Micheal Moore Bowling For Colombinereadership

3.2 Michel Moore

Michel Moore's movies are all infused with his political views and opinions. He has a very unique style of film making, his films are usually melodramatic and over the top, he uses music to footage extremely well to evoke emotion with the audience and his films are often very funny through use of conventions like juxtaposition and V/O. He uses an incredible array of techniques and elements from cinema not only to entertain the audience, but also convey his message and convince the audience in an often very subversive way. The two texts in particular I am looking at are 'Bowling for Columbine' (BFC) and 'Fahrenheit 9/11' (F9/11).

One of the standout elements that Michel Moore (MM) uses to manipulate the audience in his films is montage. Montage is a series of seemingly unrelated shots cut together rapidly often with a common song or V/O to make an entirely new point or to show the passage of time. He uses it not only to draw laughs and ironic symbolism, but also to shock and evoke emotion, to convince the viewer of his opinion in a fast, effective and entertaining way.

In BFC the montage 'Gun Love' is a great example of his trademark style. It consists of stock footage of people who romanticise gun ownership and the whole gun culture on the U.S, but what makes this standout MM instead of just a typical montage is the sense of irony and tongue in cheek humour in his shot choices.

At first he comments on the obsession with guns with shots of people stroking and shooting guns, he progresses this into the more absurd with a slow motion MLS of a woman in a bikini shooting an assault rifle ('gun porn') or examples of news stories of blind men who collect and shoot weapons. All the while the song 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' is played in the background. At this point in the montage the song choice becomes much more relevant and ironic as the shots evolve from tongue in cheek to shocking when he turns the gun on its owners, cutting in shots of people shooting each other and themselves, he purposely searches for the most shocking and intimate shots to demonstrate and command attention for what he feels is the consequence of this unhealthy obsession with guns.

The progression from 'gun porn' to gun owners getting shot and finally to innocent bystanders getting shot (last shot in the montage, a medium slow motion shot of a black protestor is standing with his hands behind his head is shot, he falls to the ground, the screen fades to black and the music fades out) draws huge symbolic connotations for the audience without them really realising it.

MM is basically trying to remind the viewer that guns are designed for killing and no matter how we treat them or what we use them for; to kill is their inherent nature, and eventually the culture of 'every man and his gun' is going to back fire on the US. MM is using this film as his own form of propaganda to combat the way in which lobby groups (such as the NRA) have engraved in the psyche in the US that 'it is my right as an American to own a gun'. He feels that in all reality that they do not have the nations wellbeing in mind, rather that they as well as others are merely out to make money they protect the 2nd amendment so that they can preserve weapons manufacturers profits, because they are invested in the weapons manufacturers. They stand to profit from the suffering of their nation. Which also creates a sense of irony, that lobby groups like the NRA are fighting to preserve the right to bear arms in the sake of maintaining a human right, the right to have the means to kill other humans.

MM expands on this theme of profit before people with second montage in Bowling for Columbine. It consists of exerts of news casts (mainly formal MCU's of them in front of the blue screen) cut together all describing a suspect wanted for a crime. "suspect is a black male 6 feet tall... a black male... black man...black man...black-black-black-male" he cuts each shot together in quick succession and slowly increases the tempo faster and faster until each presenter only says one or two words and they all say the same thing "black man". MM uses this technique to demonstrate not only the ludicrous profiling and stereotyping in the media of black men, but also the speed at which the shots are cut together represents the way the communities 'heart rate' is slowly increasing with tension and fear. He is commenting on the climate of fear created by the media's philosophy of "if it bleeds, it leads". The media recognises that if they make the public afraid the public will continue to watch television and be exposed to advertising which in tern will provoke them into consuming. MM also uses the fear mongering in media as a reason why so many people have guns to protect themselves against a threat they have never seen or that doesn't even exist "crime rates are going down, down, down, media coverage of crimes, is going up." and will defend that right to the grave. The media demonises Black men to make a villain, a perceived threat to the white suburbia and when they believe that they are in danger they turn to the news and television for information on what is happening that they need to protect themselves from. The media creating this need for people to watch television increases its ratings (amount of people watching) and in turn can charge more to advertisers to advertise during high rating shows and make huge profits. So the more afraid they make people the more money they make. Fear feeds consumption, whether it's the fear of the black man, being unattractive to the opposite sex, not being accepted by your peers they all promote consumption to either prevent or remedy the situation. Of course it would not be in industries best interests to provide a total solution, instead they make sure people rely on their product and continue to buy it so they make sure it only lasts a certain amount of time. For example Monsanto (us bio company) has created a seed that only lives through one season and prevents the plant that grows from it from being able to reproduce. The 'suicide seed' is used to ensure that farmers will always have to buy seed, this new product is crippling poorer farmers in Africa who rely on collecting seed from their plants to feed their families and community but it is making huge profits for its maker. It creates an indefinite need.

In F9/11 MM is much more focused on Bush and his administration and the role they are playing in the climate of fear in the US. He starts the montage talking about the lengths that bush went too to get into office and how when he got there he didn't know what to do. MM v/o's "he was already looking like a lame duck president...