Film Review: Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Despite the immense popularity of documentaries on Netflix and similar streaming services, today it is difficult to imagine a filmmaker achieving celebrity status by specialising in that very genre. One of the very few people who achieved that status and who could arguably be called the most celebrated documentary filmmaker of the 21st century is Michael Moore. However, this status was achieved more than two decades ago, in very specific political circumstances, when the themes of his films and the views he expressed almost perfectly resonated with the sentiments of his targeted audience. Two years before he would triumph and unprecedentedly earn half an hour of standing ovation with Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore achieved another triumph with his Oscar-winning international box office hit Bowling for Columbine.
The film is titled after the Columbine High School massacre, an event that took place in the Denver suburb of Columbine on April 20th, 1999, during which two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, fatally shot twelve students and a teacher before killing themselves. The massacre shocked the American public and created intense debates about its causes and the way to prevent similar occurrences in the future. The debate revealed a sharp ideological division in American society – right-wing conservatives blamed violence and similar harmful content in films, video games, and popular culture; left-wing liberals blamed easy access to firearms due to the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which makes possession of such weapons a constitutional right. Michael Moore, known for being quite outspoken even by Hollywood standards, clearly and predictably supports the latter. Yet, his view is actually more nuanced than merely demanding a complete ban on the possession of guns or at least stricter gun control. He explores American gun culture, often through its bizarre and grotesque forms, like blind people using guns or receiving them as gifts if they open an account in certain banks. Bowling for Columbine also examines the aftermath of this culture through a series of widely publicised violent and deadly incidents in past decades and cites damning statistics about the USA having a homicide rate exponentially higher than that of other developed countries. Moore, however, suggests that guns and their easy availability aren’t the sole cause of the phenomenon and that it also has to do with a culture of fear ingrained in American society, particularly among whites, as an indirect consequence of centuries of violence and oppression directed against other racial and ethnic groups. Moore also connects high school shootings and similar violent incidents with the institutional violence by the US government through numerous wars, “humanitarian bombings,” and similar activities supported by an increasingly powerful military-industrial complex. As in all of his documentaries, Moore paints this picture through a combination of stock footage, interviews with various public figures and ordinary people, semi-humorous publicity stunts, and his own narration and commentary.
To say that Moore found a willing audience for his claims would be an understatement. That audience included nearly half of American society, including more urban, educated, liberal, and “hip” people who liked to think of themselves as smarter, more moral, and superior to rural, undereducated individuals who tended to vote for Republicans. Furthermore, by concentrating on the culture war issue of gun control instead of criticising capitalism and praising labour unions, as he had done in his celebrated feature debut Roger & Me, Moore could expect the support of Hollywood and the cultural establishment, which had less understanding for him during the Clinton years. Moore had an even more willing audience in Europe, where people, especially after the arrival of George W. Bush in the White House, suddenly began to see themselves and their countries as more enlightened and prosperous than primitive and barbarous America.
Bowling for Columbine was praised by the overwhelming majority of critics and often cited as a masterpiece of the documentary genre, with its influence reflected in numerous politically charged documentaries that would be produced on the eve of the 2004 presidential election. The film, however, had some detractors, mostly those who complained about Moore’s cavalier attitude towards facts, often enhanced by suggestive editing that many saw as deception. Moore’s treatment of Charlton Heston, president of the NRA, later became a source of controversy when it was revealed that the former Hollywood icon had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease during the interviews. Matt Stone, one of the creators of South Park, also complained about his interview and other details of the film being taken out of context and later retaliated by openly mocking Moore in the 2004 film Team America: World Police. However, regardless of what someone’s views on the gun issue might be, few could say that Michael Moore lacked the passion and talent necessary for his work and that his film wasn’t an important contribution to the debate. Moore, with the exception of Fahrenheit 9/11, failed to make films with similar impact, but it had more to do with changing economic, political, and cultural circumstances and less to do with Moore himself.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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