Webster University
Media and Mass Culture:
Moore Takes Aim in Bowling for Columbine
MEDC5981, Section 1
Instructor: Art Silverblatt
Anne Bader
12/10/02
Michael Moore is angry; his outrage finds expression in humor. The press has anointed him variously as Iconoclastic Lefty, Troublemaker, One-man Insurrection, Provocateur, Firebrand, and Clown Prince. With deadly precision, he skewers his targets, a sampling of which includes General Motors, the National Rifle Association, the U. S. President (a.k.a. “Thief-in-Chief”) George W. Bush, Nike CEO Phil Knight, the state of Florida, all defense contractors, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Republicans and – gasp! – the Democrats.
What is it about this scruffy bear of a man (at 6’2” and 260 pounds, he believes his size is an asset when barging uninvited into corporate headquarters) who pokes and prods where traditional media fear to tread? How does he remove the documentary from the “doomed to PBS” category, win awards, and make unprecedented profits in this sleeper genre?
A college dropout, Moore delivers his messages skillfully through a wide variety of media. To date, he has penned the best-selling books Downsize This! and Stupid White Men; created two television series (TV Nation and The Awful Truth), founded and edited alternative newspaper Flint Voice/Michigan Voice and edited (briefly) the national magazine Mother Jones. He has served as a commentator on National Public Radio's “All Things Considered”. He wrote and directed a comedy film, Canadian Bacon. His comprehensive website, www.michaelmoore.com, is a model of activist communication. According to a letter Moore posted there on November 27, 2002, the site receives over two million hits daily. In June, 2002, Moore signed a two-book deal with Warner Books; the deal is reportedly worth about $3 million. One of the books is to be a personal memoir, and the other, due in fall of 2003, will concern voter issues in the 2004 election (Baker). Currently, running through December 8, Moore is even trying his hand at live theatre in London, performing in Michael Moore Live! A One and a Half Man Show.
However, he is best known and will probably be best remembered for his groundbreaking documentaries. Not only do they earn record profits and film festival awards, but they entertain while they enlighten. As anyone who has snoozed through visually stunning Omnimax films will attest, documentaries can be deadly dull. Like unadorned tofu, they may be “good for us”, but they don’t taste like much. In contrast, Moore’s documentaries are toothsome; they are in turn hilarious, chilling, and challenging.
While holding his mirror at a rakish left tilt, he shows us a reflection of life in America today. We see decaying cities whose once busy factories are now idle, victims of corporate greed and globalization. We see a frightened public whose fears are fueled by nightly television newscasts. We see the scourge of racism and the tragic results of failed Welfare-to-Work policies. And we love what we see because, despite the visceral punch he sometimes delivers, his messages are wrapped in intelligence and originality, tied together with stinging humor.
Moore, the Media Communicator
Moore grew up in Flint, Michigan in a working class household. His father labored for General Motors in the spark plug assembly factory. One of his uncles participated in the 1937 GM strike that resulted in the founding of the United Auto Workers union. The Moore household was a religious one – both parents were practicing Catholics who attended daily mass. About his parents, Moore states, “They raised us kids with some very basic beliefs about how we treat people and how we see the world. They weren’t political people, but they were people who believed in the importance of acting on conscience and standing up for what you believe in” (Newfield).
Moore himself was a hell raiser from early on. In the fourth grade, he started the first of several school newspapers; the nuns shut them down. In eighth grade, he wrote a Christmas pageant about a rat convention; its performance was banned. In ninth grade, he entered the seminary to study for the priesthood; he lasted one whole year. He was asked to leave because he “asked too many questions” and “caused too much trouble” (Hattenstone).
In Moore’s high school years, during the Vietnam era, his heroes were the Berrigan brothers, two priests renowned for their civil rights, anti-poverty and anti-war activism. A member of the Boy Scouts, Moore created a slide show about local polluters for his Eagle Scout project. He became the youngest elected official in Michigan history when, as an 18-year-old high school student, he won a seat on the school board. His platform? To get the high school principal and vice-principal fired. They eventually were “reassigned”.
