Michael Moore's Oscar Speech

[Keith Loh]

//"... the American culture has been built on a tradition of violence (in its history) and that rampant gun ownership is predicated upon an environment of fear spread by the media." Again, if that is your take on it, you are welcomed to it. However, you, nor Moore, can't "blame" the media for people owning firearms.//

I'm discussing the Moore film, not explaining my own views on this issue. If you would prefer to discuss my own views on this and not lump me in with Moore in a dismissive way then there are other forums we can take this to.

Feel free to vent, though, if it makes you lower your blood pressure.

EDIT: grammar error fixed

[Jay Gladwell]

Keith, if you don't think the theme of the "mockumentary," to use Matt's apt description, isn't an attack on the Second Amendment, then you missed the whole point of the film.

Read Sarah Brady's quote in the article.

"I'm discussing the Moore film, not explaining my own views on this issue. If you would prefer to discuss my own views on this and not lump me in with Moore in a dismissive way then there are other forums we can take this to."

I was only responding to what you had written, no more no less. And if you will go back read what I said, I used the word "if" as in 'if this was your thought...'

[Keith Loh]

Brady is endorsing the film; she didn't make it. So what? Saddam Hussein reportedly likes The Godfather too.

Even in Brady's quote it doesn't indicate that she is against gun ownership, only gun violence. As I recall, one of the planks of the NRA is that guns don't cause violence, people cause violence. I don't seen any divergence between that statement, Moore's film or the Brady endorsement.

[Jay Gladwell]

Then you don't know or don't understand who Sarah Brady is and what she is trying to accomplish.

Be that as it may, Michael Moore is a liar. His films are not valid documentaries. Just my opinion.

I've said more than enough on the subject.

###

[Keith Loh]

//I was only responding to what you had written, no more no less. And if you will go back read what I said, I used the word "if" as in 'if this was your thought...'//

Yes, but if you go back and read my post which you liberally quoted so that it sounded like I had said it as my own opinion you would see that I was restating Moore's argument. Based upon the film. It sure looks like "less" not more.

[Keith Loh]

//Then you don't know or don't understand who Sarah Brady is and what she is trying to accomplish.//

I don't! But just throwing out a name and a seemingly vague endorsement is not an argument.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

"Moore is to the Left what a member of the Klan is to the Right."

Debatable, but Moore makes films and writes books, whereas Klan members are known to lynch people.

I'm curious, Jay, as to whether you've seen Bowling for Columbine. The sense I got from the film was that Moore is very much in favor of the contemporary interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. The opening of the film depicted Moore's upbringing as a gun owner and marksman.

As Moore points out, Canada has a comparable density of gun ownership but a fraction of the gun deaths. Moore attacks not Americans' right to own guns, but the societal and cultural factors that motivate Americans to use guns on each other at a higher rate than other countries.

[Wayne Orr]

<<<-- Originally posted by Matt Betea : I also believe that in a year's time no one will remember him or his speech. Unless he decides to make another mockumentary about the current government officials. -->>>

Which is exactly what he has announced will be his next project.

Maybe next year you guys should take a Valium before the Academy Awards.

[Dylan Couper]

<<<-- Originally posted by Wayne Orr : <<<-- Originally posted by Matt Betea : I also believe that in a year's time no one will remember him or his speech. Unless he decides to make another mockumentary about the current government officials. -->>>

Which is exactly what he has announced will be his next project.

Maybe next year you guys should take a Valium before the Academy Awards. -->>>

If they did, they probably wouldn't have been awake by the time Moore got up on stage. :)

[Bob Zimmerman]

Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2003
THE LEFT COAST REPORT
A Political Look at Hollywood

Michael Moore managed to insult his own workers, enlarge his reputation for hypocrisy and attack some of the most beloved heroes of our time. The guy sure knows how to start the year out on the wrong foot.

Moore's liberal allies inevitably back him when he lashes out at President Bush. But even his leftist buddies would probably agree that some humble pie-eating and Lott-sized apologies are in order this time.

