Movies Seen: "Bowling for Columbine"

[shannon_a]

Last night kimberly_a and I went out to see Bowling for Columbine. It was an absolutely amazing film. I can't think of the last film that has made me both laugh and cry this much. (Maybe Life is Beautiful, but I suspect BfC will ultimately be more memorable.)

I'd read several of the critiques of BfC before I went in. I'd suspected at the time that they were right-wing hit pieces, but was willing to consider them as I watched the film. My original hypothesis was pretty clearly born out by the film.

I remember that one of the hit pieces complained that Moore's early bank visit was clearly fraudulent (where he gets a free rifle for opening a bank account), because he would have had to open a CD account, not a regular bank account, and he would have had to go through background checks; in actuality Moore clearly states that he's opening a Certificate of Deposit account, and then we see him undergo the (not very strenuous) background check. Duh; I was wondering if the idiots writing up diatribes had actually seen the film. Another hit piece talked about the dishonesty of stringing together several different speeches by the same person in near relation to each other, and I have to assume that was another person who didn't watch the film, because the fragmentary, strobic method that Moore used to flash through speeches such as Heston's seemed a pretty clear indication that we were seeing something more akin to an MTV video than a straight and stolid documentary.

If people had complained about Moore's surprise interview techniques, I would have considered that somewhat valid, but claiming factual inaccuracies in the film that just aren't there really goes beyond dishonesty.

In any case, what really surprised me about the film were Moore's answers to the problem of gun violence in America. He did open the film talking about how easy it was to get a gun in the U.S. (with that aforementioned bank scene), and I thus expected a gun control sermon. However, by the end of the film he'd decided that wasn't necessarily the problem, because Canada has a large number of guns (7 million in 10 million households, though I'm curious if that means that 2 out of 3 houses have a gun or every 6th house has 4 guns) and yet only a couple of hundred people are killed by guns there each year. Compared to eleven thousand in the US (and again I'm curious here to the per capita numbers).

Instead he offered the hypothesis that the gun violence in America is a result of a culture of fear forcefed us by the media and our politicians, coming out of slavery and the Cold War (and now coming out of our "war" on terrorism, because we need someone new to hate & fear). He also implied that part of the problem was our reaction to poverty (e.g., lack of socialized health care, forced welfare-to-work programs, etc.), which I could see walking hand-in-hand with that culture of fear as a culture of hopelessness.

If anything, Moore said that there wasn't an easy answer to the question of gun violence in America, but definitely offered many possibilities to consider ... and he really didn't seem to posit the proliferation of guns in America as a very strong factor.

Why that has the NRA & the right wing sending verbal hit men after Michael Moore, I'm not entirely sure. After seeing the film I have to guess that the folks up in arms were once the same stupid children unable to pass reading comprehension tests.

Comments

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I was also surprised to find that the movie that I had always heard labeled as an "antigun movie" was actually more anti-media. I don't know why no one ever talks about that.

I found the movie to be really thought-provoking, though I wished it had stayed more firmly focused on the main points instead of drifting off into various sidelines which didn't seem as well researched or argued. Like the whole African bee thing being hidden racism (sorry, I don't buy that one), and the diatribe about poor people being 'forced' to work for their money (most people do actually get their money through working, go figure).

[shannon_a]

I agree with both points.

On the latter, I feel like the text and subtext of the movie were somewhat at odds. Textually, Moore was saying, "The culture of fear is the cause of gun violence", but subtextually he seemed to be displaying that there were a lot of possible reasons. If the text had been more clear at saying "I actually don't know the answer, as there seem to be lots", I think all of the asides and digressions would have held together better.

(Or, alternatively, perhaps he intended some of his asides to build up the idea of a culture of fear, which in turn caused gun violence, and if that was the case it could have been clarified as well.)

In any case, lots of interesting food for thought.

[andrewducker]

cheers, you've helped with my fears about the film. I'd been worried because of the aforementioned commentaries.

Straw man

[angrybuffalo.livejournal.com]

Here is a link http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html it has the more valid problems with the film which people have. If I didn't know better you set up a straw man and knocked it down.