Guardian Unlimited Film | From hit to miss

Guardian Unlimited Film | From hit to miss: "First Disney dropped Michael Moore's anti-Bush blockbuster Fahrenheit 9/11. Now it's got a huge patriotic flop on its hands. One is a film that celebrates the wholesome things in American life: men on horseback, women weaving tapestries, oil well firefighters in Texas. The other is a film that highlights the strength and resilience of the American people even when its government is conspiring against it: mothers of teenage war veterans, hopeless youths stuck in middle America, trusting border guards patrolling remote frontiers for no apparent reason.
One is the sort of film that Disney would like to be involved with. The other is the sort of film that Disney would go to great lengths not to be involved with.
America's Heart and Soul, a patchwork of moving and heartwarming vignettes of regular American eccentrics, was released in the US by Disney on July 2, just one week after Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 had been put out by an independent group set up by the Disney employee and Miramax chairman Harvey Weinstein.
Disney had famously passed up the opportunity to release Moore's film, even though the studio had helped to finance it. The ensuing ruckus, revealed by the film's director just a few days before its Cannes premiere, gave an undreamed-of boost to the fortunes of Fahrenheit 9/11. The rest is now part of movie lore: the documentary took the Palme d'Or and, despite a restrictive rating in the US, is very close to being the first documentary to break $100m at US box offices. Its success in the US has been mirrored around the world. "


Dan Glaister