Bowling For Columbine Documentary Analysis

Throughout time Michael Moore has created many great documentaries and made a name for himself. Most of Moore’s documentaries consist of a similar theme and a similar directional diction. Two of Moore’s documentaries that really stood out to me personally are the tragic stories of Bowling for Columbine and the harsh truth of Fahrenheit 9/11. I found two specific scenes in these documentaries being the scene where the shooting occurs in Bowling for Columbine and the scene where the plane crashes into the twin towers in Fahrenheit 9/11 which captured my attention and also create an atmosphere of physical and mental emotions and pain, leaving me thinking in depth about they way our lives play out and the impact that these actions have left

This scene occurs when Osama Bin Laden crashed two planes into the twin towers, the scene starts as the news reporters and George W. Bush are preparing to present the news of the crash. Moore has used this to represent how they all felt having to present this terrible news to the world, then switching to the sound of what happened I feel shows thats the reporters telling the world, the way Moore uses cutaways from each reporter and bush shows the tension building within them, how they are all being made picture ‘perfect’ tells us that these people are important and have something big to say, I also feel the way Moore used the cut aways going from the reporters to Bush shows how insignificant he was/felt, he is just in the same boat as one of them, being told what to do and say by someone else and not really knowing what the think about the situation. As this is going on Moore also uses music in the background of the cutaways. I feel the music gives an affectif being uncomfortable and knowing that something is about to happen but not knowing what it is, it puts the audience on each giving a ‘hold your breath’ moment. The use of music then leads up to the next part of the scene where the actual plane crash happens. Moore has used lighting to transition from the people to a black screen which goes into where the plan and building collide. As Moore uses the black screen in the background soundscape is used to go from unsettling music to diegetic sound of the real life recording of the collision. I feel this gives the impression of what it was like for everyone in and around the buildings when this happened, it gives a new impression as you are unsure what is about to happen because all that can be heard is sound. It is observational through sound and Moore has kept a similar directional style showing us what they may have been feeling