Moore attended college, but quit after a short a while. In 1976, at age 22, he founded the monthly alternative newspaper Flint Voice. He remained its editor for 10 years, during which time it evolved into the weekly Michigan Voice. He moved to San Francisco to become the editor of Mother Jones magazine in 1986, but was asked to leave after only five months; according to Moore, his working class views did not mesh with magazine’s upper-class liberalism.
He returned to Flint, where he spent the next three years and $250,000 filming his first documentary, the bitingly funny Roger & Me. (As a delicious aside, Moore needed assistance in learning how to make a film. He met Kevin Rafferty, a documentary maker who came to Flint in 1987 to film a cross burning. Rafferty gave Moore the requested help, eventually serving as cinematographer for Roger & Me. Rafferty, creator of the anti-nuke film The Atomic Café and the anti-racist Blood in the Face, is none other than Jeb and G. W. Bush’s cousin.) This tale of corporate greed portrays the effects of the world's largest corporation, General Motors, on its hometown of Flint, Michigan, when plants are closed and thousands of autoworkers lose their jobs. Moore films his many attempts to meet the chairman, Roger Smith, so he can invite him to Flint to view the devastated ghost town firsthand. Spinning loopily from the zany to the tragic to the audacious, the film has us both roaring with laughter and squirming in discomfort.
The formula was a hit. Warner Brothers bought worldwide rights to Roger & Me for $3 million; it eventually grossed $6.7 million domestically, becoming the highest-grossing documentary up to that time (Bloom). Since then, bolstered by the critical acclaim his television shows received and the commercial success of his books, “Michael Moore” has become a brand name that signifies his darkly hilarious style.
Moore is married to Kathleen Glynn; they are the parents of a daughter, and reside in New York City. Ms. Glynn plays an integral role in many of his endeavors. She co-authored the book, Adventures in a TV Nation, designed costumes for Canadian Bacon, and has co-produced all his documentaries, including the recently released Bowling for Columbine.
Moore and Mass Culture
Communications educator Stan Le Roy Wilson defines mass culture as “the things in our popular culture that are mass-produced and/or shared through the mass media. In America today, that represents almost everything in our popular culture.” The terms “mass culture” and “popular culture” have come to mean nearly the same thing. Popular culture is described by pop culture scholar Ray Browne as “ the cultural world around us -- our attitudes, habits and actions: how we act and why we act; what we eat, wear; our buildings, roads and means of travel, our entertainment, our politics, religion, our beliefs and activities and what shapes and controls them. It is, in other words, to us what water is to fish: it is the world we live in” (Wilson 5).
Moore’s work, firmly rooted in U. S. mass culture, provides a thoughtful critique of it. He uses the very media conglomerates that create and feed mass culture in his attacks on its excesses: corporate greed, overpaid CEOs, underpaid workers, covertly racist social policies, and a misplaced emphasis on consumption. He gives a political voice to the 10% of Americans who did not support the 1991 invasion of Iraq, and who are equally opposed to any repetition today. He gives an economic voice to minimum wage workers, who are left out of mass culture’s view of America as a land of riches. He exposes the false, but deeply held, belief that if a person just works hard enough, success is guaranteed in “America, land of the invincible economy”.
During a round table discussion in Kansas City, Moore was asked if he sensed the irony of talking against corporate America, yet going on book tours for Random House, and having films released by the likes of Warner Brothers and Miramax. His reply was pure Moore; he wondered how long he’d continue to get away with it. “I believe that these companies that distribute my book, or film, or TV show do it because they believe they can make money. All the decisions are based on their bottom line, and it’s one of the wonderful flaws of capitalism that they will actually produce and put forth that which is actually against their best interests – if they believe they can make a dime off it” (Johnson).
In Bowling for Columbine, he lays part of the blame for gun violence at the foot of the biggest purveyor of mass culture: television. He takes on K-Mart, a mass merchandiser, for selling the bullets that were used in the Columbine shootings. He visits a Canadian Wal-Mart, the king of mass merchandisers, to demonstrate how even a foreigner can readily obtain ammunition. Taco Bell, bowling alleys, Dick Clark, girlie calendars, Charleton Heston, video arcades, Marilyn Manson, home movies, South Park, the NRA, the KKK, Chris Rock, shopping malls, TV ads: this is just a sampling of the everyday, mass culture elements Moore uses to frame his story. Brimming with mass/popular culture content, Bowling for Columbine offers a rich opportunity to discuss Moore’s work from a media literacy perspective.