It seems the portly propaganda pusher recently attacked the self-sacrificing souls of Flight 93.

According to a columnist from the British Independent, Moore described the 9/11 brave-hearts as "scaredy-cats because they were mostly white. If the passengers had included black men, those killers, with their puny bodies and unimpressive small knives, would have been crushed by the dudes." Moore wasn't through embarrassing himself. On the second-to-last performance of his live show at The Roundhouse in Camden, North London, he threw a fit over his paycheck.

This kind of stuff out of the great filmmakers mouth is enough for me to never watch anything he does.

[Bob Zimmerman]

2. NRA and the Reaction To Tragedy. The dominant theme in Bowling (and certainly the theme that has attracted most reviewers) is that NRA is callous toward slayings. The theme begins early in the film, and forms its ending, as Moore confronts Heston, asserting that he keeps going to the scene of tragedies to hold defiant rallies.

In order to make this theme fit the facts, however, Bowling repeatedly distorts the evidence.

Bowling portrays this with the following sequence:


Weeping children outside Columbine, explaining how near they had come to death and how their friends had just been murdered before their eyes;

Cut to Charlton Heston holding a musket over his head and happily proclaiming "I have only five words for you: 'from my cold, dead, hands'" to a cheering NRA crowd.

Cut to billboard advertising the meeting, while Moore in voiceover intones "Just ten days after the Columbine killings, despite the pleas of a community in mourning, Charlton Heston came to Denver and held a large pro-gun rally for the National Rifle Association;"

Cut to Heston (supposedly) continuing speech... "I have a message from the Mayor, Mr. Wellington West, the Mayor of Denver. He sent me this; it says 'don't come here. We don't want you here.' I say to the Mayor this is our country, as Americans we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land. Don't come here? We're already here."


The portrayal is one of Heston and NRA arrogantly holding a protest rally in response to the deaths -- or, as one reviewer put it, "it seemed that Charlton Heston and others rushed to Littleton to hold rallies and demonstrations directly after the tragedy." [italics added]. Moore successfully causes viewers to reach this conclusion. It is in fact false.



Fact: The Denver event was not a demonstration relating to Columbine, but an annual meeting, whose place and date had been fixed years in advance.


Fact: At Denver, the NRA canceled all events (normally several days of committee meetings, sporting events, dinners, and rallies) save the annual members' meeting; that could not be cancelled because corporate law required that it be held.


Fact: Heston's "cold dead hands" speech, which leads off Moore's depiction of the Denver meeting, was not given at Denver after Columbine. It was given a year later in Charlotte, North Carolina, and was a response to his being given the musket, a collector's piece, at that annual meeting. Bowling leads off with this speech, and then splices in footage which was taken in Denver and refers to Denver, to create the impression that the entire clip was taken at the Denver event.

Fact: When Bowling continues on to the speech which Heston did give in Denver, it carefully edits it to change its theme.


Moore's fabrication here cannot be described by any polite term. It is a lie, a fraud, and quite a few other things. Carrying it out required a LOT of editing to mislead the viewer, as I will show below. I transcribed Heston's speech as Moore has it, and compared it to a news agency's transcript, color coding the passages. CLICK HERE for the comparison.

Moore has actually taken audio of seven sentences, from five different parts of the speech, and a section given in a different speech entirely, and spliced them together, to create a speech that was never given. Each edit is cleverly covered by inserting a still or video footage for a few seconds.

First, right after the weeping victims, Moore puts on Heston's "I have only five words for you . . . cold dead hands" statement, making it seem directed at them. As noted above, it's actually a thank-you speech given a year later to a meeting in North Carolina.

Moore then has an interlude -- a visual of a billboard and his narration. The interlude is vital. He can't cut directly to Heston's real Denver speech. If he did that, you might ask why Heston in mid-speech changed from a purple tie and lavender shirt to a white shirt and red tie. Or why the background draperies went from maroon to blue. Moore has to separate the two segments of this supposed speech to keep the viewer from noticing.

