Michael Moore Old Movie Title
by Jon Shea
11 July 2007
Michael Moore has a new movie out, and I have no interest in seeing it because no one appreciates the problems with health care as completely as I do, and I get frustrated with suffering through other people’s ignorant diatribes. There is something I’ve got to get off my chest about his last movie though. It isn’t very interesting, but since no one else is producing any content, I’m going to go for it.
Did anyone else notice that there are no parallels whatsoever between Fahrenheit 451, the Ray Bradbury book about a dystopian future in which books are systematically burned, and Fahrenheit 9/11, a movie about how Bush, Cheney, and their friends are really bad? The central themes of Fahrenheit 451 have to do with television, media, and advertising cheapening culture and the human experience. The central themes in Fahrenheit 9/11 are that Moore doesn’t like the Bush administration.
MM: How about Fahrenheit 9/11?
Yes Man: Fahrenheit, like the temperature?
MM: Yeah.
YM: Is that, like, the temperature jet fuel burns at, or steel melts at, or something? Like a comment on how there must have been bombs in the towers?
MM: No, no. It’s a book. Fahrenheit 561 or something.
YM: Oh, cool. About government conspiracies and terrorism and shit?
MM: I think so. And they burn all the books to keep it secret.
YM: That’s perfect.
Maybe it happened like that, but it feels kind of flat to me. I’d guess they just didn’t think about it very hard.
Jul 11, 04:12 PM
Funny you’d say that, Jon. The first time I heard the title, I thought it was a great one. I thought that the depiction of people in 451 as totally blind and stupid as a result of media saturation had an obvious parallel to 911. Namely that the media’s (and consequently everyone else’s) obsession with 911 was blinding them to the fact that 1) Bush is a bad president and 2) our anti-terrorism strategies are counterproductive. More succinctly: the post-911 sorrow-orgy was evincing the exact type of sheep-like behavior that Bradbury was talking about. In particular, that the sitting government would benefit from (and thus encourage) said orgy was where the book and movie brushed most closely.
I’m not saying that MM did or didn’t draw this parallel in the movie. But whoever was making up the title thought about it more than you give them credit for.
Somebody (I forget who or I’d link) said that response to the Virginia Tech shooting was a Bradbury experience. I think the same could be said about 911.
Jan 2, 05:54 AM
excellent movies