Documentaries And Michael Moore

[Seil]

THere's this pawn shop in town that has cheap flicks for sale - old movies, stuff that isn't selling... I've picked up a bunch of old 80's flicks like Rocky, Back To The Future and The Karate Kid. Anyway, I recently picked up Bowling For Columbine, a movie I hadn't seen in a long while.

Now, this was the first documentary I had seen of Moore's, I didn't really catch his show or read his books before that, but I knew that he was around. He's released Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko a bit afterwards, which I haven't seen. I've heard a lot of things about Michael Moore - that he skews the truth, that he show people in a bad light in order to make a point, and that's not the way to shoot a documentary.

From what I understand, shooting a documentary means a document of the truth. It's something that actually happened, re-done, or re-created. Michael Moore doesn't really do that, he cuts things together (He was both writer and director on Columbine) to state his opinion. It's good entertainment, and you get to see a lot that you wouldn't normally look into - something like this is always neat, too - and I will always go back to the Marilyn Manson interview. Though I wonder... I haven't really seen much documentaries...

I've seen my share of news, I've seen "mock-umentaries," but not a lot of documentaries. (Unless you count the IMAX ones.) Could Mr. Moore be forgiven for making some of his bits more entertaining so that they will be watched? He certainly puts a fair bit of work into them, and while he does offer an opinion, he backs it up - prompting others to look into matters themselves to attack his arguments. Could a film maker be forgiven for making a biased film which causes people to educate themselves?

[Magus]

His conclusion to the history of the gun rights movement was close to pure fantasy, ending as it does with a bunch of cartoon white people waving their guns around to protect themselves from black people. I get his point, it just didn't make much sense to me to totally and completely ignore the large amounts of incidences of gun crime in the African American community and inner cities while talking about the incidences of gun crime amongst white people. Perhaps he could argue it is in response to the violent white people attempting to lynch them or kill them, of course, but he doesn't bother.

I mean, I think the best way to make an argument is to bring up opposing arguments and dismantle them. Moore never really bothers with this, he just shows you his own opinion and ignores any possible contradictions or arguments of his opponents, interspersed with "shock" demonstrations that fail to capture anybody's attention at the time but through his skillful editing make into film for the rest of us to be artificially moved by (the disabled boy picketing the Wal-Mart that sold handgun ammunition, leaving the picture of the dead girl outside Charleton Heston's house, etc.)

The main gist of the film seemed to be discrediting blaming the media as the only cause of the Columbine massacre, which was fine, since to blame only violent media for the massacre is idiotic. However, he then goes on to posit that the only cause for the Columbine massacre was lack of gun control, as if the two used only assault rifles or handguns. While the scope of the massacre could have been mitigated by removing access to these kinds of weapons, it ignores the fact they also used sawed-off shotguns, home made pipe bombs, and so forth, or the fact that all the guns were illegally acquired by adult friends of theirs for them to use.

While violent media and lack of gun control played their parts in the massacre, there were various other causes and elements, such as the two's rampant bigotry, psychosis, and narcissism, their feeling of alienation, total lack of parental supervision over their activities, etc. Moore has a political agenda that causes him to make the same mistake the media did over the massacre, which is to assign the blame for the entire thing to one cause, when there are various ones, and then to go one step further and connect the whole thing to the NRA and Charleton Heston because he has a thing against them, removing all blame from the killers themselves, their friends or families, the school, or the society they lived in.

Now, I do like one work of Moore's, and that is the satirical Canadian Bacon. I thought his message got through much easier when delivered in the form of a parable, in the form of fiction. I wish he had continued to do things in this manner wholesale, instead of resorting to documentaries for no particular reason. People are much more accepting of message delivered through fictional characters than they are straight from the horse's mouth. And Canadian Bacon is such an epic skewering of American culture's love of guns, the military-industrial-political complex, and our warmongering that I wish he had continued to create works like it.

[bluestarultor]

In a word, no. Most people take documentaries at face value because that's what they're supposed to be there for. He's doing people no more a service than Disney launching lemmings off a cliff using a turntable.

[Seil]

or the fact that all the guns were illegally acquired by adult friends of theirs for them to use.

"It is believed that the guns they used were all legally purchased at stores and gun shows.

He shows the footage of them with various weapons and he talks about pipe bombs a bit, I think.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Seil

"It is believed that the guns they used were all legally purchased at stores and gun shows.

He shows the footage of them with various weapons and he talks about pipe bombs a bit, I think.

No, no, I mean that the people bought them, being over eighteen, and then gave them to them, being minors, which was illegal, since they didn't have the licenses for them, the people who bought them did (in the cases of the guns which were licensed, of course).

My point wasn't that there isn't a need for gun control. I think the fact that people can buy assault weapons and handguns at gun shows without a license is a huge loophole in the entire system and it makes no sense that it hasn't been closed. My point was that Michael Moore lays the entire blame for the Columbine shooting at the feet of gun rights advocates like the NRA, as if there weren't any other factors involved, and tries to blame Charleton Heston for the murders to his face for the "shock" factor of Heston getting offended (you'll notice in the film he was more than willing to interview with Moore and have a discussion of gun control for several minutes, until Moore requested he apologize for the murder of the girl, as if he had pulled the trigger himself).

The NRA has some idiotic positions, since they campaign for absolutely no gun control, but Moore has the absolute opposite bent of campaigning for total gun control (i.e. you can't buy one), so it's difficult to get behind his position and therefore his film.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Micheal Moore is a fuckhead. End thread.

[Aerozord]

if your arguement is sound, you want to represent all information and the logical conclusion will be your side. If this isn't the case then your own arguement is flawed and you shouldn't be advocating it.

Spreading skewed view of information hurts the movement by causing people to distrust the information they are given. This is why I ignore politcal ads. If you show only a clearly bias side, then your information is inherently questionable.