Blah blah blah, so the fat blowhards have released the trailer for their upcoming incendiary film. Perhaps you've heard of it?
The cinetrix will be going to see the "documentary" when it opens, of course, even though the same night she saw Moore's gun violence exploration Bowling for Columbine, Jam Master Jay was shot dead. But after watching and, more to the point, listening to the Palme d'Or winner's trailer today, was I all exercised about Bush? No more than usual. But I was reminded yet again of my deep and abiding hatred for sanctimonious boomers like Moore and his ilk.
See, after some ersatz [or perhaps actual] Philip Glass urgent-urgent noodling and a hilarious clip of Ashcroft belting "Where eeeeeagles soooooar!' [thanks, Max], guess what music plays under Moore's assemblage of damning images? That's right, "All Along the Watchtower." Really. This is a classic [rock] example of what film music theorists would term an "affiliating" identification of the first water, banking on filmgoers bringing their external associations with the song into their engagement with this film. That Hendrix riff is every boomer filmmaker's favorite lazy leitmotif for bein' in the shit.
It's often been observed that a nation experiences a war through the lens of the one that came before. So you'd think our present little entanglement should be framed as Gulf War 2 [this time, it's personal], right? Ah, yes, the early 90s: Bush I, a recession, being part of the rhythm nation. Good times, man.
But what's happening instead is that the boomers are still fighting Vietnam. And not just because our current incursions seem to share a certain boondoogle/no exit strategy/hearts and minds profile, or because the presidential candidates are each in their own ways defined by their roles during that conflict. No, it's because--lest the rest of us forget for even a second--the Vietnam War was the defining moment of their young lives and one they continue to rehearse, examine, and valorize given the slightest of toeholds. Yeah, yeah. We got it already.
Know this, Michael Moore: When you drop the Hendrix guitar heroics, you may hear bad-ass, tear-it-up rebellion. Here's what I hear: "freedom rock" ads on late-night tv and a tired, bullshit mythologizing cliché.
The cinetrix for one says U.S. filmmakers out of cinematic "Vietnam." Try to come up with new ways to examine life during wartime.
UPDATE Filmbrain weighs in to let us know that the music may in fact be another "is that freedom rock? well, turn it up!" chestnut. All that patchouli hippie stuff sounds the same to me, so I'll let him take over:
I noticed that the music in question is not "All Along the Watchtower" but rather Ten Years After's "I'd Love to Change the World". Now, it's possible the music track was changed (maybe due to your post!) but it might have just been a mistake. The two songs do sound very similar.
....The Ten Years After song, while not as popular as the Hendrix tune, is a definite anti-Vietnam song, so the basis of your argument is still sound. Moore is a populist, always has been, always will be. I think he'd love to have an equivalent tune to use in the preview, but they don't seem to be writing anti-war songs like they used to. . .
Whereas it 'would' be great if there was the same sort of anti-Iraq War spirit as there was during Vietnam, that just isn't the case. Filling our heads with the tunes of that era aint' gonna change that either.
From the song:
Everywhere is freaks and hairies
Dykes and fairies, tell me where is sanity
Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more
World pollution, there's no solution
Institution, electrocution
Just black and white, rich or poor
Them and us, stop the war
I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to youMaybe that's what Moore is telling us?
