Bowling For Columbine Film Analysis

A documentary is believed to be real and full of true facts, though there are some films which have been heavily edited which result in manipulation of their audience due to change of facts. Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore, a documentary released in 2002, demonstrates the ways that composers manipulate their audience through editing, showing partial amounts of a story, taking advantage of the audience’s lack of knowledge and the selection of participants.
Through the use of editing, composers can mislead their audience. Editing a film allows the composer to change the original context of the film. This leads to the audience being presented with information that has been adjusted and not the original idea. From the use of editing, the …show more content…
Through editing, composers have the power to change their film in any way they want to. This also includes the exclusion of parts of stories. Presenting partial amounts of stories helps composers to express their point of view as they are able to use this to their advantage. In Bowling for Columbine, during the interview with Charles Heston, he purposely depicted Heston as the villain who didn’t care about the events of the shooting of Kayla Rolland at Mt. Morris. The film displays Moore asking Heston questions about holding a pro-gun rally immediately after the shooting of Kayla Rolland. It has been stated by David T. Hardy on his own website that this rally was actually an election rally held by Heston eight months after the shooting. Hardy states “When Heston says he did not know about Kayla’s shooting when he went to Flint, viewers see Heston as an inept liar.” As Moore had only included partial amounts of the stories of the Kayla Rolland shooting and Heston’s election rally, it was implied to the audience that Heston had self-consciously held a pro-gun rally right after the shooting which had manipulated his them. This proves that the inclusion of partial amounts of stories is able to manipulate composers’