Michael Moore takes on an "everyman" persona in Bowling for Columbine to explore reasons for high gun crime in America. However, his constant on-screen presence and focus on emotional responses over evidence risks manipulating audiences and making the film more about Moore's personal views rather than presenting facts objectively. Elements like shocking footage from Columbine are used more for their disturbing nature than increasing understanding of the issues. The documentary employs techniques like irony and mocking interviews that give it a comedic approach rather than serious tone needed to respect the serious nature of gun violence.

1. MICHAEL
MOORE’S
BOWLING FOR
COLUMBINE
RESEARCH INTO SIMILAR PRODUCTS

2. THE ON SCREEN
PRESENTER
Michael Moore takes on the participatory mode in the sense
that he is on screen exploring the reasons for the high levels
of gun crime in America. He is dressed in casual clothing
with a baseball cap and a beard. This casual “everyman”
persona makes the audience feel that he can be trusted as he
is just like the average person and he appears to be
investigating the issue for their benefit. We become aware of
his personal history and his past with guns making the
audience feel that he is speaking from a position of
experience and understanding, increasing his alleged
reliability in the eyes of the audience. However, Moore’s on
screen presence is almost constant throughout the film and
could potentially be being used a technique to manipulate
the audience as the film becomes more about his emotions
rather than the facts and seriousness of the issue.

3. SUBJECTIVITY
From the outset it is clear that Moore believes there is a problem with
guns. He portrays his opinion through facts and statistics to give the
sense that his personal beliefs are correct. Throughout the film the
reasons behind gun crime that Moore explores change but his
standpoint on the negative effects of guns does not change. In his
interviews he asks people, who’s opinions on guns that are binary
opposites of his own, questions that lead them to answers that make
them look unintelligent in order to enhance his point. The subjective
style of this documentary seems to focus largely on emotional
responses and responses to comedic elements in order to gain
audience agreement rather than focusing on evidence. These two
elements are both important in documentaries as an audience must
connect emotionally with a subject as well as understand it logically.
However, the focus on emotions rather than evidence feels like the film
maker is taking the issue personally to an extent that the issue is not
being represented as truthfully as possible. In our documentary we do
not wish to make light of our issue or to make the issue personal to
ourselves as we believe our audience will connect to it without this
approach.

4. A SENSE OF
ARTIFICIALITY
The documentary employs elements of the reflexive mode.
For example when Moore gestures for the camera to follow
him and moments where Moore surprises high profile people
with interviews. In these moments we hear Moore address
that he is making a film. By doing this Moore draws the
audience’s attention to the investigative nature of the piece
and the idea that a camera can not necessarily present life
with 100% accuracy.

5. MEDIATION
In the scenes filmed in Canada, Moore makes the point that
Canada is safer than America. His evidence for this is that
people leave their doors open. We see Moore open 3
unlocked front doors before he draws this conclusion. The
spectator cannot know if Moore chose to leave out footage of
doors that were locked or if these houses were under
particular circumstance. Context and information may have
been left out in order to make Moore’s point appear stronger.

6. ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE
Sections of the film are made up of shocking archival
footage. The CCTV footage from the Columbine massacre is
shown. The footage does not increase awareness of what
happened as it is an extremely well know event. It would
appear that this footage was used simply for its disturbing
nature to shock and horrify the audience and force them to
see the realities of gun crime through Moore’s eyes.

7. USE OF MUSIC
Moore uses music ironically in the way it would be used in a
fiction film. There is a montage of American foreign policy
that is accompanied by Louis Armstrong’s “What a wonderful
word”. The music leads the spectators interpretation of the
footage and portrays the negativity, disappointment and
maybe even bitterness of Moore towards the attitude of his
country to violence.

8. INTERVIEWS
Moore conducts interviews with experts on weapons for
example when he visits a weapons manufacturers. However
his style of interview becomes rather mocking and he to
some extent manipulates them into coming across
unintelligent for example when the one of the managers of
the company says that the weapons they make are only used
for self defence, Moore follows this statement with a montage
of American Foreign policy that highlights it’s inaccuracy.
This technique manipulates the spectator to favour Moore’s
opinion however the sarcasm and mocking present gives the
documentary a more comedic approach which we do not
favour for a documentary as we want to portray a more
serious tone in order to respect the serious nature of our
subject.