Bowling for Columbine is a film that asks questions. Why are there 11,000 shooting deaths in the United States each year? What makes our country different from other countries like England, France, Germany, Japan and Canada? Is it poverty? Is it the sheer number of guns here? Is it our violent history? Is it our racial makeup? By examining events such as the shootings at Columbine High School and the shooting death of a 6-year-old girl by a 6-year-old boy, and by relating aspects of our popular culture, such as the television show “COPS” and frightening nightly newscasts to the creation a highly fearful society, Moore attempts to find an explanation for the violence rampant in the United States today.
Bowling for Columbine was financed in part by a Canadian production company, Salter Street Films, and also in part by Moore’s own company Dog Eat Dog Films. United Artists purchased the film, but exact figures were not available. Different sources reported $3 million and $5 million. United Artists president Bingham Ray claimed that he spent somewhere between $1.5 million and $10 million, “neutron bombing the competition” (Bloom). Since its release in late October, it has broken the record held by Roger & Me for highest grossing documentary, taking in $12,875,296 as of December 10, according to online Variety figures. It was the first documentary to compete at Cannes in 46 years, where it received a 13-minute standing ovation and was awarded a special Jury Prize. It is being featured at film festivals around the world; the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures gave it the Best Documentary award; it received the People's Choice Award at Vancouver's International Film. Other honors are sure to follow.
The film’s first image is taken from an old black and white film, in which a uniformed man says “the NRA has a film for you to see”. Following this, Moore presents a collage of images: a sexy blonde woman scantily clad in camouflage, smiling and holding an assault weapon at the ready; the Statue of Liberty; airplanes dropping bombs; images of Columbine High, a schoolteacher greeting her elementary school pupils. In a voiceover, Moore says, “April 20, 1999… It was just an ordinary day… our president sends the largest bombing raid to Kosovo… Harris and Klebold kill 12 students in Littleton… a teacher in Flint welcomes her first-grade class. In these brief, pre-credit moments, Moore gives a foretaste of the stories he will flesh out in the next two hours. Still in pre-credit moments, he takes us to a Michigan bank, where the enticement for opening a new account is a free gun. Moore is off and running.
Bowling for Columbine is somewhat akin to a book of interrelated short stories, told with the added emotional impact of image and sound. Moore’s plots involve the everyday kind of guys in the paramilitary Michigan Militia, the Columbine shootings, Charleton Heston and the National Rifle Association, defense giant Lockheed Martin, killer bees, life in Canada, the history of slavery in the United States, various atrocities in other First World cultures, Tamarla Owens and the Welfare-to-Work program in Michigan, and, in connection, the shooting death of 6-year-old Kayla Rollins in Flint, Michigan. The film is full of interviews with pop culture figures as well as with ordinary people who just happen to get shot by Moore’s camera while they are buying guns, sitting in a bar, skipping school, or working for Wal-Mart.
Bowling for Columbine is an artfully constructed weaving. Moore pulls recurrent strands into his story time after time, showing numerous instances of racism, media banality, bowling class at Columbine High, media hype, Michigan and guns, Lockheed as missile manufacturer, the NRA, Michigan and crazies, bowling pin targets representing the size of a person’s “vitals”, a diversified Lockheed as Michigan welfare administrator, Michigan and poverty. In the end, Moore winds up back at a bowling alley in Littleton, where three people were shot to death. As a work of art, Bowling for Columbine is as satisfying as a well-composed sonata, full of modulations, recurring themes and emotional color.
Title
According to Moore himself, one reason for the film’s title is that, after the Columbine shootings, people tried to fix the blame for the tragedy somewhere, suggesting that violent rock music, video games, and bad parenting were likely causes. Moore says that it makes as much sense to blame bowling as any of the above. “After all, Eric and Dylan were bowlers, they took bowling class at Columbine — was bowling responsible for their evil deeds? If they bowled that morning, did the bowling trigger their desire to commit mass murder? Or, if they skipped their bowling class that morning, did that bring on the massacre? Had they bowled, that may have altered their mood and prevented them from picking up their guns. As you can see, this is all nonsense, just as it is nonsense to blame Marilyn Manson” (“Bowling for Columbine: FAQ”).
