Transcript F9/11 - ames.scot

Version 2: 11 November 2013
Rick Instrell
www.deep-learning.co.uk
[email protected]
Association for Media Education in Scotland
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Seven Key Aspects of Media Studies
TEXT
CATEGORIES
• medium, purpose, form, genre, style, tone, …
LANGUAGE
• technical & cultural codes, anchorage
encode
decode
NARRATIVE
• narrative structure & narrative codes
REPRESENTATION
• selection, portrayal, ideological discourses
AUDIENCE
• target audience
INSTITUTION
• mode of address
• internal context
TECHNOLOGY
• external context
• hardware, software, skills
• preferred reading
• differential decoding
CAPITAL
MEANING
TIME
LIVED CULTURE
select
Note: key aspects in BOLD UPPER CASE
• individual & social lives
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Or, in words
Media institutions, within media markets
and systems of regulation, create types of
text for specific target audiences. These
texts represent the real world through
narrative and ideological discourses. By
close analysis of media texts we can
understand how the text has been
encoded, the ways in which it is decoded
and how the text has been shaped by its
institutional, audience and socio-political
and ideological contexts.
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Key Aspect: Institution


internal context & effects
external context & effects
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Institution: Internal Context
How does the internal context shape the
text?
 Can conceptualise the internal context of
film production as a struggle between the
allocative and operational
(productive/creative) levels of control
 In film, this often comes down to who has
right of final cut
 In ‘authored’ documentaries, authorial
control and ‘authorial stamp’ must be
considered
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Michael Moore as ‘Auteur’: 1
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Michael Moore (MM) has authorial control
MM is an ensemble of signs connoting
‘ordinary guy’
Faux-naïf narcissist and entrepreneur
Inserts himself into public debates
Staged encounters with authority (‘big shots’
do what they want and don’t care about
‘ordinary folks’)
Dog Eat Dog Films Logo
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Michael Moore as ‘Auteur’: 2
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‘Gonzo’ journalist (in the style of Hunter S
Thompson: subjective reportage using sarcasm,
humour, exaggeration, distortion)
Speculations give enough information to cause
suspicion but not enough to make a case
Distorts facts to make his case
First-person polemic with punchlines
Excludes articulate opponents of his arguments
Mixes comedy and tragedy
Comic/ironic use of music
Funny, opinionated, sometimes eloquent
Expert editing and structuring of material with
bravura montages of archive material
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F9/11: Institutional Background 1
According to Edward Jay Epstein
 MM made unsuccessful approach to Mel Gibson’s Ikon
Productions in April 2003 (Moore claims White House
pressure)
 MM went to Harvey Weinstein at Miramax and contract
signed May 2003; MM given loan of $6m; 60% net profit
to charity
 Eisner vetoed distribution May 2003
 Weinstein saw rough cut April 2004 – asked Eisner to
reconsider; MM desperate to get film released; Eisner
concerned at use of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya footage
 May 5 2004 Moore releases story that Disney CEO
Michael Eisner concerned that film might jeopardise tax
breaks for theme parks, hotels, etc. in Jeb Bush’s Florida
 May 22, 2004: F9/11 wins Palme d’Or at Cannes
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F9/11: Institutional Background 2
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Disney allow Harvey and Bob Weinstein to buy film back
and set up short-lived company to handle distribution
(Fellowship Adventure Group)
Theatrical and DVD distribution out-sourced
Media buzz very strong (MM’s self-publicity; villains: Bush,
Eisner; Cannes triumph; MPAA appeal)
MM wanted its cinema, DVD release and tv broadcast
before Presidential election of 2 November 2004
MM gave permission for it to be downloadable via WWW
F9/11 now event movie - $228m worldwide box office – 3m
DVDs
Net profits: Disney: £46m split between Disney Foundation
and Miramax; $16m to Weinsteins; £21m to MM
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Institution: External Context 1
How does external context shape text?

Documentary features very popular in
cinemas in recent years
Bowling for Columbine (budget $4m,
US gross $21m)
Fahrenheit 9/11 ($6m, world gross
$228m)

These documentaries often feature
alternative viewpoints which receive little
coverage in mainstream news

Commercial success of BfC meant that
F9/11 found funding
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Institution – External Context 2

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US film ratings
governed by
Motion Picture
Association of
America (MPAA)
R and NC-17
ratings may
exclude keenest
moviegoers
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F9/11: Ratings
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Given an ‘R’ rating
Moore made very public appeal for PG-13
(thus generating more publicity)
But remained ‘R’ for “some violent and
disturbing images, and for language”
Concern for rating may have guided choice
of clips e.g. ELS of a beheading in Saudi
Arabia
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Poster & DVD Cover
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Key Aspect: Technology

