'Bowling for Columbine' Moore Presents Truth or Not?

Author: Daryn Cambridge and Peter Simon

YES

On April 28-30, Middlebury College Activities Board, the Department of Sociology, the Department of Political Science and the Program in Film and Media Culture screened Michael Moore's documentary, "Bowling for Columbine." It was one of the most widely attended events on this campus and one of the most magnificent displays of community attendance during my four years at Middlebury.
I was one of over a hundred people turned away at the first showing due to a packed Dana Auditorium.
I was pleased to find out that it would be screened again the following evening. When I showed up early the next night, again there was a crowd of people waiting to enter. Fearing I would be denied entry once again, the packed crowds and long lines were initially a cause for frustration. Despite the circumstances, though, my strongest sentiments were actually of a positive nature.
Seeing groups of people migrate to Dana Auditorium with a shared desire to view Moore's film communicated to me the concerns people had with the workings of American society and their desire to inquire into the problems that for many Americans are unavoidable - whether it's gun violence, racism, media manipulation, welfare, corporate greed, militarism or a variety of other pertinent issues.
During a lazy day in Border's Books on Church Street - a few weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11 had triggered unprecedented displays of patriotism and support for the president - I stumbled across a book called "Stupid White Men." On the cover was a portly, scruffy-necked man in jeans and a baseball cap, wielding the Washington Monument in one hand while looming like a giant over a table where corporate-fashioned, old, white, men were seated.
I began flipping through the pages. I was shocked when, what I then considered, "anti-American" sentiment began to spill from the pages. What was this book all about? How could someone be criticizing our government during a time that required our support? Out of curiosity though, I kept flipping. I looked around to see if I was receiving any evil looks, shifted my weight from one foot to the other, and situated myself in a comfortable reading stance. Slowly but surely, my flipping became reading.
I later purchased "Stupid White Men" and read it cover-to-cover, all the while laughing as well as throwing my hands up in dismay. This is the powerful response that Michael Moore can create for anyone who encounters his work. The first time I saw "Bowling For Columbine" I sat alongside my parents in a small theater in Northern Virginia.
The whole audience fought to hold back tears as we all struggled to digest footage of distraught Columbine High Schoolers, the results of American-installed dictators, and ubiquitous forms of racism. Five minutes later we would be holding onto our popcorn as it shook with the strength our laughter. That is a Michael Moore experience.
Many people criticize Moore for being misleading in his stories, annoying in his presentation and a big fat idiot. I, on the other hand, believe Moore embodies something that makes this country great: the freedom of speech. I admire his enduring desire to expose the problems he finds with his country. I do not agree with everything he says, but I do admire the way in which he embraces his American rights and citizenry.
Some may remember Moore's controversial "We like non-fiction because we live in fictitious times" speech he delivered while accepting his Academy Award. In a post award-show press conference he was asked, "Why did you do what you did?" He responded, "I'm an American."
The reporter then asked, "That's it?" Moore said, "That's a lot! I'm an American and you don't leave your citizenship when you enter the doors of the Kodak Theater. What's great about this country is that you're able to speak your mind and that's what I do in my film-making, I do that in my daily life, and I don't stop being who I am when I come into this ceremony."
Every time Moore gets escorted out of a corporation's headquarters or receives a palm in the lens of his camera, he in turn triggers important debate among those who are exposed to the questions he raises.
For that, I praise him as a modern "gadfly to the state."

Daryn Cambridge '03 lays down funky beats out of Arlington, VA.
NO

The first time I saw "Bowling for Columbine," in Paris in the fall, I enjoyed it. Bravo, Michael Moore, I said. I disagree with much of what you say, but I'll admit, you made a good film.
But then I did a little research. I was certainly taken aback by many of the things Moore claimed to be true, and the film is very convincing. But it was so one-sided.
What I found in several articles on the film shocked me. The film is still thought-provoking - only now the thought it provokes is how can an entire nation of audiences fall for this stuff?
The problem isn't that Moore is just presenting one side of the issue. That much is obvious, and any politcally-based documentary might do the same. The problem is that Moore presents his side by deliberately attempting to deceive the viewer into believing things that are just not true.
Charleton Heston did not rush to Colorado and Michigan to hold defiant gun-rallies in the wake of school shooting disasters at Columbine and Flint. The National Rifle Association (NRA) "rally" held in Denver was its annual meeting at a time and place that had been fixed years in advance. The NRA cancelled all scheduled events that week out of respect for the Columbine victims. All they held was the members' meeting. (The NRA, by the way, has 4 million members.)
Moore uses clever editing to make Heston sound defiant. "From my cold dead hands!" was actually said about a year later in North Carolina. Heston said nothing of the sort in Denver. The rest of Heston's alleged speech is spliced together from various parts of his speech to make him sound defiant. This is the equivalent of a "non-fiction" writer quoting another author by taking bits and pieces of sentences written by that author, combining them and presenting them as the author's words.
Eight months after Kayla Rolland's death in Flint, Michigan, Heston held an election rally, which had nothing to do with the incident or even guns. Moore mysteriously neglects to mention that the incident in Flint may have had more to do with the fact that the 6-year-old shooter was growing up in a crack-house than the fact that his mother had to work to earn welfare.
This is just the beginning of the deception. There is an animated sequence suggesting a connection between the NRA and the KKK. In fact, the NRA was founded by former Union members after the Civil War; the KKK by Southern white supremacists. The groups were, from the start, vehemently opposed to one another and certainly never in cahoots, as depicted in the film.
The United States, we're told, gave the Taliban $245 million in aid in the years leading up to September 11. The money was in fact humanitarian aid given through United Nations and governmental agencies.
Moore even goes so far as to stage several scenes presented as having spontaneously happened, such as the opening scene of receiving a gun from a bank, and the final scene, depicting a morally righteous Moore holding a picture of Kayla Rolland, while Heston is allegedly walking away from him.
You get the picture. This is just scratching the surface. It's impossible, in this amount of space, to describe every trick Moore used to make his often-baseless points. The filmmaker's deceptions won't bother many of you. I just hope that those of the same political orientation as Mr. Moore don't place politics above truth.
Peter Simon is a psychology major and French minor from
New York, N.Y.