Embedded in the title is the sort of juxtaposition that is an essential element of Moore’s documentaries. Much of their power is derived from his imaginative connections. “Bowling” and “Columbine”: in combination, the words are jarring. Bowling is the sport that reeks of 1950s all-American innocence; it is the wholesome family activity, complete with dorky shirts and shoes. This epitome of normalcy is conjoined with “Columbine”. Once simply the name of a delicate mountain flower, since April 20, 1999, Columbine has come to represent the horrific in American culture: the suburban high school where gunfire took 13 young lives and injured 25 others. The title foreshadows the many other absurd/funny/appalling/illuminating juxtapositions that run through the film.
The title is also suggestive of Moore’s analytical process in examining the culture of violence in America. Moore wields a mighty bowling ball. He “sets the pins” when he proposes possible culprits like poverty, our country’s violent past, our multiethnic present, and the sheer number of guns in the United States. He then takes aim and topples each pin by examining other cultures that do not resort to murdering their fellows when faced with similar problems.
The purposes underlying this presentation are several: to entertain, to move, to educate, to provoke, to inspire political activism, to advocate social change. What does Moore want us to think? For starters, that gun ownership in the United States is hazardous to our health. But as the NRA claims, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” He seeks deeper, more fundamental change. He wants us Americans to be less fearful of each other, and more understanding of the causes of our fears, which he attributes to media hype and insidious, ubiquitous racism. He wants the media to focus attention on what he considers the real problems of society, instead of taking the easy way out by resorting to the sensationalism of violence. He wants to foster a climate of compassion for the underdog, replacing the tendency in our culture to blame the victims instead of helping them. He wants us to think that a good government is one that takes care of its citizens, ensuring universal access to health care, providing a safety net for those in need. And finally, he wants us to understand that our fears win elections for politicians who spout simplistic rhetoric and advocate repressive legislation instead of tackling the root causes of our social ills.
The most distinguishing feature of Moore’s choice of medium – documentary film -- is his manner of presenting a string of separate incidents, then linking them thematically to show causes and effects, victims and victimizers. Words, images, and sounds from different times and places are slotted together with Moore’s original footage to make a cohesive narrative. With Bowling for Columbine, Moore accumulated 200 hours of raw footage, distilling it into a tightly woven, two-hour narrative.
He begins the film with relative lightheartedness, then builds momentum steadily, and with increasing somberness. He juxtaposes horror with humor; the result is a skillfully engineered emotional ride. He lays the groundwork for the pernicious effects of slavery in the United States: the lingering racism in the “water” in which we swim. He carries an idea to its logical, outrageous extreme, e.g. returning handgun bullets to Kmart, even though they are still embedded in two Columbine boys. Frequently Moore is the catalyst that makes the stories happen, rather than simply being an onlooker – he’s firmly in the middle of the action. In all but the most tragic sequences, Moore interjects the humor that keeps us entertained, but does it in such a way as to underscore his point.
Moore is adept in the use of irony, sometimes making us laugh, and other times making connections that illuminate: e.g. the Lockheed Martin PR person, who discusses the violence at Columbine while standing in front of an enormous missile, not admitting to any connection between the two; the Columbine shootings happening the same day as the biggest bombing raids of the Kosovo War; the absurdly racist subtext in media reporting on “Africanized” killer bees; organic soybean farmer James Nichols, brother of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols, saying “There’s wackos out there!”. The list goes on and on.