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hardware
software
technical skills
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Technological Context
How does technology shape text?
 Light-weight cameras and sound
equipment, digital editing have
revolutionised documentaries
 Costs reduced because smaller crews
 Faster editing lowers costs (F9/11 1000h
of footage4h  2h, ideal length for
movie)
 Filmmakers spend more time making films
rather than finding co-production monies
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Technology: Images in F9/11
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Challenge of eye-matching source
materials that include Internet video
(320x240 at 12 fps), VHS, TiVo, HDTV into
24fps HD format
Editors wanted viewer to focus on film not
technical deficiencies
Used Teranex Standards Converter and
Snell & Wilcox Alchemist boxes to remove
problems like judder, blurring, smearing,
break up
Used Avid Unity LANshare to store 1000h
of files
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Technology: Sound in F9/11
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Problems: tight deadlines, multiple audio
formats of varying quality, last minute
changes
Sound treated in three phases: reduce
noise, sync to picture, mix to balance
sound with others
Used Digidesign Pro Tools 5.1 software for
sound mixing
Used EdiTrace software that creates a
sound edit decision list
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Key Aspect: Categories
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medium
purpose
form
genre
style
tone
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Categories: Medium
Role of media convergence (digital
convergence as well as
conglomeration)
 Film
 Television
 Internet video
 Multimarketing (DVD with extras,
books, audio books, website)

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Categories: Form
Fiction: narrative genre defined by
syntax (plots, conflicts) and
semantics (stock characters, setting,
props).
 Non-fiction: needs to be defined by
different criteria e.g. purpose,
subject, style, …
 Hybrids: mixing conventions of both

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Genre: Documentary Definitions
‘The creative treatment of actuality’
(John Grierson)
 ‘The art of record’ (John Corner)
 ‘Factual genres’
 Definitions have a tension between
realism and representation
(construction of reality)
 So could categorise documentaries
on their level or type of ‘treatment’

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Genre: Documentary Conventions
Documentary uses a set of conventions
which signify
‘realism’ (the documentary ‘look’):
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Archive footage and photographs
‘Talking heads’
Jiggly camera
Location shooting and sound
Voiceover narration (‘voice-of-God’)
Real people (may use actors in re-enactments)
Documentary editing which makes an argument
(cf. continuity editing of fiction) …
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Genre: Documentary Taxonomy
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Realist subgenres (minimal ‘treatment’)
e.g. ethnographic, cinema verité (direct
cinema)
Formalist subgenres (formal structure
imposed on material) e.g. tv news, current
affairs, tv documentaries
Subjective subgenres (individual
structure imposed on material) e.g.
poetic, personal, polemical, reflexive
Hybrids e.g. dramadoc, docudrama,
reality tv formats, mockumentaries
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Genre: Alternative Taxonomies
Can also categorise in terms of:
 Purpose: propaganda, social activism,
education, observation, analysis, insight,
aesthetics, drama, reflexivity,
entertainment, profit, …
 Subject: war, concert, nature, …
 Style: compilation, observational,
interactive …
 Authored: e.g. Nick Broomfield, Michael
Moore
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F9/11: Purpose - Propaganda
MM: “The ending of this move takes
place on November 2, 2004” (date of
US presidential election)
 Film, its marketing and distribution
(see later) designed to persuade
Americans to vote and to vote Bush
out
 How does propaganda work?

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Propaganda Tactics in F9/11: 1
Kelton Rhoads identifies these tactics:
 Omission: omit true or relevant information e.g.
Saudis were interviewed prior to leaving
 Association: juxtapose scenes so that we make
a connection; works well if that is what the
audience wants to see e.g. shot of Bush in 9/11
sequence
 Defining of In and Out Groups: Saudis are an
out group and Bush fraternises with them (‘us’ v.
‘them’)
 Cynicism: all politicians have selfish motivations
e.g. Bush more interested in playing golf and
making money than defeating terrorism
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Propaganda Tactics in F9/11: 2
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Traps (either way you’re screwed): e.g. Bush
ignore warnings about terror but he is issuing too
many about terror that have not materialised
Misuse of Cause and Effect: correlation does
not mean causation; most events are
multicausal. Propaganda ignores these facts e.g.
IF Bush in White House AND USA attacked by
terrorists THEN Bush caused 9/11
Emotional Identification with Converts:
Audience identifies with a character who
undergoes a U-turn. Makes movie feel true and
emotion overrules reason e.g. Lila Lipscomb
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Propaganda Tactics in F9/11: 3
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Distraction: keeps audience from thinking
rationally. IF there are many arguments THEN the
film must be right e.g. overwhelm audience with
statistics, documents
Pacing: distraction through fast cutting of
archive footage, film/tv clips, animation, graphics
with humour and music e.g. music cueing us how
we should feel about Bush, Bonanza scene,
flashing documents on screen that whose validity
cannot be assessed
Misuse of Numbers: IF numbers are quoted
THEN it must be true e.g. Bush on vacation 42%
of the time in first 229 days
Shutting Down Opposition: threatening
defamation suits; refusing to allow his own tv
interviews to be edited
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Categories: Tone in F9/11
Serious (Bill Nichols: ‘discourse of
sobriety’)
 Polemical
 Comic
 Satirical
 First-person colloquial narration in
laid-back voice – although a barrage
of sound/image may assail us, MM
the narrator doesn’t

