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The Bushes and the Bin Ladens
Passionate anti-war film is a tale of two families
By Peter Bradshaw
May 18 — It was strident, passionate, sometimes outrageously
manipulative and often bafflingly selective in its material, but Michael
Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 was a barnstorming anti-war/anti-Bush
polemic tossed like an incendiary device into the crowded Cannes festival.
It included a full-scale denunciation of the links between the Bush
and Bin Laden families, the petro-commercial association which allowed
dozens of the Bin Laden family to leave the country for Saudi Arabia
after 9/11 and which necessitated the Iraq war as a massive diversion.
Moore also has queasy new war zone footage of US soldiers humiliating
their prisoners while others snap away with their digital cameras, although
he is noticeably keen to demonize the politicians, not the military.
A documentary is highly unlikely to win the Golden Palm, but this was
an exhilarating and even refreshing film, especially coming at a time
when political commentators on either side of the Atlantic -- progressives
and ex-progressives alike -- are apparently too worldly and sophisticated
to be angry about the war.
At Cannes this time last year, Franco-American relations were so bad
and feelings so high that this movie could hardly have been shown without
a riot. Now it was received in a mood of simmering, twitchy consensus.
One American PR cracked: “It made me wanna burn my passport!”
There are fewer of the jokes and wacky stunts that entranced and enraged
in his anti-gun documentary Bowling For Columbine; it is mostly a straight
stitching together of clips and graphics with Moore’s droll, faux-naif
voiceover.
It does not have a big “showdown” moment, like Moore’s
encounter with Charlton Heston, although the director shouts out questions
to the president he derisively calls Governor Bush and is rewarded by
him with a snarling suggestion that he should get a real job, which
takes some effrontery coming from the slacker fratboy head of state
who makes Ronald Reagan’s workload look Stakhanovite.
Fahrenheit 9/11 cheekily begins with “feed” footage
of the major players -- Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Paul
Wolfowitz -- smirking, and preening themselves as they prepare to go
on TV. Wolfowitz even has a habit of licking his comb before running
it through his hair, which got a deafening “eeeuuuuuwwwww”
from the audience.
Here they are, is the implication, the whole corrupt gang who fixed
the 2000 election, which began when Bush’s cousin John Ellis, a
Fox News executive, was instrumental in “calling it” for Bush/Cheney
on election night and cowed the other networks into joining in.
From there, Moore sketches out the Texan-Saudi link through the Bin
Ladens. This very much involves George Bush Sr, who far from being a
retired old gentleman, is a vigorous player in the business and political
scene, fully availing himself of the ex-presidential prerogative of
receiving intelligence briefings.
Moore has a terrifying and funny sequence when he shows the rabbit-in-car-headlights
expression on the president’s face when he is told about the second
plane hitting the towers while at a children’s literacy event.
A stopwatch appears in the corner of the screen, as the minutes tick
by and the president keeps reading My Pet Goat, not knowing what to
do without his advisers to tell him.
The Afghanistan war comes and goes without the capture of Osama bin
Laden, although Moore stops short of saying the Bush administration
doesn’t want the embarrassment of catching him. Terrorism licences
the big war on the diplomatically safe target of Iraq, in whose reconstruction
the big companies have a vested interest, and Moore’s overall narrative
arc takes us to the homeland security issue, its concomitant politically
profitable culture of fear, and the US military’s recruiting grounds
of blue collar America, getting poor blacks and whites to fight Bush’s
war as the body count ratchets upwards.
Moore centers a big emotional moment on a bereaved military mom mourning
her son outside the White House. This explains his reluctance to emphasize
the issue of torture.
Moore’s big omission is Tony Blair and the UK. He has a clever
pastiche of the opening title-sequence of the old TV western Bonanza,
with Bush and Blair mocked up to look like cowboys. But in a section
about the ramshackle “coalition of the willing” which was
supposed to lend international legitimacy to the invasion, there is
no mention of the part played by the UK. This can only be because of
Moore’s insistence on America’s international isolation and
arrogance. It’s a strange, skewed perspective.
Meanwhile wrangling about corporate pressure on Moore goes on. The director
claims that Mel Gibson, head of Icon films, was told “don’t
expect any more invitations from the White House if you fund this film.”
Gibson made a lot of money with The Passion of the Christ tapping into
an international network of Christian cinemagoers. There are millions
of anti-Bush people all over the world. The Passion of Michael Moore
could yet be a hot ticket.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Bush scourge triumphs at Cannes
Michael Moore’s controversial polemic Farenheit 9/11
became the first documentary for nearly 50 years to win the Palme d’Or
at the Cannes film festival on May 22.
The film, which contains scathing attacks on the business dealings of
President George Bush as well as the first footage of American soldiers
torturing prisoners in Iraq, beat off competition from more famous directors,
including Wong Kar-Wai, Emir Kusturica, and the Coen brothers to scoop
top prize.
Moore, who was given a standing ovation by the Cannes crowd, told them:
“I’m completely overwhelmed by this. Merci.”