Moore has created his own communication style; it is irreverent, audacious, alternately deadly serious and over-the-top silly. His choice of medium affects his communication strategy by allowing him to use everything at his disposal to make his points. He chooses from a vast array of “found” material: old educational films, TV shows, ads from TV’s black and white era, recent news clips of G. W. Bush sounding inept, horrific recordings of 911 phone calls, footage from Columbine High security cameras, old newsreels, animation sequences, corny songs, comedy routines, and Chamber of Commerce promotional films. He combines these found elements with on-camera pranks and interviews, often conducted ambush-style, where the victim is prevented from applying forethought or composing careful replies. Moore then artfully weaves these disparate elements together through brilliant editing and an artful script to support the points he wants to make. The resulting film is nonfiction; its stories are told with a point-of-view that is uniquely Moore’s.
By way of contrast, Moore once tried his hand at fiction, creating the film Canadian Bacon as a vehicle for expressing his political and moral views. The idea for this movie came out of the Gulf War, when American citizens were overwhelmingly (90%) accepting of the decision to go to war against a country about which they knew little. In Moore’s 1995 political satire, the U.S. government decides to distract its citizens from a sagging economy by inventing a new archenemy – Canada – and then declaring war on it. According to Moore, “the feature format is easier because you can script everything out, tell the actors what to say, and edit the film according to the script. With a documentary, you don't know what you're going to get until you're out there and you can really only write and form it after you get into the editing room” (Spelling). However, Moore enjoyed less independence in making Canadian Bacon; its production was fraught with interference by the film’s financers. The keen edge of Moore’s humor was dulled as a result. Although well received in Canada and abroad, the movie was not a hit in the United States.
Audience
According to Moore, his audience is “those people I grew up with in Flint, Michigan. We don’t have art houses in Flint; we go to movies and eat popcorn. So I wanted to make a movie where you could enjoy the popcorn, and maybe walk out thinking something” (Newfield). In interview after interview, Moore talks about his audience as members of the working class, the voiceless segment of society that lacks media access. “'If there's anything I have tried to say, it's that those of us who come from the working class, we've got half a brain. But you never hear our voices, or see our art. We usually don't make movies, we don't have TV shows, we don't own newspapers, so I feel very privileged that I've been able to fly in under the radar of a system that really wasn't made for me” (Johnson).
However, by examining theatre listings in a sampling of cities across the United States (Atlanta, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Tucson, Atlantic City, Boston, Oklahoma City, Flint, Detroit and Denver), it appears that this movie plays mainly in art houses; as in St. Louis, its partners most often are Frida and Far From Heaven. Occasionally (in Boston and Broomfield, CO, a Denver suburb), Bowling for Columbine is showing at a multiplex alongside mainstream offerings like 8 Crazy Nights, Jackass and Die Another Day. Bowling for Columbine is not playing at all in Oklahoma City, Littleton or Flint – cities that figure heavily in Moore’s film. Ironically, it is playing at a huge multiplex in the Great Lakes Crossing Mall in affluent, suburban Auburn Hills, MI, where Tamarla Owens, mother of the child who shot his first-grade classmate, worked. In general, Bowling for Columbine is indeed an art house film, despite Moore’s expressed intentions.
In the Not-Very-Scientific Department, the plumber who just left my house looked quizzical when I asked him if he knew who Michael Moore is. After a five second delay and a tiny prompt, he said “Oh yeah… I think I saw him in some kind of a docu-drama. Yeah, it was about Roger & Me, and the book tour he went on, and wasn’t that GREAT when he went to that bank where they were giving away free guns??? Crazy!” While questioning one plumber is statistically unsound, this does indicate that Moore’s audience is not strictly limited to those wearing white collars or tweedy jackets. Along the same lines, a chat with the ticket seller at Plaza Frontenac’s cinema yielded similar results; his impression was that Bowling for Columbine’s audience is a mixed one, not belonging to any one group.
Moore wants us to identify with characters who, like the young mother Tamarla Owens, are victims of the power structure in the United States. We identify with all the characters who weep or have experienced loss; these include the grieving father of a murdered Columbine student, the Littleton security system salesman who cries when talking about the effects of Columbine massacre on out worldview, and the Buell Elementary principal who weeps over the shooting death of the 6-year-old first grader. We identify with Matt Stone when he describes the anguish of high school, and how magically the pressures disappear upon graduation. We even identify with Marilyn Manson, the unlikely source of sensitive, insightful commentary on the Columbine shootings.
