A Letter From Michael Moore

[Broadwaylilhead]

Posted: 7/8/04 at 12:19pm

My Wild First Week with "Fahrenheit 9/11"... by Michael Moore

July 4th, 2004

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
hhtp://www.michaelmoore.com
[e-mail]

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.

[DAME]

Posted: 7/8/04 at 1:24pm

What a fantastic movie. Wether ou agree or disagree. It is worth seeing.

[Sunfish]

Posted: 7/8/04 at 4:12pm

The people who should see it won't go. And, the denial instinct is strong.

Michael Moore shows a lot of integrity when, defending the FACTS in F9/11, he also states that the opinions and questions are his. I have many of the same questions and it was good to see them being expressed out loud. Too bad no one is answering...because they wouldn't think of actually hearing the questions!

[BroadwayDiva]

Posted: 7/8/04 at 4:19pm

This was a brilliant, incredible movie. I'm glad it did as well as it did.

The one thing I won't forget about that movie that shows how much Bush is not-caring: "Yes, it's very sad that people are dying. Now how about my golf swing?" (or something along those lines).... Ick.

[sean martin]

Posted: 7/8/04 at 4:32pm

Truly, as strange as it sounds, this is one of the most patriotic movies I've seen in a long time. Pity that the soi-disant "patriots" don't agree. Their loss, IMHO.

[~*Triple Star On Broadway*~]

Posted: 7/8/04 at 5:20pm

I was hopingfor a man like Michael Moore to enter this world and expose these different truths. The guy is a genius, and I give all the power to him for another unforgetable film.

[Broadwaybaby614]

Posted: 7/8/04 at 9:27pm

Michael Moore and Oprah should run together in 2008.

[Broadwaylady]

Posted: 7/8/04 at 10:35pm

It was a very powerful and moving movie. I cried in some parts especially how the mothers were grieving over their sons killed in Iraq and how much damage the war did to the people of Iraq. Love him or hate Moore, the move really makes you think. My brother has been saying this about Bush since day one. There has to be truth in it. I hope Bush does not get elected.