A few months after the 9/11 incidents, a large truck had an accident in northern Columbus, Ohio. As it was turning a corner, it slipped, turned over on its side, and ran into a restaurant. A large noise arose, frightening people in the neighborhood, and the police and fire units came to the scene. The next day, an article about the accident appeared on the front page of the local newspaper, The Columbus Dispatch. The headline, you ask? Not “Truck Slides, Slams Into Restaurant”, but rather a quote from a local resident, saying “We Thought It Was a Bomb.”
I bet director Michael Moore would have something to say about this headline. In his new documentary, BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, Moore examines the state of firearms control in the United States today, and one of the main conclusions he draws is that the pictures of violence painted by the news media perpetrate an atmosphere of fear that puts Americans on the defensive and causes them to react more rashly to the actions of those around them. Is he right? Maybe, but it’s pretty telling that firearms sales went up over 30% in the months following 9/11, when fear seemed to reach its apex in the United States.
Michael Moore, ever since his first documentary, has taken center stage in his work. He is a large, shambling man who dresses in casual clothes and a baseball cap, and approaches all of his documentaries from his perspective. His first film, ROGER AND ME, detailed the economic hardships of Moore’s hometown on Flint, Michigan, and Moore (who was often seen on camera), interviewed everyone from Newlywed Game host Bob Eubanks and Pat Boone to the man whose job it was to serve eviction notices for the sheriff’s office. Since that film, he has gained in notoriety, to the point where he actually manages to land an interview with NRA bigwig and movie star Charlton Heston.
However, Moore’s work has deeper political and social agendas. When he visits Littleton, Colorado, the home of Columbine High School, he notices its proximity to the Lockheed Martin missile plant, and wonders if maybe the fact that a local industry manufactures weapons of mass destruction might have had an effect on the Columbine killers. He also interviews rocker Marilyn Manson, a common scapegoat for violence in schools, who reveals himself to be well-spoken and insightful on issues of violence in this country.
What Moore seems to be saying, I think, is that American society has become paranoid, fearful of losses of liberty and, more importantly to some, property. News programs show stories of death and tragedy, and then cut to commercials which advertise nice cars and state-of-the-art appliances, and if you think about it, doesn’t this tell the viewers to protect their treasures from the criminals which lurk in society? Every time I drive past a gated community, I can’t help but think of that line from Gershwin’s PORGY AND BESS, “’fraid somebody’s goin’ to rob ‘em while they’s out a-makin’ more? What for?”
Moore also finds a tragedy closer to home, in his hometown of Flint, in which a six-year-old girl was killed in school by a classmate who took his uncle’s handgun. How does one account for something like this? The child was being raised by a single mother who was, like so many in impoverished Flint, employed as part of a work-for-welfare program. As a result of this program, she had to be bussed 80 minutes each day to and from a mall in Auburn Hills, Michigan, where she worked two jobs. “She leaves early in the morning and comes home late at night,” Moore says, yet even with these jobs she still couldn’t make enough money to pay her rent, and after her eviction, she moved in with her brother, who owned the gun used in the shooting. So who is to blame here?
One part of the film I found immensely effective was a montage of wars and foreign policy decisions from the past half-century, set to Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”. Some reviews I’ve read have criticized this song’s clichéd use in the film, but I think the context of the song makes it work. Also, the wide range of incidents (the Vietnam War, the ouster of Noriega, American funding of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein), made me think about how the United States has handled foreign policy post-9/11. Why must a tragedy on American soil turn us against the rest of the world, when it can serve as a common ground for us, a reason to reach out and embrace others who have experienced similar tragedy? Could it be the fear that Moore talks about in his film?
I’ve made BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE sound like a morbid experience, when in fact it’s anything but. Moore’s signature man-in-the-streets schtick yields some wonderful moments here, as when he applies for a loan in a bank which promises a free gun to all new members (understandably, he’s curious whether it might not be dangerous to be handing out guns in a bank). There’s also a hilarious sequence in which Moore contrasts American paranoia with the more laid-back people of Canada by going door-to-door, opening their unlocked front doors, and walking in uninvited. And people who remember Moore’s failed attempts to talk to General Motors chairman Roger Smith in ROGER AND ME will be surprised by the scene in which Moore and two injured survivors of Columbine enter KMart’s corporate offices and ask to refund the bullets in their bodies, with unexpected results.
Some have criticized Michael Moore of poor journalism in making this film. Yes, Moore is often less concerned with presenting a balanced story than he is with proving his point, but how is that any worse journalism than the headline I mentioned in the Dispatch? Moore has points to make, and like them or not he makes them and supports them with a great deal of evidence. He is a political filmmaker first and foremost, and I wouldn’t want to see any political film which pretended to be objective.
Moore wears his politics on his sleeve, never more so here than in the scene where he interviews Charlton Heston. Yes, Moore brings up issues which Heston may not wish to deal with, confronting him about the NRA’s rallies in both Columbine and Flint mere days after their respective school shootings, but Moore was making a perfectly reasonable point. Heston obviously knew Moore’s reputation, so why did he invite Moore into his home and then walk out on the interview? Remember in PULP FICTION, when Samuel L. Jackson says, “if my answers frighten you, you should cease asking scary questions”? Michael Moore proves that scary questions often answer themselves.
He s America s favorite whistle-blower, the man in everyone s face. And now he s setting his sights on our love affair with guns and violence in this ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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