We do not identify with President Bush, whom Moore shows at his bumbling worst. Bush represents precisely the sort of reprehensible politician who benefits from a highly fearful populace. Moore does not want us to identify with Charleton Heston, who appears throughout the film, repeating the NRA mantra, “From my cold, dead hands.” The former actor and current NRA president is shown as a heartless, gun-obsessed rabble rouser who insensitively holds gun rallies in Denver and Flint after school shootings there.
Presumably, Moore’s audience shares his concerns about violence in America. Those who are open to Moore’s version of the truth are likely to leave the theatre feeling sad, knowing that they have been entertained, but ultimately challenged by the film’s contents. It is hard to imagine the response to Bowling for Columbine if, say, you were a militant – or even moderate – member of the NRA. Not all NRA members are gun nuts; the moderates would likely resent the misrepresentation enough to reject the film entirely. Those who subscribe to right-wing political views would likely be angered by Moore’s “misperception” of the world. Numerous reviews can be found that take issue with the film, claiming that Moore lies extensively. Bowling for Columbine would be as annoying, and as ineffective, to Rush Limbaugh fans as Rush’s programs would be to Moore devotees.
Moore’s strategy, style and content indicate that his intended audience consists of the “already converted”. In addition, the film targets people who may be open to his point of view, although not necessarily in complete agreement with him. Even some of his “choir” are uncomfortable with his ambush-style interviews: the Heston interview is particularly grating after multiple viewings.
Bowling for Columbine falls within the documentary film genre; that is how it played at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and how it has garnered awards, and how it continues to be marketed. There are those who would argue this point, perhaps considering it a propaganda film instead. Moore is criticized for his documentary style, in that he often creates the action instead of simply recording events as they occur with no intervention on his part. He himself is on camera much of the time, questioning, teasing, confronting and consoling. He is also criticized for his obvious bias; there is no mistaking Moore’s point of view. His passionate beliefs are delivered with a wallop; he uses every filmmaking element to support his deeply held convictions about economic injustices, the inhumanity of warfare, and the insanity of fear-based violence in the United States.
The documentary film is one that “shapes and interprets factual material for purposes of education or entertainment”, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. John Grierson, a Scottish director considered to be the Father of Documentary, defined the genre as “the creative treatment of reality.” The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines documentaries as “those dealing with historical, social, scientific, or economic subjects, either photographed in actual occurrence or re-enacted, and where the emphasis is more on factual content than that on entertainment.” Filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker states, “ Documentaries are about passions, and isn't that what great movies are about?” (Mitchell). Orson Welles’ 1973 documentary, F for Fake, touches on the impossibility of making an objectively “truthful” documentary. In a sense, all documentaries are “fakes”; we, the audience, are in the hands of directors who tell and show only what they want. Welles concludes, “Art is a lie which makes us see the truth” (Fitzgerald).
The documentary format allows one to play fast and easy with sequencing. To make a point, shade the truth, or even tell an outright lie, a director could simply show scenes out of sequence. Moore came under fire for this in Roger & Me, when he admitted that he had rearranged the chronology of events to tell his story. “Many people considered this an unethical bending of the truth that they felt a documentary should represent” (“Film Notes”). In his own defense, Moore says, “It's only a few people who don't want to deal with the politics in the movie who are saying that. All the facts in the movie are true. All the context is true. They're only accusing me of being a journalist - attempting to tell a story with 50 hours of film footage edited to an hour and a half” (Rumsey).
A storyteller who affects to not have a point of view is always suspect. Even when a story is told with apparent objectivity, the audience is still not quite sure that it is getting the “truth”. In fact, the viewer must then dig more deeply to unearth hidden biases. With Moore’s unabashedly opinionated documentaries, we know what he is thinking – there is no hidden agenda.
Logical conclusion
Near the film’s end, the disabled Columbine boys are successful in persuading K-Mart to stop selling handgun ammunition. This high note of success inspires Moore to try (having been refused an interview for more than two years) one last time to interview NRA president Charleton Heston. Amazingly, Heston agrees to see Moore, who introduces himself as a lifetime NRA member. What Moore doesn’t disclose is that he paid the $750 membership to meet NRA election requirements; he wanted to oppose Heston in the next NRA election. Moore, who had been a member in his youth, says he wants to turn the NRA back into the gun safety organization it used to be. He decided it would probably be a more effective use of his time if he finished his movie, so he gave up on the idea.
