Fahrenheit 9/11 And Capitalism: A Propaganda Film Analysis

To begin, Moore struggles to appeal to ethos successfully due to his manipulative methods that raises the audience's skepticism in his credibility, despite using many strong sources such as his reputation, experience, and the values of other experts in a desperate attempt to gain the audience’s trust. Throughout the documentary, Moore is able to tactfully utilize his renowned reputation as a filmmaker to ensure that his audience will believe everything that he presents. By dressing like an “average Joe” and showing his own hometown of Flint, Michigan, a “gun-loving town”, Moore is able to portray himself as the average American citizen who just wants facts and answers from the people. This is successfully used in the film as Moore seems more reliable to the audience, and makes his interviewees feel equal to Moore. Moreover, Moore also interviews many credible people who are able to back

Fahrenheit 9/11, creates many good points and provides the public with an inside look into the corruption of George Bush’s presidency and what could have possibly led to the attacks on 9/11. However, the documentary overall argument is extremely weak. It is not convincing to anyone, other than those already suspicious of Bush’s involvement in 9/11, because of the ineffective ways of argument shown throughout the film.

The idea of a documentary being an artistic or even personalised expression of a director is long gone, or so it seems in recent times. In Michael Moore’s latest documentary, Bowling for Columbine, he attempts to get across to viewers his, and essentially only his point of view, on the topic of gun laws. Although what Moore is trying to say is not necessarily wrong, he is at the same time not taking into account the other side of the argument either; all he is trying to do, essentially is hypnotise viewers into thinking

To support this claim, I will present two very popular yet controversial documentaries that were aimed to educate viewers on a couple of compelling societal issues. I will explore how the inclusion of pathos, logos and ethos in ‘Sicko’ by Michael Moore and ‘Supersize Me’ by Morgan Spurlock clarified their messages and made their arguments very convincing. These two documentary films show that the values adhered to by the two filmmakers, and probably by the media firms they work with as well as their corporate sponsors often influence the kind of information and at which angle it is presented to the

The obvious bias illustrated throughout Michael Moore’s film certainly does detract from the messages conveyed however when presented in the right circumstances it adds more value to the messages. The obvious bias leaves many people questioning the credibility of the director’s message as it doesn’t show the full spectrum of the situation, which is what documentaries are for, and ultimately this detracts the films message. However, in some circumstances the obvious bias brings more light on important aspects which should be acted upon thus adding more value the message being portrayed. Michael Moore has directed over 12 documentaries and a handful of them have been awarded with prestigious film awards. “Where to invade next”, “Sicko”, “Bowling for Columbine”, “Capitalism: a love story” and “Fahrenheit 9/11”, these are just half of the documentaries in which Michael Moore has directed. The purpose of a documentary is to present a nonfictional motion picture which aims to promote or

In Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni’s essay “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” they put forward the central argument that film is a commercial product in the capitalist system and therefore also the unconscious instrument of the dominant ideology which produces it. In opposition to the classic film theory that applauds camera as an impartial device to reproduce reality, they argue that what the camera reproduces is merely a refraction of the prevailing ideology. Therefore, the primary and political task for filmmakers is to disrupt this replication of the world as self-evident and the function of film criticism is to identify and evaluate that politics. Comolli and Narboni then suggest seven categories of films confronting ideology in different ways, among which the second category resists the prevailing ideology on two levels. Films of this group not only overtly deal with political contents in order to “attack their ideological assimilation” (Comolli and Narboni 483), but also achieve their goal through breaking down the conventional way of depicting reality.

Michael Moore’s documentary has a very clear point to make. Moore will persist in asking until he gets the answer he must sense is waiting for him. For example, when he is talking to a friend of the columbine shooter, he continues asking him about why the school would have thought that he would have been likely to create violence. He asks 3 or four times to make sure that he gets the answer he is looking for. Michael Moore allows his subjects to speak, but he is the one forming the questions. Similarly, he chooses what will be shown and in what order so as to create associations and meaning from the raw images as

In Michael Moore's movie, he leads an above-ground assault on the Bush Presidency, questioning his legitimacy, his character, abilities and, most of all, his attempt to fight terror through the war in Iraq. And similarly, his method of attack is by trying to bring to light the facts that those in power have tried to suppress.

