There are montages of shocking and violent images such as for instance Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World, which illustrates American hypocrisy and double standards in foreign policy. The montage paints a forceful idea of bullying and ridiculousness. The general idea of each point is something like "1942 - America allies with Russia to kill Nazi's.... 1955 - America fears Russia killing Americans." Few people would ever accept this as a point of American policy’s ridiculousness, so Moore uses instances less familiar with the public to make the same "this is what we did then, and look what happened - America has all these peoples blood on its hands" point that he eventually uses to blame the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States in the end shot.
Michael Moore frequently uses the technique of contradiction. He would go off showing a typical scene and afterwards, the scene that comes out is entirely contradicting the previous one. This method of paradox causes a larger impact towards the audience. An example of this is the irony between the scene where the spokesman for Lockheed Martin in an interview states "The missiles that you're talking about were built and designed to defend us from somebody else who would be aggressors against us. Societies and countries and governments do things that annoy one another but we have to learn to deal with that annoyance or anger or frustration in appropriate ways. We don't get irritated with somebody and just cuz we're mad at em, uh, drop a bomb or shoot at em - or fire a missile at em" and what comes right after it when Moore immediately fades into this brief scene as if to say “Oh really??” and proving quite the opposite with persuasive success in the following scene illustrating the aforementioned What a Wonderful World montage.
Often times the music that is played in the background clashes with the visuals shown on screen. There is juxtaposition between the serious images or visuals and the harmonious melody. The irony makes the audience feel disturbed in what they are seeing quite unparallel to what they are hearing hence leaving a greater impression in their minds. There is more to reality than just ecstasy. An example of this is the montage of people being murdered by guns, and the jolly vocalist John Lennon is singing Happiness is a Warm Gun in the background. It is a telling fact that nothing is as harmonious as it seems. It manifests the abusive consequence of owning a gun originally meant to promote social/personal harmony through protection and security.
Another technique that Michael Moore having full control in the role of editing might have made use of is faking scenes. He could have made advance arrangements of the houses in Toronto that kept their doors unlocked before the camera rolled for example, and many more.
A socialist, Michael Moore agrees in the same political message as Marilyn Manson in his interview with him. The government especially the president’s military actions in other countries contributed to these disturbed teenagers’ murders. In order to show a softer side of Manson to cleanse his diabolic image but conversely blame the government and the media, Michael Moore effectively cuddles up to the rocker. They go on in an agreeable conversation as Moore filters back to the conversation the things that Manson has previously mentioned. Moore’s accordance with the rocker makes a good image out of Manson- a pretty intelligent and witty rocker.
In sharp contrast to Bowling for Columbine's sycophantic and bootlicking interview of Marilyn Manson, the climactic interview finishing off the movie with the National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston is a sham. The audience is left to thinking that Charlton Heston is insensitive, ignorant, racist and foolish. What Michael Moore did was set Charlton Heston up in a series of traps with dishonest presumptions that he has already tricked his audience with. The viewer, bringing these presumptions with them into the scene, gets a nasty impression of Heston’s comments.
Michael Moore has used these techniques effectively succeeding equally well in presenting the message on gun control/violence in America. Although some may argue that there are a lot of lies behind the “facts” that Moore uses to prove his ideas, he is skillful enough that some of the readily- impressionable viewers don’t realize that they are being fooled. Therefore, he has successfully persuaded the audience about the lacks gun control policy in America and its consequences.
