Documentary Techniques

These are the different types of documentary styles used:
Observational: Records people in a natural environment.
Fly on the wall: Subjects are observed over a period of time.
Interactive: Film maker is both charcter and author.
Drama-documentary: Drama reconstructions.
Mockumentary: Parodies the forms and conventions of a documentary.
Personal: Film maker addresses camera directly.
Expository: Informs and educates the viewers.

About Michael Moore

Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries. In September 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, Slacker Uprising, which documented his personal crusade to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections He has also written and starred in the TV shows TV Nation and The Awful Truth.
Moore criticizes globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, U.S. Presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the Iraq War, the American health care system, and capitalism in his written and cinematic works.

Michael Moore Essay

Michael Moore-Bowling For Columbine

I am writing this easy in order to evaluate Michael Moore’s documentary ‘Bowling for columbine’. Bowling for Columbine is a documentary film written, directed, produced, and narrated by Michael Moore. The film explores what Michael Moore suggests are the causes for the Columbine High School massacre and other acts of violence with guns. Moore focuses on the background and environment in which the massacre took place and some common public opinions and assumptions about related issues. The film looks into the nature of violence in the United States. This documentary is an expository and an interactive documentary as it informs and educates us and also Michael Moore is the author of the documentary but he is also the main character in the documentary. This documentary does ridicule many of the events or people portrayed throughout the film but is not classified as a mockumentary.

Throughout this documentary Moore mainly acts in a pro-active mode rather than an observational mode as he is not just observing what is going on because he is the main character of the documentary and he is getting involved with everything, this shows that the documentary is hear felt and passionate. He does this to a good effect as you get the feeling that he really cares about the issues being talk about in the documentary and this helps to captivate the viewer, whereas if he was just observing and not really getting involved as much you would not feel like he really cares about the story behind the documentary.

In this documentary Moore goes against the stereotypes as he talks about the black people in America and there is a stereotype in America that all black man are criminals and that all crimes committed are by black men and he is trying to show to the viewers that this not the case. He showed a video animation of why there are so many guns in America and why there is a divide between the black and the white people in America this footage showed how the black people were treated as slave by white Americans but then they escaped and were free and all the white people stayed in their houses, hiding and scared and he uses this to show reasons why white Americans are scared of black people. Also he shows us news stories and this shows why many Americans are scared and think that they are unsafe because every main news story is about crime and it always shows that black people have been the culprits and he believes this a reason why there is a divide in society.

When Moore shows images and video clips he shows them all for a reason and he always shows them to back up his point and show us why this problem exists. Moore operates in the public’s interest in this documentary and this is shown by the way he portrays the story behind the documentary.

A reason why we know that he operates in the interest of the public is because he goes and visits some of the people who were Affected by the shootings at columbine high school. Moore takes two of the Columbine victims, Mark Taylor and Richard Castaldo, to the American superstore KMart headquarters in Troy, Michigan, ostensibly to claim a refund on the bullets still lodged in their bodies. After a number of attempts to evade the issue, a KMart spokesperson says that the firm will change its policy and phase out the sale of handgun ammunition; this comes after Moore and the victims go to the nearest KMart store in nearby Sterling Heights, MI, purchase all of their ammunition, and return the next day with several members of the media. "We've won," says Moore, in disbelief. "That was more than we asked for." This is just one of the ways that he shows the viewers that was operating in the interest of the public and by his reaction after the KMart spokesperson says that the firm will change its policy and phase out the sale of handgun ammunition you can tell that he really cared about what he was doing because he looked very emotional.

Moore uses a lot of editing to create a meaning behind the story as Moore makes a montage of news stories that are talking about gun crime and this is in the documentary to back up his point about black people and that it’s the media that are making the American people scared because every news story that they see is about crime and he believes this is reason behind there being so much gun crime in America as everyone is scared so they believe that they need a gun to protect themselves and because everyone has a gun it causes a lot of gun crime.

