A bazooka under the cushion? No problem
A dialogue with the documentary film producer Michael Moore on the American culture of violence, the legasthenic Bush and his trump card Saddam
by Katja Nicodemus )
ZEIT: Mr. Moore, in your film Bowling for Columbine you make the massacre of Littleton, where two pupils in April 1999 killed twelve schoolmates, a teacher and themselves with semiautomatic rifles, to the starting point of a journey through the American culture, a culture of violence. It turns out that you are a member of the National Rifle Association (NRA) yourself. When did you begin to shoot?
Michael Moore: Already as a kid. For me the use of weapons was something completely normal. I come from Michigan, where there's more hunting than anywhere else in States. We got together with the kids from the neighborhood to practice shooting and to go hunting. We hunted rabbits and pheasants. I switched rather early to sports shooting and I also won a few cups. In my childhood weapons were as normal as anything else.
....
ZEIT: What are you planning?
Moore: I would love to get people so far they would not let themselves be treated as idiots anymore. I was there the night, when the Berlin wall fell. We were on the way to the Film festival in Leipzig. Never again in my life had I such an overwhelming feeling of hope. I really thought, that, since this miserable threatening backdrop of the cold war has now disappeared, we could start to do something about ourselves. These dreams of course collapsed very soon. Ten years later we are all paralyzed, watching a small group of hypocritical politicians without scruples cut the world to their own liking and to the liking of their friends.
ZEIT: Do you fear America? (*)
Moore: I fear America, because we Americans fear too much, and we fear the wrong things.
... complete interview at (where else;)
xave.de
RegZ
dj
(*) I was tempted for minutes to write "fear for America", which sounds quite different. But the German ("Haben Sie Angst vor Amerika?") original does not allow any doubts about the question and the answer. |
