| 18.06.2004, 20:00 |
jama |
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Michael Moore´s "Fahrenheit 9/11" und die Zensur
| Zitat: |
June 17, 2004
Friends,
We're a week away from the nationwide opening of "Fahrenheit 9/11" and not a day goes by where we don't have some new battle to fight thanks to those who are still working overtime to keep people from seeing this film. What's their problem? Are they worried about something?
A Republican PR firm has formed a fake grassroots front group called "Move America Forward" to harass and intimidate theater owners into not showing "Fahrenheit 9/11." These are the same people who successfully badgered CBS into canceling the Reagan mini-series a few months ago. And they are spending a ton of money this week to threaten movie theaters who even think about showing our movie.
As of this morning, a little over 500 theaters have agreed to show the movie beginning next Friday, June 25. There are three national/regional theater chains who, as of today, have not booked the movie in their theaters. One theater owner in Illinois has reported receiving death threats.
The right wing usually wins these battles. Their basic belief system is built on censorship, repression, and keeping people ignorant. They want to limit or snuff out any debate or dissension. They also don't like pets and are mean to small children. Too many of them are named "Fred."
This new nut group is the Right's last hope in limiting how many people can see this movie. All of their other efforts have failed. Let's recap:
1. Roger Friedman at FOX News reported that the head of the company which first agreed to fund our film “got calls from Republican friends” pressuring them to back out. And they did. But... Miramax immediately picked up the film! Except...
2. Michael Eisner, the chairman of Disney, then blocked Miramax (a company owned by Disney) from releasing the film once it was finished. But... public attention and embarrassment forced Disney to let the Weinstein brothers of Miramax find another distributor! But...
3. Instead of a new distributor stepping right in -- as all the media predicted would happen -- it took another month to find distributors who would take on this movie. A number of other distributors, thanks to various pressures, were afraid to get involved. It looked for a while that we would be distributing this ourselves. But then Lions Gate and IFC Films rode in to the rescue!
So, we have beaten back all attempts to kill this movie, and the only thing in the way of you now seeing "Fahrenheit 9/11" is this Republican big-money front group trying to force theaters not to show the movie.
Please, contact your local theaters and let them know you want to see "Fahrenheit 9/11." Tell them that some people don't know that this is America and that we believe in freedom of speech and the importance of ALL voices being heard. (The members of MoveOn.org—an ACTUAL grassroots organization—have done a very cool thing. They are pledging to send a message to theater owners and are planning to attend a showing of the film on its opening weekend.)
I appreciate their efforts, but you don’t have to be a member of MoveOn to help stop this effort to keep “Fahrenheit 9/11” from making it to screens across the country. If a theater in your area is planning to show the film, just give them a call and thank them for standing up for the freedom of speech. If your local theater isn't showing the film, call them and let them know that you would like to see it and you'd like them to show it.
The White House and their minions in our media have presented one distorted version of the truth after another for the past four years. All we are asking for is the right to show what they HAVEN'T shown us, the real truth. The truth that ain't pretty (and is, sadly, damningly hilarious).
On top of all this, the MPAA gave the film an "R" rating. I want all teenagers to see this film. There is nothing in the film in terms of violence that we didn't see on TV every night at the dinner hour during the Vietnam War. Of course, that's the point, isn't it? The media have given the real footage from Iraq a "cleansing" -- made it look nice, easy to digest. Mario Cuomo has offered to be our lawyer in appealing this ruling by the MPAA. Frankly, I would like to think the MPAA is saying that the actions by the Bush administration are so abhorrent and revolting, we need to protect our children from seeing what they have done. In that case, the film should be rated NC-17!
However it turns out, I trust all of you teenagers out there will find your way into a theater to see this movie. If the government believes it is OK to send slightly older teenagers to their deaths in Iraq, I think at the very least you should be allowed to see what they are going to draft you for in a couple of years.
Finally, some very sophisticated individuals have been hacking into and shutting down our website. It is an hourly fight to keep it up. We are going to find out who is doing this and we are going to pursue a criminal prosecution. I'm preparing lots of cool stuff for the site so watch for new items on it next week (www.fahrenheit911.com and www.michaelmoore.com).
Thanks again for your support and I hope to see you at the movies on opening night, June 25.