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Key Aspect: Audience
target audience
 mode of address
 preferred reading
 differential decoding

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Audience: Target Audience 1
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MM says F9/11 primarily aimed at 50%
of US people who don’t vote: poor,
working class, single moms, young,
African Americans
This means that the film treats the
story within the familiar framework of
the private domain i.e. within a
personal individual framework (cf. mass
market tabloid press)
As with tabloids, there is extensive use
of humour and popular culture
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Audience: Target Audience 2
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But film obviously also aimed at leftists/
libertarians
Film also frames its story in terms of the
public domain i.e. concerning institutions
and institutional responsibilities (cf.
upmarket ‘quality’ press)
So gives statistics, deals with the political
and economic back story
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Audience: Mode of Address
Establishes relationship with audience by:
 Addressing ‘structure of feeling’ of audience
of audience by its subject matter (concerns
of Americans such as Bush’s election win,
9/11, political and corporate corruption,
wars)
 Uses direct mode of address (through MM’s
narration)
 Uses indirect mode of address (e.g. through
personal testimony of interviewees)
 Uses a general mode of address to appeal
to mass audience
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Audience: Preferred Reading
Intentional meaning of the film:

Bush is an idiot
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Bush’s business dealings affected US
foreign policy

“The war is waged by the ruling class
against its own subjects … to keep the
very structure of society intact.”

We must vote Bush out (the DO
SOMETHING invocation in the end titles)
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Audience: Differential Decoding
How do different audiences interpret the text?
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Many left-leaning viewers emotionally
affected by the film and found it
conformed their suspicions
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Right sees F9/11 as left-wing propaganda
full of falsehoods and deception
(e.g. www.bowlingfortruth.com, David
Kopel, Christopher Hitchens)

Marxist academics troubled by MM’s selfpromoting narcissism and inadequate
analysis of US foreign policy which is
partial, individualist, dehistoricised
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Key Aspect: Narrative
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narrative structure
narrative codes
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How the Narrative was
Constructed:
1
F9/11 constructed from “conceptual segments”:
GWB before 9/11
2.
GWB after 9/11
3.
Afghan and Iraq wars
These were divided into sub-segments (see
synopsis for a possible segmentation)
Segments put on large note cards to guide the
editors
Most segments are a montage of
images/sounds that contain a proposition
designed to affect the audience
1.
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How the Narrative was
Constructed: 2
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MM wanted to have a “narrative arc”
placed over material.
Considered using generic narratives (e.g.
horror, SF)
Residue of this is the individualist
narrative frame (character as causal
agent) with the hero (MM) chasing
villains (GWB, Saudis)
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How the Narrative was
Constructed: 3

Evident in the narrative conflicts
(symbolic code):
Us (good)
MM
Real people
Poor/powerless
Real people
Ordinary Americans

v.
v.
v.
v.
v.
v.
Them (bad)
GWB
Actors
Rich/powerful
Actors
GWB, Corporations,
Military, Saudi ruling
families
MM’s narrative resolution was meant to
take place in the real world with Bush
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being defeated on November 2, 2004
Formal Narrative Structures in
Documentary
Formal structures for documentaries:
1.
Narrative form: cause-effect event chain
e.g. Touching the Void
2.
Categorical form: sorts its referent into sub-/supercategories (cumulative/ contrastive/ developmental)
e.g. Life of Birds
3.
Rhetorical form: presents argument – look for
repetition of organisational refrain (e.g. ‘why did this
happen?’) e.g. Panorama
4.
Associative form: juxtapose sound & image so that
audience makes connections e.g. Koyaanisqatsi
(Bordwell & Thompson (2004)
F9/11 contains elements of all of these formal structures
but as a propaganda piece is best analysed as an
example of rhetorical form.
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Features of Rhetorical Form: 1
Propaganda films are likely to be
rhetorical
and present their argument by:
 Using direct address
 Expressing opinions rather than facts
 Suppressing other opinions
 Appealing to audience’s emotions
 Trying to make the audience act
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Features of Rhetorical Form: 2
The types of arguments used are:
 Source-centred: presenting the film
as a reliable source of information
e.g. reliable narrator, authoritative
sources
 Subject-centred: appeals to shared
beliefs about subject matter; uses
examples; uses rhetorical devices
 Viewer-centred: appeal to
emotions, logic
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Features of Rhetorical Form: 3
The typical structure of a text with rhetorical
form is:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Introduction to situation (F9/11: fraudulent
election, 9/11)
Discussion of facts (Bush, Saudis, wars)
Solutions (U-turns by Marine Corporal and Lila
Lipscomb – implication vote Democrat)
Summary epilogue (“The war is waged by the
ruling class against its own subjects … to keep
the very structure of society intact.”)
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Narrative Codes

