 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Bowling For Columbine
Synopsis
A profile of how Gun Culture has swept across America.
Review
An Oscar-winning documentary based around a 1999 massacre at an American
High School in Colorado, Bowling for Columbine is filmmaker Michael Moore's
take on the culture of firearms violence that is, apparently, peculiar
to the USA. Significantly, this is no detective investigation into the
psychology and motives of the two students who randomly opened fire on
their classmates, killing 12 of them--Moore regards such particulars as
practically irrelevant--rather, it's an attempt to counter the moral panic
and right-wing diagnoses that followed the massacre, with the likes of
rock star Marilyn Manson blamed by some.
Using a mixture of roving interviews, statistics, historical documentary
footage, cartoon animation and the set-ups familiar to fans of his TV
Nation series, Moore teases out appalling truths about gun proliferation
in America. He's able to obtain a rifle by opening a bank account and
shows that the bullets used in the Columbine massacre were still available
at KMart--until he confronts their management with victims of the shootings.
But it's not just gun proliferation that's the problem. Canada, Moore
discovers, is similarly rife with firearms yet has a far lower murder
rate. The problem with the US, Moore believes, is an irrational climate
of fear that has driven the country to reactionary extremes since the
days of the pioneers, persuading citizens that they need to be armed to
the teeth.
In a film short on lowlights, the highlight is Moore's confrontation
with NRA President Charlton Heston. Moore's deceptively genial, shambling,
regular American dude appearance (as well as his NRA membership) wins
Heston's confidence and Moore teases from the actor an inadvertently racist
slip of the tongue, before turning up the heat, at which point Heston
terminates the interview. In this moment, the sort of anger Moore demonstrated
at the 2003 Academy Awards ceremony surfaces briefly as he brandishes
a picture of a gunshot victim to the retreating Heston. Funny, shrewd,
righteous, hard to deny, Bowling for Columbine is uncomfortable and irresistible
filmmaking.
Languages
English