'Bowling for Columbine', directed by Michael Moore, deals with the problems of gun crime in America.

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Discuss the persuasive techniques used by Michael Moore in three scenes from his film ‘Bowling for columbine’

‘Bowling for Columbine’, directed by Michael Moore, deals with the problems of gun crime in America. The main purpose of this film is to persuade American people to change their ideas about guns and gun laws. Moore constantly refers to other countries such as Canada and their gun policies to back up his arguments for increased gun regulation. He is successfully able to counter argue any reason given by pro gun supporters as to the reason why America has the highest gun related crimes and death, even though other countries have similar attitudes towards violence. The scenes that have been selected focus on different aspects of the film, which present Moore’s ability to persuade his audience into his way of viewing gun crime.

Michael Moore has used a variety of techniques in the ‘A wonderful World’ scene to influence the audience into siding with his views and to portray America as a destructive force to other countries.

The sequencing of the scene ‘A Wonderful World’ is very effective. The scene before the clip is very ironic as it shows the Lockheed Martin, which is the largest weapons producer in America. The Lockheed Martin spokesman is standing in front of A missile and is talking about America as a protector of the world. Yet, immediately after this, the man claims that America is not an aggressor, the film is launched into the scenes which entirely contradict his claims. This is a successful use of persuasive technique as the audience will now trust what Moore has to say rather than anyone else in the film.

The visuals that Moore uses are extremely effective as they display only one side of the views rather than portraying an objective view of America. The visuals that are used are destructive and there are images of death and murder which the US has supposedly inflicted. All visuals that have been used in this scene are news video clips; therefore the audience can trust this information as appears authentic. They are also trust-worthy as they have been cut out from newspaper reports and are in black and white which portrays that the sources are more dependable and authentic.

The use of repetition such as ‘assassination’ and ‘dictator’ evokes negative images within the audience’s mind. The word ‘dictator’ will immediately cause the audience to think about Nazi Germany and the tyranny they brought upon the world. Moore uses this to his advantage as the first scenes show a marching army that has been ‘installed by US.’ They appear to be goose- stepping which is similar to the Nazi troops, and this instantaneously causes the audience to detest this army that the US has installed. They are presented as brutal, violent and evil through these means of persuasive techniques.

Throughout this whole scene Moore uses clips of death and human corpses to express his views. In one of the clips the viewer is shown a dead man being dragged by a US soldier. The words ‘American Military kills 4 million people in South East Asia’ increases the shock that the viewer is forced to feel. ‘4 million’ is an extremely large number which emphasizes the disastrous effect America has had on other countries. Other figures which Moore uses to a similar effect is ’70,000 Salvadorian and 4 America nuns killed.’ The use of the words ‘American nuns’ is effective as they are considered religious people, and most of the audience will sympathise with their deaths as they represent peace. Words such as ‘killed’ and ‘murdered’ are emotive words use to persuade people as they have a power effect on the audience and have extreme meanings behind them. These emotive visuals used by Moore conjure up feelings of anger and disgust as the audience views the dead bodies and are repulsed at the US.  

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The most effective visual that has been used in this scene is the clip of the dead child lying on a hospital bed. The text below it reads: ‘U.N. estimates 500,000 Iraqi children die from bombing and sanctions.’ This clip evokes a sad image as children are considered innocent and pure, which straightaway causes the audience to side with Moore, as there is no reason as to why the US should have caused the deaths of so many children. The number ‘500,000’ itself is hard to cope with and since the U.N. is considered trustworthy, as it is a governing ...

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