Box Office Shepherds

Mel Gibson and Michael Moore made very different movies with the same message: The truth shall make you free

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    The controversies are receding now, but the profits are still coming in. Gibson and Moore are like two kings in their countinghouses, figuring out where to go next with the much increased means they have to change the world. Gibson, who has also moved heavily into TV production with the ABC sitcom Complete Savages, the CBS drama Clubhouse and the UPN drama Kevin Hill, has talked about making a film about the rebellion of the Maccabees, the Jewish heroes of the Hanukkah story who defeated the Syrian Greeks and then rededicated the holy temple in Jerusalem. Moore is already at work on Sicko, a documentary about health care in the U.S. "I'm able now to do what I want to do," he says. "And I don't need the stamp of approval from a large studio to do it." And then there's the prospect of a Fahrenheit 9/11 sequel, another angry romp through the pitfalls of empire and homeland security. "I'm not sure what it will be yet," Moore says. "We'll just start gathering film and shooting. We started Fahrenheit 9/11 halfway through Bush's term. This time we'll be paying attention from the beginning."

    For all their similarities, in the end what Moore and Gibson produced were films with radically different objectives: Gibson's was constructed to promote faith, Moore's to inspire doubt. The Passion of the Christ is the story of a man who submits himself to his fate, who tells God, "Let your will be done." And by its power the film is effectively an invitation for the viewer to submit as well, to join God's side in a cosmic battle. "If you believe," Gibson has said, "you believe that there are big realms of good and evil and they're slugging it out." Though he didn't mean his film to be a recruiting device for any particular political party, its huge success further galvanized evangelical Christian groups at the very time they were pressing forward with their "moral values" agenda.

    Fahrenheit 9/11, meanwhile, is the work of a man who sees the present in no less apocalyptic terms. But he thinks of the contending forces not as supernatural but more as bad guys who operate behind a veil of secrecy and illusion. And so Moore made a movie to pierce the veil, one opposed to faith, at least faith in government. Opposed to obedience too. It was a call to arms to resist the course of events set in motion by the disputed first election of George W. And because Moore dropped his film into the middle of campaign season, it also became a novel weapon in that resistance. No one had ever done that before, made a film for theatrical release as a means to influence a U.S. election. As you will have noticed, the election didn't go the way Moore had hoped. But Moore may have invented a new political tradition: the documentary as campaign spitball. If partisan nonfiction films become a standard feature of American presidential elections in years to come, we will have Moore to thank for that.

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