He added: “The last time I was on an award stage in Hollywood,
all hell broke loose.” Moore had been heckled when he spoke out
against Bush in his acceptance speech after winning an Oscar for his
previous documentary, Bowling for Columbine.
He dedicated his victory to his daughter and to “all the children
in America, Iraq, and around the world who have suffered as a result
of our actions.”
The film has been the subject of controversy following a decision by
Disney not to distribute it during an election year. (Observer
(UK))
Three Amigos, one message to the US:
stop the spread of HIV
By Andrew Gumbel
Los Angeles, California, May 22 — They are called Dick,
Shaft, and Stretch and are a huge hit in South Africa. In Canada, their
debut last December was met with a standing ovation. The question now
is whether three animated condoms on a mission to halt HIV can somehow
negotiate Puritanism, religious fundamentalis,m and the sex-averse instincts
of the Bush administration to make it in the US.
Dick, Shaft, and Stretch are, collectively, the Three Amigos, and the
20 public service announcements tracing their comic adventures have
been credited with destigmatising condoms even in a society like South
Africa, where wearing prophylatics has traditionally been considered
un-macho.
The two men who launched the series, South African Brent Quinn and
his Canadian partner Firdaus Kharas, are now talking to Hollywood actors,
US funding sources, and officials in Washington to further their campaign.
Quinn told The New Yorker magazine his dream cast would include the
black comedian Chris Rock as Shaft and Benicio del Toro as Stretch.
The surfer dude Dick was based on Jeff Bridges’ turn in the Coen
brothers’ film The Big Lebowski, so he would be an obvious choice.
As for Femidom, their female buddy, who better than Jennifer Lopez?
The Amigos’ adventures use humor rather than fear to promote condoms.
They indulge in space travel, football (“you just can’t score
without a condom”), and bungee jumping (“never make a leap
of faith -- always wear a condom”).
The project has met with near-universal enthusiasm. The Ethiopian health
ministry has requested copies in several tribal languages, and part
of the present fund-raising effort aims to make ita reality.
The one exception has been the US government. “Their priority
is more A and B: abstinence and be faithful,” Quinn told The New
Yorker. This seems to reflect the concerns of conservative church groups.
In South Africa a US Baptist missionary has already been railing against
the broadcasts.
Other church leaders feel differently. Archbishop Desmond Tutu endorses
the initiative wholeheartedly: “Animated characters are a non-threatening,
non-authoritarian vehicle for communication.”
Source: Independent (UK)
“Fuck America, if that’s
America,and fuck you too...Welcome to my show.”
Review by Nicholas Holt
Love All The People: Letters, Lyrics, Routines
By Bill Hicks
Constable and Robinson, 2004
May 24 (AGR) — Be warned: if you were one of the folks
who wrote AGR to complain that Dan Savage’s graphic descriptions
of sex disturbed your pleasant weekly review of war, genocide, environmental
destruction, rape, and famine, the very, very funny rants of the late
Bill Hicks are not for you.
Hicks was a vessel of rage against the crimes of the state, the church,
the “industrialist capitalist scum-fucks” and the “good”
citizens who dumbly follow the triumvirate’s orders. That rage
would emerge in speech, with a tremendous, frightening, and wildly
impolite ferocity on the stages of stand up clubs normally utilized
for much more benign entertainment:
“ ‘Well, your leaders misspent your hard-earned tax dollars,
so you, the people, now have to tighten your belts…’ You
know what would make tightening my belt a little easier? If I could
tighten it around Jesse Helms’s scrawny little chicken-neck.
Ah, I feel better about the sacrifice right now! You fucking, tobacco-pushing
motherfucker! You are the worst fucking drug dealer in the fucking
world! You scrawny, right wing, fear-mongering piece of sucker of
Satan’s COCK! YOU SUCK SATAN’S COCK! YOU CHICKEN-NECKED
LITTLE FUCKING CRACKER! I’d tighten my belt if that were the
case. I’d eat bologna for a week…”
“…I was asked, ‘Are you proud to be an American,’
and I was like, ‘I don’t know. I didn’t have a lot
to do with it, you know. My parents fucked there, that’s about
all... I hate patriotism. In fact, that’s how we could stop patriotism,
I think. Instead of putting stars and stripes on our flag, we should
put pictures of our parents fucking. Gather round that flag and see
your dad hunched over your mom’s four-by-four butt. See if any
boot rally mentality can circle round that fucking image. God…damn,
I’m out of here! Fuck it…Let’s go garden.”
Always very aware that his sets weren’t necessarily what a comedy
night audience had been expecting, would often reassure them that
“There’s dick jokes on the way, please relax,” and
would indeed deliver on the promise with very, um, thoroughly developed
imagery. At his best, Hicks articulated the frothing, savage voice
inside anyone who has felt the blood vessels on their foreheads spasm
as he/she howls back at the crude theocratic fascism of AM radio or
the polite nationalism of NPR.