Yours,
Michael Moore
PS. I am sponsoring a number of benefits around the country next week for local and national peace and justice groups, including Military Families Speak Out and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Please check your local papers and my website next week for further details.
PPS. Also, I am going to be on the “Late Show with David Letterman” on Friday night. It's on CBS at 11:35 PM Eastern and Pacific. And on Monday morning (June 21) I will be on “The Today Show” on NBC. Next week, Jon Stewart and Conan. I'd go on O'Reilly but, like a coward, he walked out on a screening we invited him to (with Al Franken just a few rows away!). I personally caught him sneaking out. Embarrassed, he tried to change the subject. He said, "When are you coming on my show?" and I said, "Turn around and watch the rest of the movie and I will come on your show." He walked out. Fair and balanced.
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Um es kurz und verständlich wiederzugeben: "Fahrenheit 9/11" ist ein Film über den 11.9. und alle damit zusammenhängenden Skandale. Unter anderem wird belegt, dass der Bruder von Ossama von Bush persönlich die Erlaubnis bekommen hat mit dem Flugzeug zu fliegen, während in ganz USA Flugverbot herrschte. Es werden anscheinend einige Sachen aufgedeckt, die gewisse Leute der Öffentlichkeit vorenthalten wollen. Dabei gehen die Leute nicht gerade behutsam um. Was alles passiert ist, seht ihr in der Aufzählung (1.-3.).
Gruß,
Jama |
| 19.06.2004, 18:30 |
Thomas |
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Hi,
manchmal weiß ich nicht, was ich von Michael Moore halten soll - seine Bücher sind sicher aufdeckend und das alles, aber irgendwie schreibt er doch immer wieder das gleiche 
Andererseits kann ich mir gut vorstellen, dass vieles was er schreibt/zeigt auch stimmt - gerade Bowling for Columbine war beeindruckend - weiß aber nicht was man glauben kann, und inwieweit er vielleicht auch nur Selbstdarsteller ist? Das ist mein Problem... Werde mir aber den Film wenn er rauskommt auf jeden Fall ansehen - wann kommt er in Deutschland?
Gruß,
Thomas |
| 19.06.2004, 18:49 |
jama |
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Müsste diesen Sommer in den Kinos kommen.
| Zitat: |
| weiß aber nicht was man glauben kann, und inwieweit er vielleicht auch nur Selbstdarsteller ist? |
Der Versuch der Zensur verifiziert eigentlich schon im vorraus die Inhalte des Films. Über die Selbstdartellung schau ich hinweg, auch wenn das ein legitimier Kritikpunkt in seinem Auftreten wäre. Aber lieber selbstdarstellende Kritiker, die auch von den Massen gehört werden, als keine oder nur in intellektuellen Kreisen bekannte.
Gruß,
Jama |
| 19.06.2004, 18:58 |
Thomas |
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Damit hast du natürlich recht. Ein unbekannter Kritiker hilft auch niemandem 
Gut dann werd ich mir den wohl ansehen, falls er nicht in Deutschland zensiert wird...
Gruß,
Thomas |
| 20.06.2004, 14:02 |
abraxas |
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soweit ich weiß is fahrenheit 9/11 in den usa deswegen gescheitert, weil keine firma das publizieren wollte... es fehlten also die geldmittel...
ein beispiel dafür, dass das kapital über die information und damit über die köpfe herrscht. wer das geld hat, entscheidet was rauskommt. und was nicht. und das geschieht schon längst nicht mehr nur nach kriterien des profits...
im falle michael moores ist das äußerst traurig, da er zumindest verucht, kritik an einem übermächtigen system zu üben, ohne sich dabei zu einer hetzerische polemik zu versteigern, wie die meisten weniger bekannten intellektuellen.
auch wenn's nich immer das gelbe vom ei ist, feige hühner, die sich lieber stillschweigend die augen ausstechen lassen, sollten seine publikationen doch allemal wachgerüttelt kriegen.
leider traue ich aber auch ihm nicht ganz. er versteift sich tatsächlich auf ein bestimmtes thema. man sollte auch den überblick nicht verlieren... |
| 06.07.2004, 00:29 |
Ben Sisko |
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Neues von Michael Moore |
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| 06.07.2004, 00:57 |
jama |
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Ich enthalte Euch mal den letzten Newsletter nicht vor:
| Zitat: |
Friends,
Where do I begin? This past week has knocked me for a loop. "Fahrenheit 9/11," the #1 movie in the country, the largest grossing documentary ever. My head is spinning. Didn't we just lose our distributor 8 weeks ago? Did Karl Rove really fail to stop this? Is Bush packing?
