Bowling for Columbine
On April 20, 1999, two students walked nonchalantly into Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado. Thus began a murder spree as the students fired over 900 rounds of ammunition and lobbed homemade bombs throughout the school. They killed 12 students and one teacher before commiting suicide. That same day the U.S. dropped more bombs in Serbia than any day in recent....
On April 20, 1999, two students walked nonchalantly into Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado. Thus began a murder spree as the students fired over 900 rounds of ammunition and lobbed homemade bombs throughout the school. They killed 12 students and one teacher before commiting suicide. That same day the U.S. dropped more bombs in Serbia than any day in recent history. In this documentary, Michael Moore looks for the reason why America's culture is so violent,exploring the gun culture, the nation's bloody history and its foreign policy.
Michael Moore's approach to the documentary is to let the audience come to their own conclusion. In each section Moore examines issues that either affect or are an effect of America's gun obsession, and presents interviews with people on bot sides of the argument, from gun-crazy militia to relatives of the victims of gun crime. It's not easy viewing - footage from many real crimes is included, with extensive time given to the events of Columbine High School. What I believe this does is involve the casual observer in the issue. If you skip past the first section without paying much attention, you are soon deeply concerned about the issue, and it becomes compulsive viewing.
I was very pleased to see that Moore tries to peel the media's view away and look at the real issues without the 6 O'clock headline approach. The interview with Marilyn Manson (the media scapegoat for the Columbine tragedy) is an honest and interesting section which does great credit to both involved. Moore's direction is excellent, as he builds sections around interviews and reinforces with newsreel footage and his own commentary. If he doesn't present a rounded view of the problem, then I didn't notice.
I think as a Brit the entire documentary is shocking. Gun's aren't part of the British culture and even living in a village surrounded by farmland I never even see a farmer with a shotgun. My job takes me to airports regularly and it still makes me uncomfortable to see police with handguns, so to hear how strongly the American nation feels about firearms as a form of protection is quite amazing. At one point a woman says "You call the police because they are armed. Why bother? Get your own gun and cut out the middle-man!" And she says this whilst holding her 3 year old daughter! This is just one of the many times during the documentary that I was absolutely stunned at what I was hearing.
Of course you have to take in to account that you are seeing Moore's perspective on the situation, but he does try to balance the views by comparing the problem with other countries, particularly Canada, where the city of Windsor, overlooking Detroit on the other side of the Detroit river, has a crime level so low that the Windsor Chief of Police couldn't remember the last gun crime!
I think to talk more about the documentary would be to give away too much, but hopefully from my comments you can see that this documentary is and informative, surprising and, ultimately very sad portrait of a nation that has a serious problem.
As for the DVD, the film is presented as well as can be expected for a documentary filmed for the most part on hand-held cameras. At times grainy, the picture is as sharp as the original media allows. The soundtrack never tests the format, but is cleverly used to enchance the emotional impact of some key scenes, such as the Columbine footage. Other than a trailer, the disk has no extra features. This is disappointing, I would imagine that Moore has a lot to say that could be added on a commentary. Also the French release has additional interviews and press release footage, but unfortunately us Brits are denied this. Despite the lack of extras, this is essential viewing. If you want to understand a little more about why the US seems to take to arms at every opportunity, or the reason for it producing increasingly violent movies, or you just want to learn a little about the world you live in, this is for you.
This page has been read:
4126
times