Palme d'Or for Moore -- Fahrenheit 9/11

Well, friends, he did it. Michael Moore won the Cannes Film Festival's most prestigious award, the Palme d'Or, for his film Fahrenheit 9/11 (an award not given out since 1956, for a movie that Jacques Costeau did). I almost got emotional about it myself (without having yet watched it) from reading a well-written Frank Rich piece in the NY Times, which describes what some of the scenes capture. Not only does it address the Bush/Bin Laden family link, but it explores SO much more. I am especially grateful that the documentary explores the lives of actual soldiers suffering from the consequences of war, including those suffering from physical and emotional damage, and actual footage of soldiers injured and maimed on the battlefield. Some may call Mr. Moore a sensationalist, but I honestly think that's crap. I'm thankful that he's doing work like this. When our country's administration won't even let parents see their dead sons and daughters coming home from battle (let alone allowing the public to see these images), we need this voice to bring the message and images to the people.

In the May/June 2004 issue of Adbusters magazine (get yourself a copy if you can!), there's a neat graph showing an inverse relationship between distance from target (whether enemy combatant or civilian) and emotional feeling about the target. The same holds true for those of us watching the war happen on TV -- we can shut it off, we can distance ourselves from the target -- as long as we don't repeatedly see images of our injured soldiers' and Iraqi civilians' bodies. And that's just dangerous. SO, THANK YOU Michael Moore.

I hear this documentary may actually be out in theaters across the U.S. over July 4th weekend. My fingers are crossed. THIS may be the straw that breaks the camel's back and allows us to unseat our current regime leader.

And in related news, the Associated Press is carrying a story about Michael Moore and the Cannes Festival, and raises an interesting point. "Some critics speculated that if "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the top prize, it would be more for the film's politics than its cinematic value." I don't know what I think about this (I'm going to mull over it some). How much does a film's politics contribute to its cinematic value?