Bowling for Columbine

Michael Moore is a great American filmmaker, author and liberal political commentator that have won many awards. He is the director and producer of four of the top nine highest-grossing documentaries of all time. Moore criticizes many important points that concerns Americans in the U.S. He produced the award winning documentary Bowling for Columbine that brought him international attention. In the film Moore explores and investigates the culture of guns and violence in the United States, in which he starts the film with the Columbine High School massacre of 1999.

In the film, bowling for Columbine, Moore demonstrates several statements of Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association, that were given in his speech. Moore wants to relate Heston's statements to the Columbine massacre. According to the article, "Documentary or Fiction" by T. Hardy, Moore does not present all of the information to be true. Contradicting Moore's data the article, "Documentary or Fiction?" by T. Hardy, that I read reveals how the material is distorted. The movie demonstrates the National Rifle Association (NRA) meeting held in Denver in which Heston gave a speech and said these words "I have only five words for you: from my cold, dead, hands". Michael Moore certainly wants the audience to relate the speech with the Columbine massacre. However, Heston's speech actually was not given at Denver, but given in a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was his gesture of gratitude upon his given handmade musket, at that annual meeting. The Denver event was not a demonstration relating to Columbine, but an annual meeting whose place and date had been fixed years in advance. The article "Documentary or Fiction?" shows that Moore's fabrication cannot be described by any polite term. It is a lie, a fraud. Carrying it out required a lot of editing to mislead the viewer. The article transcribed Heston's speech as Moore has it, and compared it to a news agency's transcript, color coding the passages. Moore has actually taken audio of seven sentences, from five different parts of the speech, and a section given in a different speech entirely, and spliced them together. Each edit is cleverly covered by inserting a still or video footage for a few seconds. It seems that Charlton Heston and others rushed to Littleton to hold rallies and demonstrations directly after the tragedy. They had no choice since the member's voting meeting could not be cancelled because the state law governing nonprofits required that it be held. The portrayal is in fact false. Without doubt I know that this movie is mostly for entertainment, and that it can't be a documentary since the movie gives untrue facts.

In conclusion, the article that I read states how Michael Moore's movie exaggerates the facts making them appear accurate and credible. He instead alters the facts