bowling for columbine essay
Kaitlin Wilson
The Art & Craft of Writing
September 24, 2012
“Bowling for Columbine” Review
Sometimes the best tool for questioning a social problem is humor - which is exactly what Michael Moore does in "Bowling for Columbine." This is not a movie about guns or violence or television, but about culture. Using the Columbine school shooting as his hook, Moore attempts to find answers as to why American culture is saturated in violence and fear.
Moore is a director who isn’t afraid to ask the big questions, and who is perfectly comfortable telling the cold, hard truth. You have to be this way in order to direct a film such as this one, and to direct and produce “Fahrenheit 9/11”, a movie about the very controversial attacks on the Twin Towers, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. “Bowling for Columbine,” the film we’ll be focusing on, and his film “Sicko,” also placed in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries.
Clearly a director who knows what he’s doing, Moore decided to make this film, one in which he dissects the most famous school shooting of all time, one which coined the term “columbine.” This film is about the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, where teens Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, armed to the max, slaughtered 13 of their schoolmates and injured dozens more. While Moore doesn’t poke fun at this tragedy or at any of the victims in any way, the film's ability to quickly shift gears between humor, bafflement and horror is amazing. The most shocking fact within this movie is that before their violent and murderous outburst, Harris and Klebold went bowling.
Whatever else you can say about Moore, subtlety is not a thing he succumbs to. However, the large display of emotions he pulls out of viewers during this film is what makes him a truly phenomenal director. He interviews with a bank that gives away guns, a high school drop-out who's disappointed he only made number two on the town’s bomb threat
The Art & Craft of Writing
September 24, 2012
“Bowling for Columbine” Review
Sometimes the best tool for questioning a social problem is humor - which is exactly what Michael Moore does in "Bowling for Columbine." This is not a movie about guns or violence or television, but about culture. Using the Columbine school shooting as his hook, Moore attempts to find answers as to why American culture is saturated in violence and fear.
Moore is a director who isn’t afraid to ask the big questions, and who is perfectly comfortable telling the cold, hard truth. You have to be this way in order to direct a film such as this one, and to direct and produce “Fahrenheit 9/11”, a movie about the very controversial attacks on the Twin Towers, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. “Bowling for Columbine,” the film we’ll be focusing on, and his film “Sicko,” also placed in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries.
Clearly a director who knows what he’s doing, Moore decided to make this film, one in which he dissects the most famous school shooting of all time, one which coined the term “columbine.” This film is about the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, where teens Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, armed to the max, slaughtered 13 of their schoolmates and injured dozens more. While Moore doesn’t poke fun at this tragedy or at any of the victims in any way, the film's ability to quickly shift gears between humor, bafflement and horror is amazing. The most shocking fact within this movie is that before their violent and murderous outburst, Harris and Klebold went bowling.
Whatever else you can say about Moore, subtlety is not a thing he succumbs to. However, the large display of emotions he pulls out of viewers during this film is what makes him a truly phenomenal director. He interviews with a bank that gives away guns, a high school drop-out who's disappointed he only made number two on the town’s bomb threat