Bowling for Columbine is a 2002 American documentary film written, directed, produced by, and narrated by Michael Moore. It brought Moore international attention as a rising filmmaker and won numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature, a special 55th Anniversary Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and the César Award for Best Foreign Film.
Film content
The film explores what Moore suggests are the causes for the Columbine High School massacre and other acts of violence with guns. Moore focuses on the background and environment in which the massacre took place and some common public opinions and assumptions about related issues. The film looks into the nature of violence in the United States.
In Moore's discussions with various people – including South Park co-creator Matt Stone, the National Rifle Association's then-president Charlton Heston, and musician Marilyn Manson – he seeks to explain why the Columbine massacre occurred and why the United States has a high violent crime rate (especially crimes involving guns).
Bowling
The film title originates from the story that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold – the two students responsible for the Columbine High School massacre – attended a school bowling class early that morning, at 6:00 a.m., before they committed the attacks at school starting at 11:19 a.m. Later investigation showed that this was based on mistaken recollections, and Glenn Moore of the Golden Police Department concluded that they were absent from school on the day of the attack.
Moore incorporates the concept of bowling in other ways as well. For example, a Michigan militia uses bowling pins for their target practice. When interviewing former classmates of the two boys, Moore notes that the students took a bowling class in place of physical education. Moore notes this might have very little educational value; the girls he interviews generally agree. They note how Harris and Klebold had a very introverted lifestyle and a very careless attitude towards the game, and that nobody thought twice about it. Moore asks if the school system is responding to the real needs of their students or if they are reinforcing fear. Moore also interviews two young residents of Oscoda, Michigan, in a local bowling alley, and learns that guns are relatively easy to come by in the small town. Eric Harris spent some of his early years in Oscoda while his father was serving in the U.S. Air Force.
Moore compares gun ownership and gun violence in foreign countries, with gun ownership and gun violence in the United States. Moore concludes that there is no connection between gun ownership and gun violence. In search of the reason for the United States’s trigger mania, Moore discovers a culture of fear created by the government and the media. He says that fear leads Americans to arm themselves, to gun making-companies' advantage Moore suggests sarcastically that bowling could have been just as responsible for the attacks on the school as Marilyn Manson or even Bill Clinton, who launched bombing attacks on several countries around that time.
Free gun for opening a bank account
An early scene depicts how Moore discovered a bank in Michigan that would give customers a free hunting rifle when they made a deposit of a certain size into a time deposit account. The film follows Moore as he goes to the bank, makes his deposit, fills out the forms, and awaits the result of a background check before walking out of the bank carrying a brand new Weatherby hunting rifle.
Just before leaving the bank, Moore jokingly asks, "Don't you think it's kind of dangerous handing out guns at a bank?"
"Happiness is a Warm Gun" montage
About 20 minutes into the film, The Beatles song "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" plays during a montage in which the following footage is shown:
- People buying guns
- Residents of Virgin, Utah, a town that passed a law requiring all residents to own guns
- People firing rifles at carnivals and shooting ranges
- Footage of Denise Ames operating an assault rifle.
- Footage of Carey McWilliams, a visually impaired gun enthusiast.
- Footage of Gary Plauche killing Jeff Doucet, a man who had kidnapped his son and molested him.
- The suicide of Budd Dwyer
- A 1993 murder where Emilio Nuñez shot his ex-wife Maritza Martin to death during an interview on the Telemundo program Ocurrió Asi
- The suicide of Daniel V. Jones
- A man who takes his shirt off and is shot during a riot
Weapons of mass destruction
Early in the film, Moore links the violent behavior of the Columbine shooters to the presence in Littleton of a large defense establishment, manufacturing rocket technology. It is implied that the presence of this facility within the community, and the acceptance of institutionalized violence as a solution to conflict, contributed to the mindset that led to the massacre.
Moore conducts an interview with Evan McCollum, Director of Communications at a Lockheed Martin plant near Columbine, and asks him:
McCollum responded:
"What a Wonderful World" montage
The film then cuts to a montage of American foreign policy decisions, with the intent to contradict McCollum's statement by citing examples of how the United States has frequently been the aggressor nation. This montage is set to the song "What a Wonderful World" performed by Louis Armstrong.
The following is an exact transcript of the onscreen text in the Wonderful World segment:
- 1953: U.S. overthrows Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq of Iran. U.S. installs Shah as dictator.
- 1954: U.S. overthrows democratically-elected President Arbenz of Guatemala. 200,000 civilians killed.
- 1963: U.S. backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem.
- 1963-1975: American military kills 4 million people in Southeast Asia.
- September 11 , 1973 : U.S. stages coup in Chile. Democratically-elected President Salvador Allende assassinated. Dictator Augusto Pinochet installed. 5,000 Chileans murdered.
- 1977: U.S. backs military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans and four American nuns killed.
- 1980s: U.S. trains Osama bin Laden and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets. CIA gives them $3 billion.
- 1981: Reagan administration trains and funds the Contras. 30,000 Nicaraguans die.
- 1982: U.S. provides billions of dollars in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians.
- 1983: The White House secretly gives Iran weapons to kill Iraqis.
- 1989: CIA agent Manuel Noriega (also serving as President of Panama) disobeys orders from Washington. U.S. invades Panama and removes Noriega. 3,000 Panamanian civilian casualties.
- 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from U.S.
- 1991: U.S. enters Iraq. Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait.
- 1998: Clinton bombs possible weapons factory in Sudan. Factory turns out to be making aspirin.
- 1991 to present: American planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis. U.N. estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions.
- 2000-2001: U.S. gives Taliban-ruled Afghanistan $245 million in aid.
- Sept. 11, 2001: Osama bin Laden uses his expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people.
The montage then ends with handheld-camera footage of the second WTC plane crash, the audio consisting solely of the hysterical reactions of the witnesses, recorded by the camera's microphone. On the website accompanying the film, Moore provides additional background information for this section.
Climate of fear
Moore attempts to contrast this with the attitude prevailing in Canada, where (he states) gun ownership is at similar levels to the U.S. He illustrates his thesis by visiting neighborhoods in Canada near the Canada-U.S. border, where he finds front doors unlocked and much less concern over crime and security.
In this section, a montage of possible causes for gun violence are stated by television persona. Many claim links with violence in television, cinema, and computer games; towards the end of the montage, however, a series of statements all claim Marilyn Manson's responsibility. Following this is an interview between Moore and Marilyn Manson. Manson shares his ideas about the United States's climate with Moore, stating that he believes U.S. society is based on "fear and consumption", citing Colgate commercials that promise "if you have bad breath, are not going to talk to you" and other commercials containing fear-based messages. When Moore asks Manson what he would say to the kids and community at Columbine, Manson replies, "I wouldn't say a single word to them; I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did."
Statistics
Moore follows up his climate of fear thesis by exploring the popular explanations as to why gun violence is so high in the United States. He examines Marilyn Manson as a cause, but states that Germany listens to more Marilyn Manson and has a greater Gothic population than the United States, with less gun violence (Germany: 381 incidents per year). He examines violent movies but notes that they h
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