Það kom ekki á óvart að mynd Michael Moore, Bowling for Columbine vann óskarinn sem besta heimildarmyndin.

Verst að það er varla hægt að flokka þetta sem heimildarmynd að mínu mati (og annarra).

Eða eins og segir á síðu sem ég vísaði líka á í fyrri færslu:

The Michael Moore production Bowling for Columbine just won the Oscar for best documentary. Unfortunately, it is not a documentary.

Bowling fails the first requirement of a documentary: some foundation in the truth. In his earlier works, Moore shifted dates and sequences for the sake of drama, but at least the events depicted did occur. Most of the time. Bowling breaks that last link with factual reality. It makes its points by deceiving and by misleading the viewer. Statements are made which are false. Moore invites the reader to draw inferences which he must have known were wrong. Dates are transposed and video carefully edited to create whatever effect is desired. Indeed, even speeches shown on screen are heavily edited, so that sentences are assembled in the speaker's voice, but which he never uttered.

A film which does this may be a commercial success. It may be amusing, or it may be moving. But it is not a documentary. One need only consult Rule 11 of the rules for the Academy Award: a documentary must be non-fictional, and even re-enactments (much less doctoring of a speech) must stress fact and not fiction. To the Academy voters, some silly rules were not a bar to giving the award. The documentary category, the one refuge for works which educated and informed, is now no more than another sub-category of entertainment.