Friday 27 March 2015

Bowling for Columbine (2002)

'Bowling for Columbine' runs deep with subtle humour but the film's content is far from humorous. Instead, this comedy serves to highlight the shocking normality and mundane nature of gun violence in America, as well as the immune attitudes that American citizens appear to have towards it. Whilst the documentary's satire helps Michael Moore to deliver his agenda with a punch, the film also tackles several very serious issues about gun crime.


One scene that particularly stood out to me when watching 'Bowling for Columbine' was the one in which Moore pulls together a collection of old footage portraying a multitude of victims of weapon-based violence all around the world and across the history. These images of dead bodies and victims being shot would be harrowing enough on their own, but Moore plays Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World' over the top of them with cruel sarcasm, similar to the shots of poverty in 'Roger & Me' with the Beach Boys' 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' playing over the top. The juxtaposition between the music and the violent footage is brutal, making the footage seem ever more appalling and chilling.

Moore's interview style resembles that of an interrogation in many cases, portraying the people that he interviews as "villains". However, in more vulnerable moments, Moore eases up and demonstrates a more reassuring, human nature to those that he believes deserve sympathy, such as when he speaks to a teacher about the Buell Elementary school shooting.


What stands out the most about Moore's style is that he uses subtle humour, sarcasm, irony and satire to drive his points into the audience, as well as subtly ridiculing some of his interviewees like an inside joke that Moore and the audience are in on. Without this style, maybe 'Bowling for Columbine' would be just another documentary about gun crime and it wouldn't be quite as hard hitting and subtly manipulative as it is.

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