Movies - Bowling for Columbine

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	Movies - Bowling for Columbine

Bowling for Columbine is a film directed by and starring Michael Moore. It won an Academy Award in the category of Best Documentary, and has received praise, controversy, and criticism, both for the genre of the film (creative documentary), and the claims Moore makes in it. The film opened on October 11, 2002, and internationalized Moore's previously cultish American status.

The film won the 55th Anniversary Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, and received a 13-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening at the festival.

Summary

The film's purpose is to explore what Moore suggests are the reasons and 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 different particular points. The film takes an informal, artistic and up-close-and-personal look into the nature of violence in the United States, focusing on guns as the controversial symbol of both American freedom and its paradoxical self-destruction.

In Moore's discussions with various people, including South Park co-creator Matt Stone; the National Rifle Association's president, Charlton Heston, and musician Marilyn Manson, he seeks to answer, in his own unique style, the questions of why the Columbine massacre occurred, and why the United States has higher rates of violent crimes (especially crimes involving guns) than other developed nations, in particular Germany, France, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and especially Canada.

Bowling

The film title originates from the early myth that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two boys responsible for the Columbine High School massacre, went bowling early that morning, at 6am, before they committed the attacks at school starting at 11:18 am. However, that assertion has been thoroughly debunked. Moore suggests that it is as reasonable to blame their actions on bowling than to blame them on violent video games, movies, and music (during the aftermath of the shooting, many used the opportunity to denounce Marilyn Manson and The Matrix
, claiming a connection between violence in the media and violence in schools).

Moore incorporates the concept of bowling in other ways as well (beyond the 6 am rumor). Ironically, a militia in Michigan 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 and the girls he interviews generally agreed. The girls note how Harris and Klebold had a very introverted lifestyle and a very careless attitude towards the game and nobody thought twice about it. This calls into question the state of the school system (a fact strongly reinforced by Matt Stone). Moore asks the question of whether the school system is responding to the state of today's troubled youth or if they are simply reinforcing the concept of fear to the children and allowing the youth to wallow in this façade.

"What a wonderful world" segment

In one particularly controversial segment of the film, Michael Moore lists a series of military, clandestine, and diplomatic actions by the United States (set to "What a Wonderful World," by Louis Armstrong).

Moore's critics state that he deceptively exaggerates historical facts and dispute some of his claims , while defenders argue that he describes well-established historical facts in colorful language. Others have simply questioned the relevance of including such material in the film, since the rest of the documentary has very little to do with American foreign policy.

On the website accompanying the film, Moore provides additional background information.

The following is an exact transcript of the onscreen text in the Wonderful World segment:

#1953: U.S. overthrows Prime Minister Mossadegh of Iran. U.S. installs the Shah as dictator. #1954: U.S. overthrows democratically elected President Arbenz of Guatemala. 200,000 civilians are killed. #1963: U.S. backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem. #1963-1975: The Vietnam War, supported by the U.S. military, kills an est. 4 million people in Southeast Asia. #September 11, 1973: U.S. stages a military coup in Chile. Democratically elected president Salvador Allende died. Dictator General Augusto Pinochet is installed leading to the disappearance and death of 3,500 Chileans. #1977: U.S. backs military rulers of El Salvador. 7,000 Salvadorans and four American nuns are killed. #1980s: U.S. trains Osama bin Laden and fellow Muslim terrorists to kill Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan War. CIA gives them $3 billion. #1981: Reagan administration trains and funds Contras to fight communist government. 30,000 Nicaraguans die. #1982: U.S. provides billions in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians. #1983: The White House secretly and illegally 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. #1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from U.S. #1991: U.S. enters Iraq. Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait. #1998: U.S. bombs “weapons factory” in Sudan. The factory turns out to be making aspirin. #1991-date of the film: U.S. planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis. The United Nations estimates that 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions. #2000-2001: U.S. gives Taliban-ruled Afghanistan $245 million in aid for famine relief. #The final instance in the montage depicts the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, with a title card adding that Osama bin Laden's expert CIA training helped him plan the attack.

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