A Ride Youll Never Forget- Bowling for Columbine

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A Ride You’ll Never Forget

The Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ criteria for “Best Documentary Film” includes in their definition for a documentary that it should be a non-fiction film that creatively addresses cultural, historical, social, etc. subjects. Bowling for Columbine won the Academy Award for best documentary film and has stirred up quite a bit of debate amongst its viewers. Thousands hail Moore for his ingenious creativity and are ready to take a stand to change America after seeing it. Bowling for Columbine is a great documentary because Moore creatively puts what seem to be unrelated shots and scenes together to create viewer’s minds to open up and think about things in ways they may have never thought about before.
In order to create such a thought provoking experience Moore puts footage of different shots together in order to get the viewers mind wondering on different pathways of possible reasons for America’s violence issue. For instance, the footage of the crashing of the twin towers and the Kosovo bombings were played right after one another. Nobody would have thought about those two situations having a connection before viewing Bowling. Moore really gets deep into his viewer’s hearts and almost physically opens their eyes to see possible relationships between the unimaginable. A good aspect to any film is the power to motivate and to take people on a ride they’ll never forget. The montages of different occurrences throughout Moore’s film expand your mind and take you on a life time experience.
Many will say that the film has no point and has many bizarre connections brought up throughout the film. In reality Moore does have a point and certainly does not make any crazy connections. Rex Reed states “as the irrelevant facts multiply, the focus jumps all over the map and the point of the movie blurs”. In Bowling for Columbine there are several montages put together which contain many different happenings throughout America’s history that may seem unrelated. Reed has obviously been blinded by all these “unconnected facts” as he spends most of his time hunting for one specific point when the film really addresses several points such as fear, violent video games, TV shows, poverty, etc. to links for America’s violence. Throughout the film Mo...

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...ar factor in the end.
This film has an ingeniously powerful way of making its viewers go against the grain and think about things never thought about. Waldron-Montgani helps point out that it takes its spectators down many different pathways and thought processes. “Bowling for Columbine is the right movie at the right time, and if it were seen, it could change America,” Montgani proclaims. It will bring you from laughing to tears with the amazing footage on an extraordinary journey in search for answers that will never exactly be found. Bowling bears a few messages that are most definitely worth considering. Even if everyone doesn’t agree or see things the way Moore does, he digs up questions that are worth asking and certainly worth pondering. Any film that can create such a mind boggling journey deserves a merit. It’s a difficult task to make a film that addresses a serious issue and to use such extraordinary techniques to take the audience on a ride they will never forget, but Moore seems to have mastered it in his film Bowling for Columbine.

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