At Trump's rise, Michael Moore sees Hitler's features



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TORONTO – At the premiere of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 11/9", the director's passionate and prodigious documentary about Donald Trump and the conditions that led to his presidency, Moore staged several students from Parkland, Florida. . "Generate hope!" Launched a member of the public.

"No, I'm against hope," corrected Moore. "Hope was at the time with Obama. I am for a generation of action.

Moore's latest film is, in appearance, predictable. That the 64-year-old activist filmmaker turns his camera on Trump's rise will not surprise anyone. What else could he do about the Democratic leaders, President Barack Obama and even himself? "This film talks about us as much as about Trump," he said in a recent interview in his New York office where he was frantically finishing "Fahrenheit 11/9". Outside of a table quoted Walt Whitman: Resist a lot, obey little.

"I want each of us to discover: What was our role in not stopping long ago? And who are we as Americans? Said Moore.

But even though Moore finds much to celebrate in the film – the Women's March, the West Virginia Teachers' Union strike, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Congress candidate – he is gripped by desperation. He feels that America is hanging by a thread, and that Trump is a national emergency – real or artificial – far from taking authoritarian control. In scenes where his critics will be inflamed, Moore takes a deep look at Trump's comparisons to Hitler, including playing Trump's audio at a rally on a black-and-white video. a Hitlerian speech.

For Moore, the present moment is also precarious.

"I'm generally very optimistic that I think a film can have an impact and that we're going to get away with it, whether it's the Iraq war, the mass shooting, the collapse of the middle class. " If I were completely honest with you, I can not tell you. That's not what we lived, "said Moore, scratching his head under his cap. "I wonder, in the new world order – including the possibility of a two-term trump – is this the last movie?"

Just like Moore before the election warned the Liberals that they did not take Trump seriously, "Fahrenheit 11/9" is an urgent call to action. "It goes beyond voting," he says. He wants people not to sleep at night after seeing him. He wants people on the street.

Toronto's film critics widely praised the film as Moore's most vital film in years and a "well-deserved punch," though others questioned whether his Hitlerian rhetoric was not too extreme . A more conservative reaction outside the world of left-wing cinema was, as expected, less enthusiastic. The Drudge Report reacted in response to Moore's comparisons with Hitler for Trump: "This is war."

The film, which will be released nationwide on September 21, is a continuation of Moore's George W. Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11", which is still one of the best documentaries in the box office. The date this time refers to the early morning when Trump was declared winner of the 2016 election.

Moore reserves some of the harshest criticisms in "Fahrenheit 11/9" for Obama, which he says has paved the way for Trump. Although Moore still considers voting for Obama one of his best days as an American citizen, he says he was crushed when the former president came to his hometown of Flint, Michigan, and tried to calm down the situation. Indignation provoked by the water crisis.

And Moore thinks Obama has spent too much time on the sidelines since leaving the White House.

"All that's good for him should be on the line right now," Moore said of Obama. "This kind of retired president, former statesman – we do not have time to lose. He should not want history to record his role now as silence. History does not seem to like the good Germans who were silent.

Obama on Friday made his most critical comments on Trump, accusing him of "capitalizing on resentment" and urging voters to go to the midterm elections.

But for Moore, Flint's story is a symbol of the poisoning of American democracy. He does not have his own regrets. In the film, Moore re-enacts a meeting of his years with Trump and Roseanne Barr, notes that Jared Kushner organized a premiere for his film "Sicko" and that Steve Bannon – who showed his admiration for Moore's film, if not his politics – contributed to the distribution of the DVD for one of his films.

"Hitler and Trump are not the same thing. But you make a stupid mistake if you do not look at at least history and schemas of history and how manipulation of fear, manipulation of public works, explains Moore. "I am not a person falling from the sky. I do not believe in conspiracy theories. But I am conscious enough to see what happens. And all those who still think "it's not so bad," "it does not matter, it's time to wake up."

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Follow Jake Coyle on Twitter at the following address: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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