Bowling for Columbine (2002) (1 Viewer)

[Eric Fisher]

well.. according to Forbes, there is a fair amount of misrepresentation of the facts in the movie.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/12...requestid=6287
also, Moore's relationship between Canada and the United States is much too generic and certainly isn't universally true. For example, in my state, we probably have the easiest access to guns in the nation, yet we have lower crime than most of Canada. This obviously throws a wrench into Moore's reasonings.
If there is any single factor that best corresponds to crime and gun crime, its probably population density.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Eric, I read the Forbes article and I would observe that many members (including me) have already observed in this thread that incidents in this film have been compressed or altered for cinematic purposes. The example cited by the article that references ‘open an account and get a free gun’, has not been mentioned specifically in this thread, and may have some interest for those requiring exact matching of facts and film, but as the irony ;pointed out by Moore in that a bank is giving away guns remains sound and humorous. I think it matters little if you have to buy a long-term CD or open an account to get the gun, though I acknowledge others may disagree. The requirement for the background check, is by the way, acknowledged in the film, as is the fact that the mother of the child (who shot the other child) in Flint, sent that child to live in an environment with a gun (I don’t recall that drugs were mentioned).

As I notice two factual errors in the article you reference in the last two items presented, I am doubtful if the author actually saw the movie he purports to question.

I would cite the portion of this article referencing Lockheed as another example of irony in Moore’s film. I do not recall that the film actually seriously speculates that the rocket assembly in Littleton is a cause of the shooting at the school. I thought that the portion of the film where Lockheed representatives were questioned to be quite restrained and reasonably (thought not perfectly) respectful. Again, others may have seen the same footage and disagree. However as to the irony, there is no doubt of Lockheed’s position as a weapons maker (note that there is nothing necessarily wrong with this, and it is not implied in the film that there is) and that this manufacturer is located so close to the location of the shootings.

Moore, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many in this thread, is trying to observe our cultures obsession with violence, murder and in particular with murder by guns. Again, in my opinion (and some others) he makes the point that one (not the only, or even perhaps the main) reason is ‘fear’.

Given that this is (I believe) one of his thesis, it is fair enough to point out components of that fear.


Finally as to the population density idea that this contributes to crime and gun crime, it was not an idea included in the film, and it is therefore difficult to consider properly. It would be interesting to observe the murder rate due to guns in places such as Hong Kong, Singapore, São Paulo, Tokyo, Seoul and many other places where I’ve lived and worked in safety, in any such comparison.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Frankly, I wouldn't count on the writers nor audience for Forbes to be really objective. Remember how much time Michael Moore spends fighting corporate evil, and who reads Forbes? Corporate executives!

 

[Brian Kidd]

I agree with Jeff. You can read two stories on the same topic with one in a typically conservative periodical and the other in a typically liberal periodical and come away with two totally different views. I'm just glad that the film is causing people to discuss the issue.

 

[Mark Pfeiffer]

I found this quote in an article on salon.com about the show Trading Spaces, but it approrpriately addresses one of the issues brought up about this film.

From the most innocuous documentaries (the most insipidly dry nature show) to the most argumentative nonfiction shows (anything by Michael Moore) to trusted sources of information (your local news), documentaries and other forms of nonfiction TV are all about shooting and editing footage that pushes viewers in a certain direction. Raw footage is not television -- it's a home movie.

 

[Phil Florian]

Man, that Forbes article was horrible! It was really contrary to what the film portrayed and I have to agree that the author in no way saw the movie. Maybe heard a friend say "there was this story..." and decided to write an article about it. It is interesting what people come away with, though. The story about the boy who found the gun and murdered a classmate in Flint did answer the question of why he was with relatives...the mother was evicted and had no where to go. And to make ends meet, she wasn't able to supervise the child in the home (says Moore, of course). And Moore didn't walk into the bank and walk out with a gun. They show him getting the CD, doing the background check and THEN leaving with a gun. Lastly, Moore doesn't imply or suggest that the two Littleton kids WERE at bowling class, but clearly asked about it: "Were they there? Were they in the parking lot?" Again, I think that wasn't the point at all of his inquiry into this. Poorly done, Forbes. Though, I must thank the poster for that article. It is the kind of thing has been hard to find online right now about the film.


Phil

 

[Derek Miner]

Something that I find fascinating (and I don't recall seeing this in either BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE thread) is that this one Michael Moore film inspires many different people to criticise or defend Moore's methods or assertions, but the more ubiquitous and influential realm of broadcast journalism is hardly ever criticised as strongly. It's an irony that I think Moore would appreciate, as such criticism is very prevalent in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE.

I was also thinking about the nature of "documentaries" and whether they are responsible for being honest or not. Here's a comparison I bet you'd never imagine being spurred by BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE discussion: I had some issues with a documentary called TREKKIES, ostensibly just a lighthearted look at Star Trek fans. But I had some sneaky suspicions that some of the film was staged with actors. I had no proof, but something just felt "off."