Moore then goes to show Heston speaking in Denver. His second edit (covered by splicing in a pan shot of the crowd at the meeting, while Heston's voice continues) deletes Heston's announcement that NRA has in fact cancelled most of its meeting:


"As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that."


Moore has to take that out -- it would blow his entire theme. Moore then cuts to Heston noting that Denver's mayor asked NRA not to come, and shows Heston replying "I said to the Mayor: Don't come here? We're already here!" as if in defiance.

Actually, Moore put an edit right in the middle of the first sentence! Heston was actually saying (with reference Heston's own WWII vet status) "I said to the mayor, well, my reply to the mayor is, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I've run small errands for my country, from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you here in this room could say the same thing."

Moore cuts it after "I said to the Mayor" and attaches a sentence from the end of the next paragraph: "As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land." It thus becomes an arrogant "I said to the Mayor: as American's we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land." He hides the deletion by cutting to footage of protestors and a still photo of the Mayor as Heston says "I said to the mayor," cutting back to Heston's face at "As Americans."

Moore has Heston then triumphantly announce "Don't come here? We're already here!" Actually, that sentence is clipped from a segment five paragraphs farther on in the speech. Again, Moore uses an editing trick to cover the doctoring. As Heston speaks, the video switches momentarily to a pan of the crowd, then back to Heston; the pan shot covers the doctoring.

What Heston actually is saying in "We're already here" was not the implied defiance, but rather this:


"NRA members are in city hall, Fort Carson, NORAD, the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center. And yes, NRA members are surely among the police and fire and SWAT team heroes who risked their lives to rescue the students at Columbine.

Don't come here? We're already here. This community is our home. Every community in America is our home. We are a 128-year-old fixture of mainstream America. The Second Amendment ethic of lawful, responsible firearm ownership spans the broadest cross section of American life imaginable.

So, we have the same right as all other citizens to be here. To help shoulder the grief and share our sorrow and to offer our respectful, reassured voice to the national discourse that has erupted around this tragedy."

[Wayne Orr]

For those of you who may be somewhat confused by Bob Zimmerman's lengthy explanation, here is a link to a brief history of guns in America, in moving pictures and concise language.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/video/america.php

[Bob Zimmerman]

Sorry Wayne it was to long, I took it for a website. It was alot longer! I wanted to show alittle how Moore uses edits, etc to make people think fiction is fact.

[Chris Hurd]

<< how Moore uses edits, etc to make people think fiction is fact >>

It is important to understand that within the history of documentary filmmaking, this is not a new concept in editing, nor is it neccessarily a bad thing. One of the greatest documentary filmmakers ever, the highly regarded Robert Flaherty, used this technique consistently.

Once again, please keep the discussion here on a focused and polite basis... this thread is borderline, it really shouldn't be here, but if the discussion is civil then it can remain.

Be advised however, that nobody is going to change any other reader's mind about certain issues no matter how strenuous the arguments are or how "vehement" the disagreements are. Usually these discussions are completely pointless and irrelevant, because nobody's going to change their minds about this stuff, and all it accomplishes is to split the community along polarized lines. That is a bad thing, and I'm watching this closely, so please keep it civil. Much respect,

[Keith Loh]

I react strongly to the use of the label 'liberals' when the industry embraces a broad spectrum of views. The same 'liberal' Hollywood is the industry that pumps out action movies by the dozens every year, is the same industry that has mega stars with Republican affiliations like Arnold Schwarzennegger and Bruce Willis, that gave rise to the career of NRA president Charlton Heston, former president Ronald Reagan and supports the very conservative views of MPAA president Jack Valenti. Indeed, it's the same Hollywood that in this thread some have applauded for booing Michael Moore. I am quite happy with the divergence of views in 'Hollywood' (if one can even cover such a diverse and huge industry under one name). If liberal means accepting of a variety of views, bents and backgrounds then I would agree, yes, Hollywood is liberal. This is not a bad thing in a creative industry.