Moore eyes Oscar gold
2004-09-07 08:22
Anthony Breznican
Los Angeles - Michael Moore says he won't submit Fahrenheit 9/11 for consideration as best documentary at this year's Academy Awards. Instead, he's going for the bigger prize of best picture.
Moore's critically acclaimed film slams President George W Bush's war on terror as lacklustre, ill-advised and corrupt. The movie has cheered Democrats but enraged the president's supporters, who booed Moore when he visited the Republican National Convention last week.
"For me the real Oscar would be Bush's defeat on November 2," Moore said on Monday.
In the midst of the presidential campaign, Moore's announcement is a strategic move for his Oscar campaign. Documentaries and animated films have their own categories, but the conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that those niche awards can limit a film's appeal in the overall best picture class.
Moore said he and his producing partner, Harvey Weinstein, agreed that Fahrenheit 9/11 would stand a better chance if they focused solely on the top Oscar.
So many documentaries - such as the fast-food satire Super Size Me, and the sober look at Arab television news in Control Room - have made the rounds in theatres recently that Moore, who won the best documentary Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, said he wanted to give others a chance at the honour.
"It's not that I want to be disrespectful and say I don't ever want to win a (documentary) Oscar again," Moore said. "This just seems like the right thing to do. ... I don't want to take away from the other nominees and the attention that they richly deserve."
Moore also hinted in a recent interview in Rolling Stone magazine that he would like Fahrenheit 9/11 to be shown on television at some point before the presidential election, to widen the potential audience.
According to the rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, playing on television would invalidate the film's eligibility in the documentary category, but not for best picture.
Still, with the movie coming out on DVD on October 5, it's not clear whether the television deal would happen.
On the net:
www.michaelmoore.com
- SAPA