However, in the time since the film's release, I have witnessed a couple of the participants in the film appear in other venues. If you saw the film, you might remember "Richard Kronleid," who appeared to be an anti-social weirdo who travelled around town in a replica of a futuristic wheelchair that covered nearly the entire body and asked odd questions of Radio Shack employees. Well, this person (whose real name is Rich Kronfeld) went on to write, produce and star in the "game show" Let's Bowl for Comedy Central and travel to Roswell, New Mexico for a satirical documentary (produced by the director of TREKKIES) about a festival celebrating the alleged alien crash in that town. I found it hard to believe that this person profiled in TREKKIES would be savvy enough to transition into a career in Hollywood on a lark.

So essentially, I'm accusing the producers of TREKKIES of using an actor to invent a stereotypical view of Star Trek fans.

Nobody's ever really agreed with my asessement of TREKKIES (and most people don't care, to be honest), however the feeling that I had been blatantly deceived was annoying. The funny thing is that I don't feel upset with Michael Moore for BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE or ROGER & ME, and so I realized I'm at least a bit of a hypocrite. However, I will say that whatever Moore's tricks may be, I don't believe he has ever tried to pass off an actor as a real person, which I would take issue with. (Well, that is unless you count something obvious, such as that crime-fighting chicken he used on TV Nation)

Just some food for thought...

 

[Jack Briggs]

Without diverting from the film at hand, Derek, I'd have to say Trekkies seems very on the level to me. I've had the dubious experience of interacting with some of the franchise's more obsessive fans, and the portrait offered by the documentary is uncomfortably close to reality.

Anyway, interesting point you raise.

 

[Kevin M]

I had a friend at work who was a huge trekie (Trekey..Treker..whatever ) and he pointed out the Trekies / Let's Bowl connection and that he was offended that the film was trying to offer an unrealistic view of how trekies really live. I asked him if he had ever seen the Bruce Campbell docu-short Fanalisis....he rolled his eyes and said that was faked too....
Let's start a new thread to talk about both these films.

 

[Phil Florian]

I finally found a nice commentary on Bowling for Columbine that I hadn't seen yet...an honest to goodness review of the information, not just a love it/hate it sort of response. It came from an NPR show called "On the Media" and it aired 12/7. Here is a link to their website:
http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/
Halfway down the page is the story (at least for now). The links to the realaudio or transcript aren't up yet (show just aired) but it promises to be this week. What I liked about it was that the person made good points on the weaknesses of Michael's arguments but also pointed out the strong points (usually the debate flows in one or the other direction). It also pointed out missed opportunities. One that I found interesting was this: Mr. Moore points out that Canada has tons of guns like the US but has nowhere near the amounts of gun-related deaths. Mr. Moore figured it was that their news wasn't covered with the fear-provokings stories that the US shows were. This is true, but in all the border cities (Windsor, as an example) the viewers there actually rather tune in to US news shows, not their native ones.
What the On the Media reported pointed out, though, was that Mr. Moore could have used the more startling statistic: 3/4 of Canada's guns are hunting weapons only. Handguns are much much harder to get a hold of and many of them there were bought illegally in the US. Also, gun owners are licensed (a position resisted by the NRA in the US...which makes it odd that Mr. Moore didn't bring this up). Very neat discussion. Worth a listen/read.
Phil

 

[Phil Florian]

Okay, way off topic...but it came up...Re: Trekkies. First, I agree that some folks have appeared elsewhere (the "Six Days in Roswell" and bowling show guy, for one) but I also agree that Trekkies is pretty much on the nose with the potential levels of fandom. Sure, not every person who watches Star Trek has uniforms, wears them to court, has Trek sexual fantasies, etc. But c'mon, it's out there. One trip to a local convention will show it is true.

I did see the kid who was in Trekkies who had his eerily named spin-off proposal (Nemesis...hmmm) and new costume. He showed up on the Comedy Central Show "Beat the Geeks" as the...you guessed it, Trek Geek. He was a bit older than the movie but still had his new prototype costume on and everything. And he ruled. Naw, Trekkies was dead on. Skewed for the sake of fun viewing, but by no means stretching any reality.

Phil

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Yes, while it's true that Ms. Crosby chose the freakiest of the freaky, I'm 100% positive they're all real.

Likewise, Mr. Moore has no need to stage anything with actors, as the facts can be checked quite easily as to what actually occurred

 

[Oliver]

Reading this hole thread and being a person that can see this matter from the outside, what really surprises me is that in this thread no one attends to dig the problem to the ground.
Unfortunately to change this there is no way of preventing analyzing the political situation in your country. Which is however prohibited in this forum.
Please keep in mind that only the government is being given the power to lead in one direction or the other. It is definitely just a matter if they want it or fell getting an advantage not to do so.
This "Film" should provoke a discussion wheresoever there has to be radical change in politics or not.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Well, let's not go there.

