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| Donald Trump and Michael Moore |
It was just revealed this week that polarizing liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is going to come out with a Trump-themed follow up to his smash 2004 hit which took on the George W. Bush administration, Fahrenheit 9/11.
Just like that acclaimed movie, Moore's new film -- Fahrenheit 11/9 (a not to last year's election day) -- will be distributed by the Weinstein brothers and according to the director himself, the film's stated aim is the topple the Trump presidency (although it looks like the president is already doing a pretty good of doing that all on his own).
“No matter what you throw at him, it hasn’t worked,” Moore has said in an official statement. “No matter what is revealed, he remains standing. Facts, reality, brains cannot defeat him. Even when he commits a self-inflicted wound, he gets up the next morning and keeps going and tweeting. That all ends with this movie.”
That's amusing hyperbole -- even if the fact is that no movie has ever elected or defeated a presidential contender.
Back in 2004, when Fahrenheit 9/11 captured the cultural zeitgeist and grossing the kind of dollars that big budget action films usually do, it was being positioned by Moore specifically to motivate voters to turnout and vote Bush out of office after just one term.Bush enjoyed a historically narrow re-election victory, but he did win. Fahrenheit 9/11 would win top honors at Cannes, an Academy Award, and make Michael Moore a household name -- but in terms of its real goal, it failed.
Just last fall, Moore tried again with his scaled down Michael Moore in Trumpland. That film was even more overtly partisan, it was essentially a one-man show (starring Moore) about why voters should get behind Hillary Clinton.
That film, like his new one, was made largely in secret and considering Moore's enthusiastic support for Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 primaries, one would think it could have persuaded a few fence sitters, but its brief run in theaters and lack of distribution likely diminished whatever impact it could have had.
Undaunted, Moore is stepping up the plate again. And as one of the few prominent figures to accurately predict Trump's victory in historically blue states like his hometown of Michigan, the director now has earned more cache and gravitas with a mainstream press that had largely dismissed him previously as a far out lefty.
Indeed, many of his documentaries were ahead of there time. His breakout film Roger & Me now reads like a prescient predictor of the toll automation would take on blue collar workers across the country, Sicko's arguments in favor of protecting patients with pre-existing conditions have gone mainstream, and Bowling for Columbine could easily be resurrected amid any modern debate on gun control.
Right now, there is no official release date for this Trump-themed film, nor are their specific details about the themes the film intends to tackle. With Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore focused with laser beam like precision on the Bush family's shady business dealings and how they potentially played a role in the run-up to war in the aftermath of 9/11.
Given the daily revelations about Trump and the shear breath of his alleged corruption, Moore's broadside against the Bush family may feel like small potatoes now. And while I seriously doubt he will unveil anything that will dramatically reframe the political narrative or partisan loyalty, I am still excited to see what he comes up with.
Moore's last proper film -- Where Do We Invade Next? -- was one of his greatest, and it suggested a more open-minded, optimistic mindset from the director which wasn't present in his previous work. Can Moore find a silver lining in our country's choice to elect Trump -- a man who has been notorious for racism, sexism, xenophobia, greed and unbridled narcissism?
We shall see.
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