The Moore Method

Documentaries are traditionally the sober stepchildren of movies, their makers are usually diligent folks behind the camera and in the editing room. With his 1989 Roger & Me, Michael Moore juiced up the genre by putting his bulky charisma front and center, pestering the powerful and using every trick in the propagandist's (and stand-up comedian's) arsenal to push home his political point. Fahrenheit 9/11 offers a crash course in an artful documentarian's sleight of hand. Five strategies in Moore Method:

COMEDY

His polemics often come with punch lines. On hearing that many members of Congress did not read the Patriot Act before voting for it, he rents an ice cream truck and drives around the Capitol reading the act over a loudspeaker

TRAGEDY

In the later parts of his film, Moore returns to his hometown, Flint, Mich., where Lila Lipscomb, whose soldier son has died in Iraq, begins to question, with great poignancy, what his sacrifice was for

INFILTRATION

Moore gets himself and his camera crews into situations you wouldn't expect. At one point, his lens tags along with two Marine recruiters as they go to a less-than-affluent shopping mall to troll for prospects

CONFRONTATION

In his familiar role as the little guy cornering big guys with tough questions, Moore asks flustered members of Congress (here John Tanner of Tennessee) to please send their kids to Iraq to fight in the war they voted for

SPECULATION

Pointed commentary drives his argument home. Onscreen, Bush lingers in a Florida classroom after learning of the 9/11 attacks. On the voice-over, Moore wonders if Bush was thinking about his Middle East connections