His commentary on Bush War In The Gulf I certainly applies to Part
II:
“‘Iraq-incredible weapons, incredible… weapons.’
“ ‘How do ya’ll know that?’
“ ‘Well…we looked at the receipt. But as soon as that
check clears, we’re goin’ in. What time’s the bank
open? Eight? We’re goin’ in at nine…for God and country,
and [Saddam is] a Hitler, and hey, look, a fetus, so whatever you
need, let’s go! Whatever you, the apathetic, docile masses, need…’”
At his worst, though, he took on the brittle tone (if not politics)
of one of those whiny Libertarian Party guys who throws a tantrum
about political correctness when you tell him to keep his “faggot”
and “bitch” to himself, and Hicks revealed more than an
a touch of misogyny when riffing on sex or confronting a female heckler.
The problem with ditching Al Franken’s Queensberry Rules of critical
satire for Bill Hicks’s bloody basement fight club is that the
cultural vocabulary of anger often defaults to metaphors of gay and
woman bashing - metaphors with very concrete counterparts. Like
the fine writer Lester Bangs said, even if used strictly for impact
rather than literal meaning, “those words are lethal man, and
you shouldn’t just go slinging them around for effect…if
you’re black or Latin or Jewish or gay [add: or a woman] those
little vernacular epithets are bullets that riddle your guts and then
fester and burn there, like torture-flak hailing on you wherever you
go.”
I’d like to think that, were he still alive, Hicks, who died
from pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 31, would have turned
his talent towards developing a new vocabulary of resistance and refusal
that wasn’t reliant on the filthy power structures imposed by
the life-crushing elite he hated so deeply and that he would have
continued his living tirade against the obscenities of power.
If Hicks thought Reagan was good for material, he’d have loved
Bush II.
Bogside’s artists turn from guns
and protests to a vision of peace
By David McKittrick
May 24 — Something big is happening, politically and
artistically, in Derry, the famous city which at several key junctures
found itself at the epicenter of the Northern Ireland troubles.
Having spent years chronicling events which over the decades periodically
convulsed the city, its most important artists are now turning their
attention to a dramatic new theme: that of peace.
For 10 years, the three local men known as the Bogside Artists have
created an art gallery on eight walls along the city’s Rossville
Street. Some call it the People’s Gallery; one wag christened
it Bogside Modern.
This street is where the Battle of the Bogside erupted in 1968 as
people took on the security forces at the start of the troubles. It
is also where British troops shot some of the 14 fatalities of Bloody
Sunday in 1972. Most of the murals’ themes are grim, portraying
death, commotion, and riot. But the artists say the ninth and last
in the series will be different.
One artist, Tom Kelly, said: “We had 30 years of conflict, mayhem,
brutality, oppression, violence. We lived through it, we breathed
the tear-gas, we were involved in the riots, and all the rest of it.
“We are well aware that what we’ve already depicted are
not the most positive images. But now the bulk of people are pursuing
peace, and so the last mural we’re planning will encapsulate
something of that. It will be full of color and energy and light,
looking to the future, with imagery of birth and rebirth. It will
be trying to capture the hopes, dreams and desires of this generation,
and the next.”
The eight murals attract much attention. Coachloads of tourists pose
for photographs in front of them, with the three artists staging tours
for visitors “from as far away as Brisbane and Helsinki.”
They are fiercely independent, insistent that they are artists who
happen to come from the Bogside and who have stayed true to their
roots. They still draw the dole, they say, scorning “careerism”
and “the egomania that runs riot in the art world.”
They rail against art elitism, against “your upper middle-class
piece of cheese, glass of wine” set. They decry “the art-speak
bullshit,” complaining that they have had little or no help from
political or artistic officialdom.
They have won praise from the Derry playwright Brian Friel, who said:
“This is work of conscious ostentation, of deliberate defiance,
but it has delicacy too. Every mural explains, but it also embraces.
Every mural instructs; but at the same time each has the intimacy
and the consolations of a family photograph.”
And the artists are neither republicans nor propagandists. One of
them, Kevin Hasson, said: “We were aware we could easily be tagged
because of what we were depicting, but the fact is that all shades
of nationalist opinion were involved in those events.” Kelly
added: “It’s simply capturing a moment in time, saying,
‘This is what happened, make of it what you will, bring your
own baggage to it.’”
One of their most popular and most striking murals, entitled “The
Death of Innocence,” shows a young girl killed during clashes
with the Army in 1971. Kelly said: “That was a call to take the
gun out of Irish politics, because we know in any conflict the innocent
die, on the West Bank, Tiananmen Square, or wherever.
“We have been at the forefront of helping other mural painters
to get away from the sectarian, tribalistic imagery, to think in terms
of culture and history rather than the guy with the mask and the Armalite
or Kalashnikov.”
Catholic and Protestant youngsters attend their workshops. Kelly added:
“Some of our greatest achievements are not our murals or our
exhibitions; it’s seeing friendships forged in our workshops
that go on out in the streets.”
Source: Independent (UK)
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