 

[Seth Paxton]

we probably have the easiest access to guns in the nation, yet we have lower crime than most of Canada. This obviously throws a wrench into Moore's reasonings

Um, did you watch the film to its entirety?
Clearly the point he was trying to make was, in fact, that you can't blame the ease of access to guns for all the violence BECAUSE Canada was more of a gun country with easy access to guns, yet with much lower violence.
SO it actually backs Moore's reasonings on that aspect.
I haven't really posted here since I saw the film, but I thought that it was not only excellent filmmaking (very entertaining), but that Moore was very good at showing many facets of the problem and debunking (if he didn't cheat on facts) many popular theories from BOTH SIDES of the debate.
I heard violence in cinema, music, etc questioned, I heard access to guns questioned. Both theories are presented as "wrong" within the film. And in the end he probably puts forth the strongest attack against the POPULAR PRESS (which is generally, though obviously not entirely, leaning more toward liberal ideals, politically speaking). Creative media, films, journalism, etc are more often associated with that side of things (Hardball excluded ).
But in the same breath he seems to be tying the media to big biz (associated with the conservative right normally) in cohorts together to make money by spreading fear. To me that summarizes his entire approach within the film, no side goes unchecked.
In fact, the only attack he leveled against the NRA that I detected was in the apparently unsympathetic approach of staging NRA rallies in cities that have just experienced children/gun violence.
Now to be honest I think it is probably pretty obvious WHY such a thing would happen: the NRA would see those cities as hotbeds of anti-gun ownership talk following such a tragedy (which is understandable) and they would want to make sure that their side of the debate was not lost in all the emotion following such a terrible event (also very understandable - the NRA's worries I mean). I was surprised that Moore didn't present such a theory.
Doesn't make it pleasant for the city to deal with, doesn't even mean it really is the best move for the NRA in terms of showing sympathy. But there is at least a reason to it that politically makes a great deal of sense (in a war/debate you would send "troops" to the hottest combat zones, not avoid them).
Of course, Moore does ambush Heston simply because Moore has all these specifics ready to go yet hasn't given Heston a heads-up on them so that he might have EQUAL time to prepare as Moore has. Heston also starts to make a misstep I notice, but then retracts (in regards to racial mixing causing violence), so I don't think he comes off looking stupid or "out of it". He's just put into a tough spot. There is no way Heston is going to want to say what I just said above in regards to why the NRA targeted those cities because it does sound unsympathetic. Then again I'm not all that sure that "we didn't realize" sounded any better.
I don't fault Moore for doing it, it's how he works. And to me he ambushed Kmart just as much, but since they have a frontline of defense to hold him off for awhile, they DO have time to regroup and address him. Perhaps had Heston filtered him through some handlers first he also might have come off looking alright.
I agree that Stone and Manson have the most insightful and interesting moments within the film. They come off as very well spoken and deeply thoughtful people. Of course that didn't surprise me very much considering both of their artistic outputs in relation to social commentary. Clearly both spend a great deal of time thinking about such social problems and presenting their opinions on such things within their art.
All in all, I don't see nearly the political agenda that people claim. I simply see a guy saying "WTF is going on here" and finding out that there are few answers.
In the meantime his ability to swing from laugh out loud humor to shocking silence all with the same thoughtful touch made for powerful filmmaking IMO.
I actually thought he was directing the film in a certain flow, a definite direction rather than just bouncing around. And that direction was to establish the real horror of gun violence, then to debunk current "reasons" for such violence, and then to present his own theory. And along the way he also seemed to say that above all, where is the sympathy for the victims in all of this, and not just from the NRA, but also the media.
I certainly left thinking mostly on those 2 points - where is the sympathy and are we being fed fear.
My fiancee and I have long joked about how our local news makes the silliest stories into "critical items" on a daily basis, so we certainly identified with that aspect of this film.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

He ambushed Dick Clark. Heston had a full 24 hours to prep

Heston knew EXACTLY who Moore was, therefore, he should have been prepared for the kind of interview he was likely to get. He didn't prepare, and it's his own fault.

 

[Eric Bass]

Heston knew EXACTLY who Moore was, therefore, he should have been prepared for the kind of interview he was likely to get. He didn't prepare, and it's his own fault.

I really found the Heston scene to be shameless button pushing to provoke a reaction.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

More like Moore was trying to hit Heston while he had face to face time and try to trigger his concience

 

[Oliver]

All in all, I don't see nearly the political agenda that people claim. I simply see a guy saying "WTF is going on here" and finding out that there are few answers.

Well, actually that is quite simple to understand. If you would live in a country where the people getting your tax would put that money in it's population security, those would not have to arm and defend themselves. Believe me, this works quite well in Europe.
However, I will admit that this is much easier said then done. But I definitely find it mad to give access to arms, which is nothing less then a killing instrument, to the whole population. Am while I say this, please take in account that I have been 12 years in the army and perfectly know what firearms can cause and do not question their necessity (And this is one of the most sad things of all).

 

[Patrick Larkin]

If you would live in a country where the people getting your tax would put that money in it's population security, those would not have to arm and defend themselves.

This is exactly what the NRA does NOT want to happen. Some believe that it is a dangerous thing for only the government to have guns - which could lead to fascist oppression.