Enigmatic code: MM as narrator
several times asks a rhetorical
question which the audience answers
e.g. MM (over shot of GWB sitting in
classroom): “Was he thinking, I’ve
been hanging out with the wrong
crowd? Which one of them screwed
me?”
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Key Aspect:
Representation
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selection
portrayal
ideological discourses
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Representation: Selection
Who and what is/is not selected?
 Curious omissions: UN,
neoconservative ideology, Al Qaeda,
Islamic fundamentalism,
Guantanamo Bay, support from Blair,
…
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Representation: Portrayal
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How are people, places, events portrayed?
Tends to lampoon rather than indict
MM’s determination to make us laugh
leads to a propensity for stereotypes e.g.
Bush as country bumpkin, foreign peoples
(e.g. Arab rulers, various countries in the
Coalition of the Willing sequence)
MM has a history of deception (in Roger
and Me, BfC and F9/11) –see Bordwell &
Thompson, Kopel, Hitchens
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Representation: Ideological
Discourses
Individualist ideology of F9/11
overdetermined
by:
 MM’s individualist demagoguery
 MM’s propaganda techniques
 ‘Tabloid’ approach aimed at prime
audience of the poor
 Narrative which casts Bush as villain
and fool
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Key Aspect: Language
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technical codes
cultural codes
anchorage
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Language: Technical & Cultural
Codes
What are the principal elements of
documentary
discourse? (Corner, 1996)
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Image modes: observation (minimal
intervention with profilmic event); interaction
(coding through mise-en-scène, composition,
shot type, framing, editing …); illustration
(supporting verbal discourse); association
(juxtaposition of images)
Speech modes: overheard exchange;
testimony; voiceover; to-camera address.
plus

Sound modes:
expressive/commentative/illustrative use of
sound/music
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Language: Anchorage 1
Bull’s eye schema (Bordwell, 1989): can be used to
conceptualise diegetic/non-diegetic interactions:
non-diegetic
representation
diegetic world
Characters/
people
commentative
expressivist
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Language: Anchorage 2
How do images and sound interact?
1.
Expressive: is the sound and/or mise-enscène expressive of the action? e.g.
reflecting the inner states of the
characters
2.
Commentative: does the sound and/or
mise-en-scène comment on the action?
e.g. ironic comments/music,
distanciation
3.
Illustrative: images may be used to
illustrate the argument in the voiceover
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F9/11 Sequence
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Uses Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memory of
Benjamin Britten
Perfect complement to images
(expressivist)
“an elegy of great beauty and feeling. It
opens with the tolling of a distant bell,
which is gradually enveloped in a threnody
of cascading A minor string scales.
Individual instrumental strands entwine
around each other and seem to enfold the
listener in a tonal shroud.”
Robert Layton
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F9/11 Segment Analysis
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Analyse a ‘conceptual segment’ in terms
of technical/cultural codes and anchorage
What is the proposition/effect in that
segment?
What propaganda tactics has it used?
How does that segment relate to others in
the overall argument?
Relate the segment to intertextual,
institutional, audience and/or social
contexts
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References
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Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin (2004) Film Art: an
Introduction (7th edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Cousins, Mark (2004) Fahrenheit 9/11: Sight and Sound Review.
www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/2004_09/fahrenheit.php
Epstein, Edward Jay (2005) Paranoia for Fun and Profit: How
Disney and Michael Moore cleaned up on ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’.
www.slate.com.
Hitchens, Christopher (2004) Unfairenheit 9/11.www.slate.com.
Kopel, David (2004) Fifty-nine Deceits in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’.
www.IndependenceInstitute.org.
Laskowski, Nicole (2004) Michael Moore and ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’.
www.ejumpcut.org
Moore, Michael (2004) The Official ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Reader.
London: Penguin.
Rhoads, Kelton (2004) Propaganda Tactics and ‘Fahrenheit
9/11’. www.workingpsychology.com
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