The main piece of editing Moore used was when he created a montage of phone calls to the police by the parents of the children at Columbine High School on the day of the shootings. This montage makes us realise how much of a tragedy this really was and it is also been put into the documentary to captivate the viewer and it is also there to try and hit the viewers emotions. This montage also has a shock factor to it because it’s real footage and all you hear is helpless parents weeping over the phone trying to find out information on whether their children are going to be okay and what is going on. This creates a real sense of reality and this clever by Michael Moore because he put this near the start of the documentary and this captivates the viewer early on.

 Also about 20 minutes into the film, The Beatles song "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" plays during a montage in which footage is shown of:

·         People buying guns

·         Residents of Virgin, Utah, a town that passed a law requiring all residents to own guns

·         People firing rifles at carnivals and shooting ranges

·         Footage of Denise Ames operating an assault rifle.

·         Footage of Carey McWilliams, a visually impaired gun enthusiast.

·         Footage of Gary Plauche killing Jeff Doucet, a man who had kidnapped his son and molested him.

·         The suicide of Budd Dwyer

·         A 1993 murder where Emilio Nuñez shot his ex-wife Maritza Martin to death during an interview on the Telemundo program Ocurrió Asi

·         The suicide of Daniel V. Jones

·         A man who takes his shirt off and is shot during a riot

This montage is a very important part of the documentary and is carefully positioned by Moore because he put it at the start of the documentary and he did this to show how real the problem is and this would have caused a shock factor to many of the viewers.

Michael Moore also uses slow motion in “bowling for columbine” to create a dramatic mood. He also leaves the camera running for a long time and it seems like he should cut the footage but he doesn’t because it shows the emotions of people he is interviewing. This happens in “bowling for columbine” when Moore is talking to a teacher at a school where two 6 year old children shot each other, she’s starts to cry and Moore leaves the camera rolling, he does this to add emotion and a heart effect to the scene because after you see this you see how it really has effected people. This is this is also very clever by Moore as this connects you to the issue as this makes you feel a sense of reality.

This narrative in this documentary does help to simplify a complex issue as it lets us know more about the relevant issues but over all it does not simplify it, as you can’t tell the real reason behind the issue at hand. Moore shows us a few possible reasons why there is such alot of gun crime in America such as because the Americans live in fear of their own neighbours and he also said that the history of America has always had this problem. He highlights America’s violent past with a montage showing how the United States has frequently been the aggressor nation. This montage is set to the song "What a Wonderful World" performed by Louis Armstrong. This montage includes footage on how the American military kills 4 million people in Southeast Asia in the years between 1963-1975 and also another clip of how the white house secretly gave Iran weapons to kill Iraqis in 1983. This highlights that how are Americans going to stop using guns when all they see is there government/military using them so freely.

Michael Moore’s explicit argument in “Bowling for columbine” is to make guns not so easily available. He does have very good reasons for this argument and shows them in this documentary. I think that he has turned people against guns through his strong message and some of the disturbing actual events he shows during the documentary such as archive footage from the columbine massacre, where you see CCTV footage of the two boys walking around there school shooting people.

Michael Moore creates a false sense of closure in the documentary by taking two victims from the columbine massacre to the head of Wal-Mart where the bullets they were shot with were purchased. Moore then confronts Wal-Mart and a media frenzy starts outside the building, this then causes Wal-Mart to stop ammunition in their stores. This makes the viewer think that everything is fine now but really it isn’t as this has not solved the whole problem this documentary is about.

The documentary makes many different common sense assumptions such as that people should just stop selling ammunition and guns to anyone and anywhere as this is not helping the issue at all as it makes gun access very easy. But this also makes the assumption that people will stop using guns if they are less easily accessible but that is not the full truth as people will still get hold of guns if they really the wanted one. He proves his point about how guns are so easily accessible as he shows a clip of him setting up a bank account in a local bank and getting a free gun for doing it.

The viewer is made to see the subject from Michael Moore’s point of view. By doing this he can push his views onto everyone whilst fare as he is a member of the NRA and a gun enthusiast. So this makes the documentary seem unbiased and makes the viewer think whether people should be allowed to own guns.

I think that this documentary is very effective and entertaining as it shocks you but also makes you laugh. Michael Moore really gets his point across and shows the effects that guns have. This documentary also gets its message across well as real message behind the documentary is that guns should not be so easily accessible.