released in the United States in June, Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbot’s ‘The Corporation’ is proving to be just as successful here as in its home country, Canada, where it has already set an earnings record of over one million dollars.

Released a few days later, Jehane Noujaim’s ‘Control Room’ became an instant box office hit in New York. The film zooms in on how the Arab journalists associated with the Al-Jazeera cable television covered the war on Iraq.

‘Control Room’ shows the network’s reporters focussing on the civilian deaths and destruction caused by the U.S. bombing, scenes that American networks never showed to the home audience. People who saw the documentary at a showing in New York City broke into tears watching al-Jazeera footage of dead Iraqi children, their body parts scattered throughout rubble.

The movie also shows footage of the death of Al-Jazeera’s daring reporter Tariq Ayub, who was killed on the rooftop of his Baghdad office in April 2003 covering the U.S.-led bombing of the Iraqi capital.

While ‘Control Room’ is now playing in some large theatres, ‘The Corporation’ remains outside the reach of mainstream cinemas.

Other lesser-known documentaries critical of the administration now making the rounds include ‘WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception’ and ‘Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War’, as well as ‘The Hunting of the President’, which recounts the investigation of former President Bill Clinton’s misconduct in the Oval Office.

On telephones and emails, at restaurants and bars, homes and offices, people are discussing these movies and their possible impact on public opinion about the war and the outcome of November’s elections.

"I would vote for him if he runs for the White House," James Weir, a doctoral student of anthropology at the City University of New York, told IPS after watching Moore’s movie. "He did not manipulate me at all. It’s unprecedented in a beautiful way."

Weir who says he is known by his peers to be extremely sceptical of all political matters, adds, "Michael made a strong statement without being polemical. That is a fact – that only poor people go to war."

In his film, Moore speaks with the families of U.S. troops stationed in Iraq and makes a strong point that poor children of colour and working-class whites are lured into the military because their parents cannot afford higher education for them.

"It’s going to affect the opinion of the working class," says Sara Glover, a poet and graphic artist reflecting on Moore’s work. "It’ll cost them (Bush’s Republican Party) a lot of votes."

Spokespersons from both sides of the presidential campaign are trying to avoid commenting publicly on the possible impact of the political movies on the elections, but some in the business of political advertising are taking it seriously.

"Few suggest these works will turn the election," says Mandy Grunwald, a political consultant who arranged Clinton’s appearances on the MTV network in 1992, in a recent interview with the ‘Washington Post’. "But it tells something about the mood of the country. I think it’s telling us that the country is moving Democratic."