# 2) Statistic source:The montage continues (with martial music playing under Michael Moore’s voice-over. Then he goes on to wonder about all the people in other countries—they go bowling, they listen to rock music, they watch violent movies, play violent video games, etc. Now he really gets wound up. Is it poverty? Is it our Western tradition of clearing the land and destroying indigenous people? But wait—look at other countries and the violence they have wrought. Cut to Hitler as a graphic on the screen says, “Germans exterminate 12 million,” and “Japanese occupation of China,” and “French massacre in Algiers,” and “British slaughter in India.” His voice-over: In spite of all this, how many people are killed by guns each year? As he recounts the figures, the graphics pop up on the screen (across images from movies, tourist travel films of the countries, and other archival footage: 381 in Germany, 255 in France, 165 in Canada, 68 in the UK, 65 in Australia, 39 in Japan, and 11,127 in the USA. this particular source strengths Moore's position because he shows actual statistics on the screen. Interview source: Michael Moore uses interviews as a source for his film. He keeps the cinema verite style moving: we keep seeing the people he is interviewing and hear him ask the questions before they answer them. He finds two people in bars and asks them if they lock their doors. Nope. He learns that both of them have suffered break-ins. But do they lock their doors now? Nope. Then Moore is standing outside, looking around confused. He is in Toronto, and he is obsessed with this idea of people not locking their doors. Then he strengthens his this part of the film by approaching a guy at a sidewalk café. “You don’t lock your doors?” Nope. The guy explains, “You think as Americans the lock is keeping people out of your place. We as Canadians see it as when we lock the door we’re imprisoning ourselves.” Moore walks the street in Toronto. His voice-over: I decided to go a neighborhood unannounced and see if this unlocked door thing was true. We watch him approach and open three doors. The last one he says, “No one locks their doors!” He talks to another woman at her front door she isn’t afraid. Then he ends by talking to the man at the third house and apologizes for opening the door unannounced. Video source: First image is from a film promoting the National Rifle Association. A man dressed in an Army uniform full dress—says, “The National Rifle Association has produced a film which you are sure to find of great interest. Let’s look at it. Then Michael Moore voice-over, against images of people at work in America. It sounds like a typical “morning in America” spiel, but one of the images shows bombed out buildings as Michael Moore says, “and the President ordered the bombing of another country we couldn’t pronounce,” and then he refers to “the little town in Colorado two boys went bowling at six in the morning.” Cut to the bowling and then to a cute “chick” in a bikini—as she holds up an M-16. Dissolve to the Statue of Liberty. Moore’s voice-over: It was a typical day in the United States of America.

# 3) The lack of extrinsic ethos feeds into Moore’s intrinsic ethos. Michael Moore grew up in Flint Michigan. His appearance is a comfortable and humble look. He sports blue jeans, regular t-shirts and different colored sweatshirts. His beard is a bit unkempt, wiry and unruly. His hair is sloppily jutting out from beneath his baseball cap. Being fairly new to the movie scene, this plain manner of dress allowed him on average person, therefore, trustworthy. His manner of speaking seems to fit his image as well. His tone seem to be geared toward a broad audience.

# 4) Pathos is used extensively by both films. The appeal to emotions is very strong because emotions direct people and the way that people live their lives. Emotions are very powerful, and both movies try to appeal to our emotions to persuade us to their side of the argument. Moore appeals to the viewers emotions in the inauguration scene in the beginning of the movie. He shows the protestors at Bush's inauguration to incite anger into people over the fact that Bush was elected. He also does this later in the movie when he interviews troops in the hospital. He wants people to feel bad about the troops and therefore be against the war. He also interviews the mother of a fallen soldier to appeal to people's emotions. He wants to show the pain and anguish that the mother has now that her son was killed in Iraq. He appeals to our emotions because we don't want the pain and anguish of losing a loved one, so he wants us to oppose the war so that people will not have to suffer the pain that the mother shown in the movie had.

# 5)

Michael Moore has very nearly become a household name in today’s politically charged society. I would even argue that one of the reasons that modern North American society is so politically charged in the first place (more so 4 years ago than now) is because of Moore himself and the movies, books and television programs he has created since he began his career in 1989 with the underground hit Roger and Me, which chronicled General Motors’ destruction of the infrastructure of Moore’s hometown of Flint, Michigan. One of those TV programs, The Awful Truth (which aired from 1999 to 2000) was not only his most popular televised project, but the title pretty much summed up the brunt of his subject matter and the show’s style pretty much set the template he would use for his full length films as well. He exposes the hidden and less than savory “truths” about the United States; its society, its businesses and most importantly its government, and his mode of doing so is primarily documentary. However, he tends to do it in a comical, sarcastic way; almost to the point where it seems like parody. Many before have tried to juxtapose serious content under a comedic guise, but none in recent memory have done so with the amount of success that Moore has (John Stewart’s The Daily Show being the notable exception, however even they have yet to reach the silver screen.) In fact in 1995 he made his first foray into non-documentary film with Canadian Bacon, a comedic look at the relationship between Canada and the United States. He has proven (in theory) that one man with a camera (in theory) could (in theory) affect the political and social landscape of an entire country by influencing a whole generation of Americans to become politically active and become aware of their surroundings, effectively breaking them out of their boxes American society tries so hard to lock them into, or so Moore would claim. Many would claim to have had their eyes opened by Moore, which then led to them becoming politically active. Still more would claim that Moore is a liar and an un-American cheat (I’m referring of course to the Religious right wing, who are more often than not one of Moore’s primary targets.)

Bowling for Columbine is a movie about violence. It takes its name from a rumour that the two boys who committed the school shooting at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado, in April of 1999 had actually gone bowling that morning before they went to school. This event shocked the American populace into seeing a reality that had been present for many years: America is a violent place. Moore’s intention with the movie is to show just how violent of a place America is, just how long it had been this way and how this horrible level of violence compares to the level of violence in other countries (note: America always came out looking worse than anyone else, even Nazi Germany.) He does this through a myriad of documentary styles and techniques and ties it all together under his traditional concept of mixing serious content with a comedic coating. I believe by analyzing this film, one can get a pretty decent understanding of Moore and his unique documentary style of filmmaking. I chose this movie in particular for analysis (as opposed to his most famous release, Fahrenheit 9/11) due not only to my personal connection to it but also since I’ve noticed this is the only one of his three films without an overt agenda behind it. There is an agenda, don’t get me wrong, but it is less overt than the agenda behind Fahrenheit 9/11, which exists only to denounce the Bush Administration whereas Bowling takes a particular topic (violence in America) and takes steps to the flesh it out for the movie going public without trying to motivate them to any particular action or opinion. I assume Moore’s intention is to make people like America less and fight for a change in Gun Control Policies, but he never says it outright.