He says ‘Fahrenheit’s’ faux frenzy leaves him cold

Listen to Michael Moore, who made the film, or Miramax founder Harvey Weinstein, who personally bought it back from corporate parent Walt Disney Co. to shop its distribution elsewhere, and you’d think “Fahrenheit 9/11” had rocked the republic to its very foundations.

Now admittedly, these guys have been playing it very cute: Ever the canny marketers, they’ve been doing their utmost to start a buzz and keep it going, even if -- like the film itself -- there’s far less to it than meets the eye.

The campaign was launched in May with a fake controversy that saw Moore accuse Disney of belatedly getting cold feet over jeopardizing its Florida tax breaks under First Brother Gov. Jeb Bush (reporters later learned that Disney had formally declined a year earlier to distribute the blatantly partisan film; and only the Florida Legislature, not a governor, can change the tax code).

No matter. Too many in the media chose not to let facts get in the way of a good story. With almost touching naivete, some foreign journalists actually seemed to believe the director’s campfire ghost story that President Bush might personally succeed in suppressing his film.

The circus continued, with most reporters siding with the shambling, stubbly filmmaking David over the ruthlessly on-message administration Goliath.

Film critics, not previously known for their sophisticated grasp of complex foreign-policy matters or subtleties of constitutional law, generally pronounced themselves thoroughly persuaded by Moore’s message -- which, one suspects, they thoroughly agreed with before setting foot in the screening room.

Moreover, nothing succeeds like success, and “Fahrenheit 9/11” is indisputably the most commercially successful documentary of all time -- even if that only means, as New York Times columnist Frank Rich tartly noted, “that its ticket sales are whipping the bejesus out of ‘Winged Migration’ and ‘Spellbound.’ ”

A month after its opening, however, the film’s obviously got legs, and Moore is still busy stirring the pot -- sending a bouquet to doddering diva and “Fahrenheit” fan Linda Ronstadt last week to console her for getting bounced out of Las Vegas (and into a full-house Universal Amphitheatre show), and, on his website, touting a recent AP wire story headlined, “Republicans View High-Grossing Film as Political Headache.”

And just in case there’s any lingering confusion over their ulterior motives -- Weinstein’s disingenuous claim last month that “this is not about electing a candidate” notwithstanding -- Moore has officially taken off the gloves.

Interviewed by editor Gavin Smith in this month’s Film Comment magazine, the filmmaker declared, “I hope that people go see this movie and throw the bastard out of office. My mantra with the editors was, ‘We’ve got to make a movie where on the way out of the theater people are going to ask the ushers if they have any torches.’ ”

But are they? True enough, at the screening I attended a few weeks ago, one patron loudly proclaimed afterward that his first irrational impulse was to kill Bush. But if a recent Los Angeles Times poll (to my knowledge, the first) on the movie’s impact is any indication, most of the electorate takes a more measured view (“Public Keeping Its Cool Over Election Effect of ‘Fahrenheit,’ ” by John Horn, July 23).

Let’s do the math. The Times survey found that out of 1,529 registered voters, only 9% (137) had seen the film, 78% of whom (107) were Democrats and 6% (8) Republicans, with the remaining 9% (12) independents. 92% (126) planned to vote for Kerry, while 3% (4) were voting for Bush. 79% (108) said their minds were made up; 18% (25) were tilted toward Kerry, while an inexplicable 3% (4) reaffirmed their commitment to Bush.

What does this mean? Apparently, that the morning line may have been the safe bet after all: that “Fahrenheit” is mostly preaching to the choir, and perhaps a smattering of curious agnostics, rounded out by a few mischievous heretics -- hardly a crusade.

How else to interpret findings that suggest, in this self-selected film-going subset:

* Three out of four filmgoers walked in committed to Kerry.

* Nearly one in five of the remainder walked out leaning toward Kerry (and may well have walked in that way).

* Even among the tiny Republican contingent, only half were Bush voters (suggesting virtually no appeal or reach beyond Republicans souring, or already soured, on his presidency).

* None of the pro-Bush voters seems to have flipped.

Of course, it’s too early to predict the home-video factor. How many buyers or renters will be new, not repeat, viewers? Could anyone still interested in the film by then also have remained undecided? And who knows what other unknown, late-breaking factors could moot out entirely all this breathless speculation?

One thing already seems clear: Not for the first time have members of the media allowed their ideological bias, their hunger for controversy and their indifference to inconvenient facts compromise and undermine their reporting and analytical work.

Not unlike Michael Moore himself, when you stop and think about it.