Chekhov's Mistress
Bowling Alone
Shortly after its release, my wife and I rented the Bowling for Columbine DVD. I typically have a short attention span for television, so I was armed with a bit of light reading to pick up as soon as I became bored with the movie. I didn’t do any reading that night, but enthusiastically followed Mr. Moore as he traveled around the country armed with nothing more than a camera, his wits and conviction – needing nothing more. We even watched the DVD extras, like Mr. Moore enjoying the limelight at Cannes.
One reason I’m so enthusiastic about this is that I was surprised. I have always looked upon Mr. Moore with a mixture of amusement and annoyance; amused at his antics, which I imagine most are familiar with by now, and annoyed that his narrow world-view is mostly couched in entertainment. I saw this scruffy voice of the working man a few years ago at a forum at the Columbia School of Journalism. CSJ always did a good job of getting extremely competent speakers on both sides of a debate and the discussions were always lively. That evening, Mr. Moore was pitted against P.J. O’Rourke. There were others there, but I don’t remember them. Mr. Moore spoke with such emotion and conviction (interestingly, only surpassed by Pat Buchanan in a previous debate) that the crowd was genuinely stirred. But then O’Rourke’s acerbic wit surprised everyone with lucid economic arguments that an open mind had no choice but to consider. The point of mentioning this event is that I think that public ranting should be backed up by a solid basis, and that night, logic trumped emotions – Mr. Moore seemed ill prepared to debate issues with someone unsympathetic to his views and came off as little more than a whiner.
I put off seeing “Bowling” for a while even though it was enjoying an extended play at close-by theater. I was still skeptical when I rented the video right up until I was drawn into it within just a few minutes. In the movie, Mr. Moore didn’t offer any solid conclusions, but only groped with questions that are so deep-rooted and complex that there are no answers. One cannot ask for any more than that. “Bowling for Columbine” takes its title from the morning activity of the kids who, later in the day, went on an unforgettable rampage through a high school in a Colorado suburb. The title alone, in emphasizing the contrast between the banality of suburban life with the outrageous dark and secret world that these kids lived in, speaks volumes as the movie unfolds. Moore, with an uncanny, nothing to lose interviewing style is able to hold up a mirror on society that can’t help to show some serious faults under a thick layer of makeup. Some of the interviews are absurd, such as the bank that gives away rifles upon opening an account. They leave one wondering, “what were they thinking???” And yet, many other interviews were poignant, like the one with the principle of a school where a little, six year old (if my memory serves me) boy shot another child.
One of the most impressive moments in the film, and I won’t give too much away, was Mr. Moore leading a couple of young men who survived Columbine, albeit with severe physical impairments to K-Mart corporate headquarters to protest their selling of ammunition for assault rifles; the protest was successful. In most of the film’s interviews, Mr. Moore lets his subjects fall squarely flat on their face, clearly not seeing the hypocrisy of their words. As a matter of fact, the only thing that I think lacking from the DVD is perhaps a sampling of the extra footage that didn’t make it into the final cut, as I would be interested to see any of the interviewees that made fools of themselves have a chance to have all that they said shown, even though I imagine they probably only dug deeper holes for themselves.
I heartily recommend this movie to anyone who wonders why a rich society such as ours has this violent undercurrent. And I adamantly recommend this movie to anyone who doesn’t wonder.
comments
No CommentsCreative Commons License Deed Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
You are free:
- to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
-
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
-
No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
- For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.
- Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
- Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.
This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license):
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/legalcode
This site employs rank-denial and other anti-spam measures.
Your link here will do nothing for your rankings or traffic. Off-topic comments will be deleted.
Previous entry: Mr. Plimpton’s Last Pass
About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: October 02, 2003
- Filed Under:
Polygluttonous: Food/Places
- Comments:0
- Links to this Post: Technorati