During the interview, Heston is seated in front of a Ten Commandments movie poster showing him as Moses – another Moore-ish touch. It rapidly becomes apparent that the old man is no match for Moore. Heston stumblingly tries to answer Moore’s questions about the causes of violence in America, sounding vaguely racist, but mostly out of touch. Knowing that in August, 2002, Heston admitted to having Alzheimer’s disease alters the emotional impact of this scene in ways Moore surely did not intend, for it diminishes our identification with Moore and makes us (a little) sympathetic to the faintly doddering old actor. Perhaps if Moore could have interviewed Heston two years earlier, the scene would have had more power.
Heston, realizing that this isn’t the interview he had in mind, walks out on Moore. Moore calls Heston back, trying to show him the photograph of the dead Kayla Rollins. When Heston continues walking away, Moore grunts eloquently, and we see the wrath of ancient prophets in his mien as he leans the photograph against a sunny wall. The statue of a severed horse’s head on the ground nearby provides a balancing counterpoint to the little girl’s face. It is a long, effective shot. A jangling version of the song “What a Wonderful World” begins to play as Moore returns us to Littleton, where we learn of the bowling alley shootings. The film is over. A mostly silent audience leaves the theatre, perhaps with new ideas about the culture in which we attempt to live.
Works Cited
Baker, John F. “Moore Goes to Warner”. Publishers Weekly. 17 June 2002.
Bloom, David. “As UA Goes ‘Bowling’, Helmer Keeps Spinning”. Variety. 10 June 2002.
Bowling for Columbine. Dir. Michael Moore, with Michael Moore, Charlton Heston,
Marilyn Manson, Dick Clark, George W. Bush, Matt Stone. United Artists, 2002.
“Bowling for Columbine: Frequently Asked Questions About the Film”.
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/about/faq.php.
“Film Notes and Quotes”. http://www.videoflicks.com/titles/1017/1017795.htm.
Fitzgerald, Martin. “The Essential Orson Welles”.
http://www.pocketessentials.com/film/orsonwelles/welles-fforfake.html
Hattenstone, Simon. “Guerrilla in the Ritz”. The Guardian. 14 November 2002.
Johnson, Gary. “Talking with Michael Moore”. Images: A Journal of Film and Popular
Culture. Vol 6. http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue06/features/mmoore.htm
Mitchell, Elvis. “At Cannes, an Exception Proves the Rule”. The New York Times.
26 May 2002. Section 2 p 11 col 1.
Moore, Michael. Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American.
Crown Publishers, Random House: New York, 1996
Moore, Michael. Stupid White Men… and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation.
ReganBooks: New York, 2001
Newfield, Jack. “An Interview with Michael Moore”. Tikkun. Nov-Dec 1998 v13 n6 p25(5)
Roger & Me. Dir. Michael Moore. Warner Brothers, 1989.
Rumsey, Spencer. “The New York Newsday Interview with Michael Moore”. 25 Jan 1990.
http://www.dogeatdogfilms.com/interviews.html
Silverblatt, Art. 2nd ed. Media Literacy: Keys to Interpreting Media Messages.
Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001
Spelling, Ian “Interview with Michael Moore”. NY Times Syndicate. 12 Sept 1995.
http://www.dogeatdogfilms.com/cbnytsyn.html.
Wilson, Stan Le Roy. 3rd ed. Mass Media/Mass Culture: An Introduction.
New York: McGraw-Hill
“The Lord tells us by the mouth
of the prophet, Isaiah, The kind of fasting that I want is this: remove the
chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free.
Share your food with the hungry and open your homes to the homeless poor. Give
clothes to those who have nothing to wear, and do not refuse to help your own
relatives. Then your light shall break forth like the morning, your healing
shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you; the
glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord
will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, “Here I am.””
Isaiah 58:6-9
“Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me. Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethern, you did it to Me.”
Matthew 25:34-40