Each day this week I was given a new piece of information from the press that covers Hollywood, and I barely had time to recover from the last tidbit before the next one smacked me upside the head:
** More people saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" in one weekend than all the people who saw "Bowling for Columbine" in 9 months.
** "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke "Rocky III’s" record for the biggest box office opening weekend ever for any film that opened in less than a thousand theaters.
** "Fahrenheit 9/11" beat the opening weekend of "Return of the Jedi."
** "Fahrenheit 9/11" instantly went to #2 on the all-time list for largest per-theater average ever for a film that opened in wide-release.
How can I ever thank all of you who went to see it? These records are mind-blowing. They have sent shock waves through Hollywood – and, more importantly, through the White House.
But it didn't just stop there. The response to the movie then went into the Twilight Zone. Surfing through the dial I landed on the Fox broadcasting network which was airing the NASCAR race live last Sunday to an audience of millions of Americans -- and suddenly the announcers were talking about how NASCAR champ Dale Earnhardt, Jr. took his crew to see “Fahrenheit 9/11” the night before. FOX sportscaster Chris Myers delivered Earnhardt’s review straight out of his mouth and into the heartland of America: “He said hey, it'll be a good bonding experience no matter what your political belief. It's a good thing as an American to go see.” Whoa! NASCAR fans – you can’t go deeper into George Bush territory than that! White House moving vans – START YOUR ENGINES!
Then there was Roger Friedman from the Fox News Channel giving our film an absolutely glowing review, calling it “a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail.” Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice surmised that Bush is already considered a goner so Rupert Murdoch might be starting to curry favor with the new administration. I don't know about that, but I’ve never heard a decent word toward me from Fox. So, after I was revived, I wondered if a love note to me from Sean Hannity was next.
How about Letterman’s Top Ten List: “Top Ten George W. Bush Complaints About "Fahrenheit 9/11":
10. That actor who played the President was totally unconvincing
9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election
8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words
7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where I get him deported
6. Didn't have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger
5. Of all Michael Moore's accusations, only 97% are true
4. Not sure - - I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe
3. Where the hell was Spider-man?
2. Couldn't hear most of the movie over Cheney's foul mouth
1. I thought this was supposed to be about dodgeball
But it was the reactions and reports we received from theaters around the country that really sent me over the edge. One theatre manager after another phoned in to say that the movie was getting standing ovations as the credits rolled – in places like Greensboro, NC and Oklahoma City -- and that they were having a hard time clearing the theater afterwards because people were either too stunned or they wanted to sit and talk to their neighbors about what they had just seen. In Trumbull, CT, one woman got up on her seat after the movie and shouted "Let's go have a meeting!" A man in San Francisco took his shoe off and threw it at the screen when Bush appeared at the end. Ladies’ church groups in Tulsa were going to see it, and weeping afterwards.
It was this last group that gave lie to all the yakking pundits who, before the movie opened, declared that only the hard-core "choir" would go to see "Fahrenheit 9/11." They couldn't have been more wrong. Theaters in the Deep South and the Midwest set house records for any film they’d ever shown. Yes, it even sold out in Peoria. And Lubbock, Texas. And Anchorage, Alaska!
Newspaper after newspaper wrote stories in tones of breathless disbelief about people who called themselves “Independents” and “Republicans” walking out of the movie theater shaken and in tears, proclaiming that they could not, in good conscience, vote for George W. Bush. The New York Times wrote of a conservative Republican woman in her 20s in Pensacola, Florida who cried through the film, and told the reporter: “It really makes me question what I feel about the president... it makes me question his motives…”
Newsday reported on a self-described “ardent Bush/Cheney supporter” who went to see the film on Long Island, and his quiet reaction afterwards. He said, "It's really given me pause to think about what's really going on. There was just too much - too much to discount." The man then bought three more tickets for another showing of the film.
