Filmmaker Michael Moore explores the roots of America's predilection for gun violence.
Director:
Michael MooreWriter:
Michael Moore
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Title: Bowling for Columbine (2002)
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| Credited cast: | |||
| Michael Moore | ... | Self - Narrator | |
| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
| Salvador Allende | ... | Self - President of Chile (archive footage) | |
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Mike Bradley | ... | Self - Mayor of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada |
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Arthur A. Busch | ... | Self - County Prosecutor: Flint, Michigan (as Arthur Busch) |
| George Bush | ... | Self (archive footage) | |
| George W. Bush | ... | Self (archive footage) | |
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Michael Caldwell | ... | Self - Police Detective |
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Richard Castaldo | ... | Self - Columbine Victim |
| Dick Clark | ... | Self | |
| Bill Clinton | ... | Self (archive footage) | |
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Steve Davis | ... | Self - Deputy Sheriff (archive footage) |
| Ngo Dinh Diem | ... | Self - President of South Vietnam (archive footage) | |
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Mike Epstein | ... | Self - Shopper in Mall |
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Joe Farmer | ... | Self - Superintendent of Schools (archive footage) |
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Denny Fennell | ... | Self - Home Security Consultant |
The United States of America is notorious for its astronomical number of people killed by firearms for a developed nation without a civil war. With his signature sense of angry humor, activist filmmaker Michael Moore sets out to explore the roots of this bloodshed. In doing so, he learns that the conventional answers of easy availability of guns, violent national history, violent entertainment and even poverty are inadequate to explain this violence when other cultures share those same factors without the equivalent carnage. In order to arrive at a possible explanation, Michael Moore takes on a deeper examination of America's culture of fear, bigotry and violence in a nation with widespread gun ownership. Furthermore, he seeks to investigate and confront the powerful elite political and corporate interests fanning this culture for their own unscrupulous gain. Written by Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
The question of this film is just fascinating. After leaving the cinema, my girlfriend and I were sitting for about two hours discussing the issues. This means, the subject is great.
However, I have troubles in telling what answer is given in the film to the question. Maybe this(?): there is an upper class, i. e. the whites, the politics and the weapon producers who oppress the lower class. But I did not see any clear connection leading from the class/racial struggle to the murders.
The problem may be that no more statistics was shown than just the mere number of murders. Who is the typical murderer? Who the typical victim? This was not explored in the movie in more depth. Just one case of mass killing was chosen. Is it typical or rather an exception? No information on this. I tend to assume that that was not the typical U.S. murder.
The good thing is that the movie is entertaining and intelligent, despite the serious subject. The best part of the movie for me was the director's trip to Canada.
Overall: fascinating question, clearly put. But no real answers.
Let me argue a bit with the film, because some details were really ridiculous to me, when the maker tried to put his leftish ideas at any cost, whether they are relevant for the weapon issue or not. Coming from a country with a mostly state run health care, I could not help smiling bitterly over the scene, where a man coming from a doctor proudly declares that he has not paid anything for the medical treatment. Neither do I often. The other side of the "free" health care is that (1) you are no customer for the doctor, just a beggar and (2) for such "free" state "services" I pay about 45% tax on income, 22% VAT on everything and many other excize taxes...
And the oh so moving scenes, how people have to go by bus to work and earn just 8,50 USD per hour? In most regions of my country people are happy to get some job for 1,50 USD per hour and they have to pay for land, houses, cars and consumer goods basically the same price as everywhere else. And they do not kill anybody because of it, they are happy to earn the money. So, this was not impressive at all!