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When The Fog of War, Errol Morris’s face-off with Vietnam War-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara snagged the Academy Award for best documentary feature last February, only a few of the millions of TV viewers recognized its victory as a harbinger of a tidal wave of politically oriented films.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, most people watch the telecast to ogle glamorous stars and root for embarrassing moments, not to debate the implications of the nonfiction prize. (We’ll skip over the fact that all the moviegoers who’d seen even one of the documentary nominees at film festivals or in theaters would fit comfortably in a hobbit’s lair.)

But even industry insiders interpreted Morris’s win not as a pointed political statement about the war in Iraq or President George W. Bush’s policies, but as a kind of (mid-) career achievement award. If a message did come with the statuette, it was a rebuke for the Academy’s failure to recognize any of the acclaimed filmmaker’s previous topflight documentaries—especially The Thin Blue Line—with so much as a nomination.

That’s not to suggest that The Fog of War didn’t win over voters with its precision craftsmanship, elegant structure and provocative content. Nor was there a scarcity of critics and commentators—joining Morris himself—who drew parallels between the disconcertingly self-confident McNamara and the equally self-assured Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary then (and still) presiding over the Iraq war.

Nonetheless, Morris’s triumph and his film’s contribution to the national debate were swept aside that late-winter night by the avalanche of Oscars amassed by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. However, another documentary maker would soon pick up the torch.

In late May 2004, Michael Moore’s blistering Fahrenheit 9/11 screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival—an unprecedented honor for a documentary—and, even more astoundingly, received a standing ovation and walked off with the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or.

Although headlines on the French Riviera rarely make an impression in the U.S., this one marked an exception. The buzz surrounding Moore’s full-frontal attack on President Bush built steadily from the doc’s European premiere through its American theatrical debut the Friday before Independence Day 2004. When it comes to promotion and media coverage, Moore is a worthy successor to P.T. Barnum, Harry Houdini and B-movie mogul William Castle.

The unabashedly partisan movie, which attacked Bush’s perceived failings before, during and after the attacks of September 11, 2001, galvanized citizens at both ends of the political spectrum. For the President’s detractors, Fahrenheit 9/11 played as a kind of alternative and revelatory newscast of his first three years in office. His supporters, meanwhile, attacked the film as inaccurate and mean-spirited.

When Fahrenheit 9/11 demolished every box office record for documentaries, selling more than $119 million worth of tickets and even topping Tom Cruise’s summer flick Collateral as well as M. Night Shyamalan’s latest high-profile suspense yarn The Village, there was no denying its success. The extent of its impact, however, was the topic of more intense debate.

Bush backers argued that Fahrenheit 9/11 preached to the choir, tapping into the existing constituency that had pushed left-leaning writers such as Al Franken, Greg Palast and Molly Ivins onto the bestseller lists. Moore’s camp responded that the film had reached military families, residents of small towns and others who had been in favor of the president and the war: people who did not typically flock to the local multiplex to see documentaries.

Moore’s unmistakable and unapologetic point of view in Fahrenheit 9/11 surprised and challenged moviegoers who expect documentaries to meet standards of objectivity. But even among those who embrace advocacy films, Fahrenheit 9/11 established a new benchmark and opened the door for the slew of aggressive documentaries that followed.

Several of these movies—Bush’s Brain, Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, Hijacking Catastrophe, There’s Something About W. and Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry among them — clearly share Michael Moore’s oft-stated aim of influencing the 2004 presidential election. Another group of films, though, tends to elaborate on a central theme of Fahrenheit 9/11 that had been largely uncommented upon in the hubbub, namely the failings in the mainstream media’s coverage of the Bush Administration. Control Room, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, The Hunting of the President, Persons of Interest and other films filled in some of the missing gaps in the media’s portrayal of the political landscape in ways that are both enlightening and disturbing.  Read More

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