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Created: April1, 2003
Latest Update: April 1, 2003
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Backup of Moore explains Oscar speechMoore explains Oscar speech
Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle(March 27, 2003) — Filmmaker Michael Moore knows he created a firestorm by denouncing President Bush and the war in Iraq at Sunday’s Academy Awards. But he believes he didn’t have a choice.
Expectations ran high for him to say something about the war. “Jack Valenti told me backstage afterwards that he wouldn’t have expected any less.
“I didn’t have a speech prepared, because I was convinced I was going to lose,” Moore said during a half-hour interview Thursday.
But when Bowling for Columbine was named best documentary, Moore knew he had to do something. He had already suggested to the other nominees that they join him on stage, as long as they agreed with his position against the war.
Then he went into a speech he’d given at smaller awards venues. His audience Sunday was huge. So was the reaction.
“Nearly everyone’s been great to me, from actors at the ceremony and the party afterward to people on the street. One lady in Flint, Mich., yesterday yelled ‘Go Bush’ at me.
“But that’s OK. At least people are thinking politically.”
Moore agrees that the Oscars ceremony is not normally a place for political commentary. “And if I had won the Oscar for a movie about birds or insects, I’d say something about them. But I made a movie about violence -- and global violence -- so I felt I had to say something about that.
“I just hope I generated a discussion about Mr. Bush and the war,” Moore added, as he leaned back in a chair in an office at the University of Rochester.
As for charges that his remarks were unpatriotic, Moore said, “It’s unpatriotic to remain silent when you believe something is wrong. Silence is duplicitous. I want all our soldiers to come home alive.
“Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator,” he added, “and I hope he’s removed as soon as possible. But nonviolently.”
Moore also believes he gave something up -- the chance to enjoy winning an Oscar. “But I love this country and I want it to remain free and open.”
His next project is guaranteed to be controversial. “I’m making a film called Fahrenheit 911, the temperature at which freedom burns. It’ll be about how Bush is using 9/11 and those 3,000 lost lives as an excuse to move along his own conservative agenda.”