Music and Faces, No Planes - Kelly Larkin

What do you think about Moore’s technique in showing the World Trade Center attack? For example, the screen is black as the planes hit, and then we see only faces of observers, accompanied by lyrical music.

I think that by purposefully leaving out the actual footage of the planes striking the towers, and instead showing people who had just witnessed such an attack, Michael Moore effectively portrayed the emotional blow on the American people. If he would have shown the crashes and everything, it definitely would have been a different kind of sad. The viewer would be forced to recollect and think of their own experiences, maybe of when they first saw that footage, and how they felt the many times they saw it after that. By showing random people in New York that the viewer hasn't met and doesn't know, it forces us to be sympathetic and empathetic, and feel sad for them and for our country as a whole. The "lyrical music" definitely is effective in portraying a certain mood as well. In any film, the music in the background contributes to the tone of the piece, and can shift the feelings from humorous to serious to sad to angry and back to happy, just depending on what song they choose. Michael Moore's sad music was able to pull and the heartstrings of the viewer and combine with the sad, silent, fading images of the devastated people on the screen. It was extremely sad, eye opening, and for his purpose, effective.