Bowling for Columbine

Directed by: Produced by: Michael Moore Kathleen Glynn JimCzarnecki Charles Bishop Michael Donovan Michael Moore Running time: Narrated by: Music by: Editing by: Studio: Michael Moore Country: Jeff Gibbs Language: Kurt Engfehr Budget: Alliance Atlantis Dog Eat Dog Films Salter Street Films Box office: $4 million $58,008,423 English United States 119 minutes United Broadcasting Distributed by: United Artists Release date(s): October 11, 2002 Written by

About the film: Bowling for Columbine is a 2002 American documentary film written, directed and narrated by Michael Moore. The film explores what Moore suggests are the causes for the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 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 also looks into the nature of violence in the United States. At the beginning of the film, the first shot is of a secondary material which is extracted media material from public sphere. Shot show of the NRA which uses the highly decorated veteran to promote its organisations a symbol to portrait as a trusted guy who says, The National Rifle Association has produced a film which you are sure to find of great interest. Lets look at it. Then Michael Moore voice-over, against images of people at work in America. On towards the next shot we see an important date which is more of iconic symbolic shot primarily telling the whole story revolved around this date. Next shot come the establishing of the scene of which is a suburbia which leads to the next shot that depicted America as a very normal place. It sounds like a typical morning in America spiel, but one of the images shows bombed out buildings as Michael Moore says, and the President ordered the bombing of another country we couldnt pronounce, and then he refers to the little town in Colorado two boys went bowling at six in the morning. Cut to the bowling and then to a cute chick in a bikinias she holds up an M-16. Dissolve to the Statue of Liberty. Moores voice-over: It was a typical day in the United States of America. A very iconic structure the statue ofLiberty was shown which is a depiction or representation of America at the same time telling the liberty to own guns. The woman with the gun is a depiction of how America nature is that it is mighty and strong and will even use guns because they have the liberty.

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. We hear the 1

last strains of The Battle Hymn of the Republic as we see Michael Moore open an account at a bank in Michigan so that he get a free firearma shotgun. There he is, dressed in his outfit, loosefitting clothes and baseball cap and three days growth of beard. His voice-over explains the context of getting the free gun. One teller tells him the bank has 500 guns in the vault. Note the gun rack on the side of the wallwith three guns in the rack. Then he sits across from the teller and is told which we are a licensed firearms dealer. He acts dumb, asks how to spell Caucasian, and gets the woman to say, I dont think thats the part theyre going to be worried about. Then a discussion of being adjudicated mentally defective. So if Im just normally mentally defective but not criminal Now he has his shotgun, and the man next to him makes some typical manly statements about how sweet the gun is. I have one question. Dont you think its a little dangerous to be handing out weapons in a bank? Cut to a quick shot of him pointing the gun at the camera music upand then an image of him leaving the bank and holding the gun over his head! Music up and the title sequence. Wide shots of archival footage of people all bowlingall from the 50s, black and white, showing regimentation and good clean fun. Abruptly cuts to a television commercial pushing realistic-looking toy guns sold by the Marx Company. The commercial shows two dumb cops mistaking the sounds of the toy guns for the sounds of real guns. Then a smooth transition to old 8-mm home movies of Michael Moore at the age of 6there he is with my first gun! Moores voice-over: I couldnt wait to get out and shoot up the neighborhood. More home movies. A photograph of the teenaged Michael Moore holding up his marksman award trophy from the National Rifle Association. Moores voice-over: I grew up in Michigan, a gun lovers paradise and so did this manCharlton Heston. Then we cut to a black and white film clip of Hestonand then a movie clipand then a clip from an NRA promotional video of their Presidentand then a quick shot of Michael Moore, dressed in blaze orange, firing his shotgun, and then a reaction shot of Hestontough guy! 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 a rifle. Footage of Carey McWilliams, a visually impaired gun enthusiast. Footage of Gary Plauche killing Jeff Doucet, who had kidnapped and molested Plauche's son. The suicide of Budd Dwyer. A 1993 murder where Emilio Nuez shot his ex-wife Maritza Martin to death during an interview on the Telemundo program OcurriAsi. The suicide of Daniel V. Jones, an AIDS/cancer patient who was protesting HMOs. A man who takes his shirt off and is shot during a riot.

