Bowling For Columbine

Guns.

Sure they’re great, but what do we really know about them? Hollywood has delivered us some pretty informative stuff about them over the years, so here’s what we know:

• They can make people dance (usually in saloons or old west bars.)
• They sometimes fire different rounds (like a flag that says BANG! in cheerful red).
• They have cool nicknames in rap songs (like Chrome .45, Glock, Cro-Mag, erm… Neanderthal, etc.)
• They rarely kill the good guys (bullets used to shoot the good guys are loaded carefully into the gun so the bullet creates a similar wound to a fatal one, but actually just ends up being a minor flesh wound that renders brief unconsciousness).
• They look cool (particularly when held ‘side-on’ gangster style, or with two pointed at the camera).
• They have inexhaustible rounds (this is usually when the bad guy has the gun and no one else does, however, sometimes a good guy’s gun does the same thing in a tricky situation).
• They leave gunpowder residue on the hand that fires them (which can in turn be used to track down the shooter by an ever-so-hip forensics team).
• They can easily be retrieved from the inside cuff of jeans (because they’re made from a malleable alloy, much in the same way a cat can squeeze under a moving tyre).
• They kill people good and dead (unless you’re the evilest bad guy, in which case they create a wound similar to fatal, but requiring another shot to finish the job. Usually from a good guy we previously thought dead – see point four.)
• They are used to salute the dead (mostly during military funerals, although brutally ironic.)
• They inspire cool descriptions of shooting (Like ‘bust a cap in his arse’ or ‘pop one off’ or ‘oh my God, I’ve been shot!’)
• They are everywhere (from the most innocent of six year olds, to the granny with a baretta, everyone enjoys guns!)

So, I don’t see what’s so bad about them. If Hollywood says they’re okay, then they gotta be. After all, Hollywood wouldn’t lie to us.

Still, I can see the point of this film. It’s about guns. And it’s about fear and the media. It’s also about poetic justice, seeing what you want to see and not watching television. It’s about the liars who lead us and the self-centred and the weak-willed and it’s about people who need to feel big by putting a fat-arse loaded gun in their shorts.

While this film is centred around guns, the reasons for them are heavily documented – not as an explanation or excuse, but rather as a means of stripping back the years of accruing fear to find the base reason for the popularity of gun deaths in America. And it’s pretty ugly under there.

"No one wins unless everyone wins – and you don’t win by beating up someone who can’t defend themselves..."

After I saw this in cinemas, I wanted to know more and investigated several sites on the Internet. It seems some liberties have been taken here with information and some scenes of gun rallies have been spliced and summarised to get the point across. The NRA site claims the footage of Heston has been doctored and snipped carefully to appear like he is talking in Denver when he’s actually in some other place. That doesn’t change much of the overall point though. There are too many guns and not enough people who know how to use them. But again, the NRA is just one target here. The news media is also struck a hefty blow in the way it promotes news and what plays. Gun violence – goes to air third, sniper shooting – lead story, heroic dog saves Billy from a well – after the weather (if there’s time.)

Keep people afraid, keep feeding their morbid curiosity and they grow addicted and come back for more. Show them enough bloody bodies lying in the street and they’ll believe it’s right outside their door. Naturally, with fear comes protection. And what’s the best way to protect yourself, your home and your sofa-lounge (with three payments owing)? Yeah, get me a gun. Mebbe shoot a family member sneaking in quietly one night. Mebbe shoot mah wifey while I’ma cleaning the gun. Maybe eat a bullet when I’m tired of working at the shoe factory. But the chances of shooting a burgular? Pretty slim.

I don’t have a gun. I grew up on a farm with guns everywhere and we were taught to respect them. Never leave them loaded, never leave them lying around. Keep them clean and use them as they are designed to be used. Don’t mess around, don’t point them at anyone and don’t shoot your little sister. Simple.

I don’t have any desire to get a gun, nor do I feel I need one now, living in the city. I don’t watch ‘the news’ (or, a better name for it these days, ‘the opinions’) and I feel better for it. I don’t fear men holding me to ransom in my own home and I don’t see the dead lining my gutters. Sure, this film is about America, but it applies just as readily here. The news isn’t news anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. Turn it off and you’ll be better informed.

So I’m not gonna buy a gun. If I wanna kill anyone, I’ll just buy them a meal from a global fast food chain and let nature take its course.

