ABSTRACT
In the late afternoon of Monday 17 May 2004, the most anticipated film at the Cannes 2004 competition is premièring in the Salle Lumière. It is Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (USA: 2004). Two years earlier, Moore had established his name with the successful Bowling for Columbine (USA: 2002), a critical-populist investigation of the topic of violence in America, inspired by the Columbine high school shootings of 1999. For Fahrenheit 9/11 Moore has turned his cameras and unconventional research methods to the alleged relations between the Bush and Bin Laden families. The agit-prop documentary unabashedly pokes fun at the American President and counters the official image of Bush as a strong leader with an equally oversimplified picture of the spoiled rich kid, the failed businessman, and the uncommitted politician who preferred going on vacation and who ignored numerous warnings just prior to 9/11.