The Los Angeles Times found a mother who had “supported [Bush] fiercely” at a theater in Des Peres, Missouri: “Emerging from Michael Moore's ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ her eyes wet, Leslie Hanser said she at last understood…. ‘My emotions are just....’ She trailed off, waving her hands to show confusion. ‘I feel like we haven't seen the whole truth before.’"
All of this had to be the absolute worst news for the White House to wake up to on Monday morning. I guess they were in such a stupor, they "gave" Iraq back to, um, Iraq two days early!
News editors told us that they were being "bombarded" with e-mails and calls from the White House (read: Karl Rove), trying to spin their way out of this mess by attacking it and attacking me. Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett had told the White House press corps that the movie was "outrageously false" -- even though he said he hadn't seen the movie. He later told CNN that "This is a film that doesn't require us to actually view it to know that it's filled with factual inaccuracies." At least they're consistent. They never needed to see a single weapon of mass destruction before sending our kids off to die.
Many news shows were more than eager to buy the White House spin. After all, that is a big part of what "Fahrenheit" is about -- how the lazy, compliant media bought all the lies from the Bush administration about the need to invade Iraq. They took the Kool-Aid offered by the White House and rarely, if ever, did our media ask the hard questions that needed to be asked before the war started.
Because the movie "outs" the mainstream media for their failures and their complicity with the Bush administration -- who can ever forget their incessant, embarrassing cheerleading as the troops went off to war, as though it was all just a game -- the media was not about to let me get away with anything now resembling a cultural phenomenon. On show after show, they went after me with the kind of viciousness you would have hoped they had had for those who were lying about the necessity for invading a sovereign nation that was no threat to us. I don't blame our well-paid celebrity journalists -- they look like a bunch of ass-kissing dopes in my movie, and I guess I'd be pretty mad at me, too. After all, once the NASCAR fans see "Fahrenheit 9/11," will they ever believe a single thing they see on ABC/NBC/CBS news again?
In the next week or so, I will recount my adventures through the media this past month (I will also be posting a full FAQ on my website soon so that you can have all the necessary backup and evidence from the film when you find yourself in heated debate with your conservative brother-in-law!). For now, please know the following: Every single fact I state in "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the absolute and irrefutable truth. This movie is perhaps the most thoroughly researched and vetted documentary of our time. No fewer than a dozen people, including three teams of lawyers and the venerable one-time fact-checkers from The New Yorker went through this movie with a fine-tooth comb so that we can make this guarantee to you. Do not let anyone say this or that isn't true. If they say that, they are lying. Let them know that the OPINIONS in the film are mine, and anyone certainly has a right to disagree with them. And the questions I pose in the movie, based on these irrefutable facts, are also mine. And I have a right to ask them. And I will continue to ask them until they are answered.
In closing, let me say that the most heartening response to the film has come from our soldiers and their families. Theaters in military towns across the country reported packed houses. Our troops know the truth. They have seen it first-hand. And many of them could not believe that here was a movie that was TRULY on their side -- the side of bringing them home alive and never sending them into harms way again unless it's the absolute last resort. Please take a moment to read this wonderful story from the daily paper in Fayetteville, NC, where Fort Bragg is located. It broke my heart to read this, the reactions of military families and the comments of an infantryman’s wife publicly backing my movie -- and it gave me the resolve to make sure as many Americans as possible see this film in the coming weeks.
Thank you again, all of you, for your support. Together we did something for the history books. My apologies to "Return of the Jedi." We'll make it up by producing "Return of the Texan to Crawford" in November.
May the farce be with you, but not for long,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
[email protected]
P.S. You can read letters from people around the country recounting their own experiences at the theater, and their reactions to the film by going here.
P.P.S. Also, I’m going to start blogging! Tonight! Come on over and check it out.
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| 06.07.2004, 12:57 |
Thomas |
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*den film sehen will*
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| 06.07.2004, 13:22 |
Ben Sisko |
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Deutscher Filmstart: 29. Juli
Gruß vom Ben |
| 18.07.2004, 14:24 |
jama |
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Weil man den Film ja ausdrücklich runterladen darf, haben wir selbiges getan und uns den Film schon zu Gemüte geführt. Ich muss aber sagen, dass der Film relativ enttäuschend, einseitig und eher für das amerikanische Publikum produziert wurde.
Hat sonst noch jemand den Film schon gesehen?
Gruß,
Jama |