Traditionally, documentaries are shot live on the street with a wobbly shoulder-held camera and the documentarian asking questions of a bewildered public in turn asking ‘Is this on TV tonight?’. So it makes sense that a documentary like this would be the same. Still, it manages to give us a full 1.85:1 aspect ratio with anamorphic enhancement. Depending on available light sources, the film naturally suffers from varying degrees of graininess at times, but there’s never anything too major. Otherwise it looks much like any other shot to video production with a slight fading of natural colours. Blacks looks true though and the limited shadow detail is fine. Occasional flares of bright white occur when the camera goes from inside to outdoors, but these can’t be helped, even in this modern super-age.

There’s a really cool animated sequence, not unlike South Park, in which the frenzied history of guns in America is told in simplistic and funny fashion and this looks great with bright vivid colour and sharp lines (unlike South Park in that respect then…).

While being delivered in Dolby Digital 5.1, there isn’t much for it to do and it spends much of the film idly sitting by cleaning its Uzi. Dialogue is all clear and easily understood and the sound effects are funny whenever dubbed in for that extra zing to a gag. Most sound is recorded by the sound guy on the shoot though and little by way of over-dubbing occurs.

Music has been scored by Jeff Gibbs and fits with the film well. Some tracks have been used and have been well chosen, including the film’s subtitle of What a Wonderful World sung by Louis Armstrong over images and information of American involvement in overseas ‘police actions’ (read ‘wars’).

This is a two disc set and so there’s a fair batch to get through. While the batch is huge, there’s a lot of similar stuff and, while interesting, it does repeat itself a little.

The first disc contains Michael Moore’s audio introduction which helps solidify his filmmaking process for us going in, although I watched it afterward. So shoot me. The only other extra here is the audio commentary, which, while I admire Moore’s choice, is let down upon delivery. See, he says we never hear commentaries by up-and-coming crew, just the big shots, so he gives the mic over to the production assistants, the interns and even the receptionist. There are plenty of ‘em and they talk over themselves a lot. They’re obviously younger people and while novel, aren’t very interesting. At all.

Disc Two firstly contains Winning an Oscar interview. This doesn’t feature the footage of Moore’s controversial acceptance speech, but it does contain a very hard to read transcript of it. Also, Moore is seated on a picnic table talking about the event three weeks afterward. This goes for 15:32 and is pretty interesting, but nowhere near as interesting as the footage I remember seeing at the time. The Academy wouldn’t let him have the footage, by the way. How sweet.

Michael Moore Interviews are next and there are five of these entitled Interview at U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, Return to Denver/Littleton Six Months After the Film (University of Denver), The Charlie Rose Show, UK Press Conference and the Film Festival Scrapbook which features awards and interviews at Cannes, Toronto and London. Plus Naomi Watts and David Lynch in cameos of sorts. All of these are of varying lengths around the ten to 15 minute mark.

A photo gallery containing ten worthless, puny stills from the film is next, but we’ll ignore that and go to the Marilyn Manson Fight Song music video which is poorly rendered and runs for 2:59. However, Mr Manson does know how to make best use of a film clip, does he not? I like his work.

A one page advertisement for Michael Moore’s Books is the next to be ignored, as is the page of weblinks and addresses. I wasn’t able to look, but this also features access to the DVD-ROM material for teachers which sounds like it has promise at any rate.

Finally, there is the standard Madman Propaganda in the form of four trailers for other activisty pieces Manufacturing Consent: Naom Chomsky and the Media, Amandla!, Power and Terror: Naom Chomsky In Our Times and Shifting Sands.

So, as I said, there seems a bunch, but it’s a bit of a waste of a two disc set really. Oh well, the film’s still great.

Well, in summation, what have we learned?

We’ve learned guns hurt people, the media lies to us, our leaders are pathetic and Hollywood loves guns.

I guess we already knew all that, but it’s nice to be re-assured. And herein we are given even more fun facts about guns and violence, some ideas on how to change the current status quo regarding guns and a study of the main titular piece in the Columbine school shooting. Moore describes the situation in America well without pulling too many punches and has created a very original, very entertaining and, most of all, very enlightening documentary about the gun debate. (I also heartily recommend you read the NRA response to the film by clicking on the link at right).

It is thought provoking without being overly preachy and it’s darkly humourous while being deadly serious. So is it deserving of the Oscar and the praise heaped upon it?

It’s BANG! on.