The purpose of Fahrenheit 9/11 was to persuade the audience to believe that it was George W. Bush’s fault that 9/11 happened, along with trying to cover it up, not protecting America, and cheating his way to becoming president. According to the documentary Bush cheated in the election by having his cousin from FOX news say that he was the projected winner, which made all the other news stations say the same. The film spent most of its time talking about how George W. Bush didn’t fight terrorism. Towards the beginning of his presidency Bush cut terrorism funding from the FBI, he also received a security briefing which said that Osama Bin Laden was going to hijack airplanes.

The September 11 attacks were tragic events that had spread shockwaves of horror and grief across the United States. The tragedy became the subject of controversy as some skeptics began to doubt the details reported to have transpired that day. Some people question its legitimacy, theorizing that the Bush administration devised and orchestrated the attacks to further its agenda. Filmmaker Dylan Avery discusses and promotes this prevalent conspiracy theory in his documentary, Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup. Avery argues that the government possessed foreknowledge of the attacks by comparing them to precedents of similar situations. He challenges the official explanations and provides his analyzations of evidence from the reports and media. Avery effectively appeals to pathos, ethos, and logos in his film, but his compelling argument is ultimately undermined by fallacies.

Rhetorical Analysis of Michael Moore’s Sicko The American director, writer and liberal political activist, Michael Moore, is known for his controversial films such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Roger & Me and Bowling for Columbine, which won the 2003 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. He presents many of his views in his documentaries and in this essay, his 2007 film, Sicko, will be discussed. In Sicko, Moore used various of rhetorical analyses to demonstrate his thoughts on how the health industry in the United States have failed to care for their citizens, compared to the better healthcare in other countries such as Canada, Great Britain and France. In this documentary, techniques of Ethos and Pathos were used through testimonials to show how

The film experienced difficulty in distribution owing to the politically-confrontational nature of its content, and has provoked arguments and discussion at all levels over its polemic nature. A majority of said arguments were spawned in thanks to Michael Moore’s many techniques of persuasion and manipulation. Most of the protestors of the film argued about how, Fahrenheit 9/11 was a buffet of false histories, invented memories and fabricated fact. All

Michael Moore’s latest film, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” presents a critical look at the administration of George W. Bush and the War on Terrorism. In this film Moore investigates the rapid growth of the United States government and its trend of trampling the rights of individuals, and the corporatism that is spawned out of the close ties between big government and big business during wartime. Michael Moore may not convince all audiences, but is successful for its factual accuracy in which the evidence spoke for itself, and at the same time proclaimed Moore's artistry in transposing and splicing scenes to create impressions that supported his allegations and opinions. Michael Moore has employed two main techniques in an

Similarly, in “Bowling for Columbine”, Moore uses documentary filmic language to posit the dehumanisation of the American population under existing socio-economic paradigms, reflecting his neo-socialist political outlook, born out of disillusionment with the 1990’s Clinton Administration. Initially, Moore evokes the predictable American nature of public discourse through his nonchalant voiceover “the President ordered the bombing of another country we couldn’t pronounce”, which suggests the American populace’s total ignorance to the destructiveness of its government’s foreign policies, reinforced by the use of the song “What a Wonderful World” which allows Moore to ridicule American delusions of being international forbearers of civility. Subsequently,

Michael Moore used comical tactics as a way to appeal to his audience in this piece of literature. Michael Moore’s argument is that capitalism is destroying the nation’s economy rather than helping to develop it. The poor are suffering, while the richer are getting richer. The arguments that Moore used may not be considered tangible by all, but he definitely did have the evidence to support his argument. Michael Moore purpose was to expose this ground breaking issue of the dominance of corporate America through video. He used the web source as a source to get his message across because he knew the internet would be accessible to many people. Moore in this film used the different elements of reasoning to identify the message he was sending