Michael Moore finishes Oscars acceptance speech for Bowling for Columbine 15 years later
The director was speaking at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards
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Your support makes all the difference.Michael Moore took care of some unfinished business over the weekend.
Accepting his Lifetime Achievement Award at the third annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards in Brooklyn, the director – who released Fahrenheit 11/9 earlier this year – seized the opportunity to complete a speech he began 15 years ago at the Oscars.
Robert De Niro, who rushed off to appear on Saturday Night Live, presented the award to Moore on Saturday (10 November), introducing the documentarian as “a true, true American hero… one of the greatest truth-tellers in this country right now.”
Moore then proceeded to use the moment to conclude his 2003 Oscars acceptance speech for Bowling for Columbine – he had been pulled off stage before being able to finish.
“Fifteen years later now tonight, we are not only still at war, but we have a president who has declared war on our democracy and war on us,” Moore said, according to Deadline. “Keep picking up those cameras, everyone here in this room, because the people gathered here tonight, you may be America’s last line of defence and hopefully the first line of rebuilding this country that he is currently destroying.
“I encourage anyone watching at home tonight in the Gary, Indianas of America, in the Camden, New Jerseys, in the San Ysidros, in the East St. Louises and, yes, the Flints and Detroits and the Pontiacs and the Dearborns to pick up a camera and fight the power, make your voice heard, and stop this senseless war.”
Moore has been a vocal critic of Trump’s since the president announced intention to run for office. “We got here not by Trump. Trump didn’t create the mess we are in. When we get rid of him, we are still going to have the mess,” he told The Independent earlier this year. Read the full interview here.
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