All this showed us what the mentality of America is towards owning guns. Early in the film, Moore links the violent behavior of the Columbine shooters to the presence of a large defense establishment manufacturing rocket technology in Littleton. 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. 2

Moore conducts an interview with Evan McCollum, Director of Communications at a Lockheed Martin plant near Columbine, and asks him: "So you don't think our kids say to themselves, 'Dad goes off to the factory every day, he builds missiles of mass destruction. What's the difference between that mass destruction and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?'" McCollum responded: "I guess I don't see that specific connection because the missiles that you're talking about were built and designed to defend us from somebody else who would be aggressors against us." 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: 1.1953: U.S. overthrows Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq of Iran. U.S. installs Shah as dictator. 2.1954: U.S. overthrows democratically-elected President Arbenz of Guatemala. 200,000 civilians killed. 3.1963: U.S. backs assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem. 4.1963-1975: American military kills 4 million people in Southeast Asia. 5.September 11, 1973: U.S. stages 1973 Chilean coup d'tat in Chile. Democratically-elected President Salvador Allende assassinated. Dictator Augusto Pinochet installed. 3,000 Chileans murdered. 6.1977: U.S. backs military rulers of El Salvador. 70,000 Salvadorans and four American nuns killed. 7.1980s: U.S. trains Osama bin Laden[8] and fellow terrorists to kill Soviets. CIA gives them $3 billion. 8.1981: Reagan administration trains and funds the Contras. 30,000 Nicaraguans die. 9.1982: U.S. provides billions of dollars in aid to Saddam Hussein for weapons to kill Iranians. 10.1983: The White House secretly gives Iran weapons to kill Iraqis. 11.1989: 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. 12.1990: Iraq invades Kuwait with weapons from U.S. 13.1991: U.S. enters Iraq. Bush reinstates dictator of Kuwait. 14.1998: Clinton bombs possible weapons factory in Sudan, which supplied the Sudanese population with vaccines and pharmaceuticals. 15.1991 to present: American planes bomb Iraq on a weekly basis. U.N. estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions. 16.2000-2001: U.S. gives Taliban-ruled Afghanistan $245 million in aid. 17.Sept. 11, 2001: Osama bin Laden uses his expert CIA training to murder 3,000 people.[8] 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. 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, montages of possible causes for gun violence are stated by several social pundits. Many claim links with violence in television, cinema, and computer games; towards the end of the montage, however, the same people all change their claims to Marilyn Manson's responsibility. Following this is an interview between Moore and Marilyn Manson. Manson shares his views about the United States' 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, [people] are not 3

going to talk to you" and other commercials containing fear-based messages, and that the government-controlled media would far rather assert his influence on the acts of Klebold and Harris as being far greater than that of President Clinton, who ordered more bombings on Kosovo on April 20, 1999, than any other day during his Balkans campaign. When Moore asks Manson what he would say to the students 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."

Over the last few shots is Moore walking up to a locked gate, the estate of Charlton Heston. He reaches down and pushes a white button. We hear the sound of a phone ringing. This is shot through the front windshield of the production vehicle. The image shows Moore dressed in his blue jeans, oversized coat, and baseball cap. He wears basketball shoes. Charlton Heston answers the phone. Michael Moore bends down and talks to him. This is Michael Moore, the filmmaker? Heston acknowledges him. He tells Heston he is making a documentary about the whole gun issue. I may be able to give you some time tomorrow. Heston sits a meeting at 8:30 in the morning. Graphic on the screen. 8:30 the next morning. There is Michael Moore again. This time he doesnt talk directly to Charlton Heston. Why did he reach him directly the night before? The gate swings open, and to the music of the Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Theme, the burly Moore saunters past the gate. As he walks up the drive, we can see Heston in the distance. Heston walks a bit awkwardly, as if measuring his steps carefully, and the two men reach out and shake hands. This is set up as a point of view shotfrom Moores point of view. Heston is shown on the left of the frame. He sits in a high directors chaireasier to get into and out of when one is frail. Moore sits on the right of the frame, turned toward Hestonand the shot is a modified point of view shot. After the conversation which ended I a very akward situation Moore follows Heston down a sidewalk toward the mans house. Mr. Heston, one more thing. Heston turns around. This is who she isor was. Moore holds up a photograph of the dead six-year-old. This is herplease dont leave! (If he is using only one camera, he is cheating herebecause there is a cut to him holding the picture rather than a pan. And when we return to the pov shot, we can see Moores body on the right, but we cant tell if he is holding up the photograph or not.) Heston walks away, and this time he does not turn around. Mr. Heston. Please. Take a look at her! Cut to Moore holding the picture. This is the girl. (We do get one swish pan from him holding the picture up and Heston far in the distance. This confirms for me that he cheated by giving the impression that Heston looked back at a short distance and saw him holding the photograph. In the real time of the moment, he didnt have time to arrange the photograph so that Heston saw it when he turned aroundfrom twenty feet away.) Now that Heston has gone into his house, Moore walks over to a spot near the entrance of the house and places the little girls picture Pagainst a columnthat way, Heston will have to look at her sometime. Then he walks away, toward the camera, with that signature hangdog look and slumped shoulders. Hard rock music cues.