Director Michael Moore took to the Oscar stage last night to refuse an award for “Best Documentary,” claiming that his movie, “Bowling for Columbine,” was not a documentary.

“It was complete fiction,” said Moore. “I took public footage, cut it apart, and combined it with other footage to create fictional speeches, document events that never happened, and claim histories that never were.” He said that other scenes were “completely staged” and one was even animated, “because there was no footage to fictionalize from the nineteenth century.”

Moore brought the other candidates for the documentary award on stage with him to apologize. He said that he decided to refuse the award because “after meeting these true documentarians, I realized that a fictitious documentary does a disservice to them.”

“Shame on you,” he said to the Academy. “Shame on you for ignoring these true documentaries and giving the award to a fictitious one.” Just before Mr. Moore ran out of time, he pointed out that “any movie that has been debunked by both the NRA and Canada cannot be a documentary.”

Academy Awards President Frank Pierson privately agreed with Moore, but considered his remarks poor timing. “Of course we all knew that ‘Bowling for Columbine’ was fiction,” said Pierson, “but it spread hatred and supported a lie that we like. If Moore didn’t want the Oscar, he should have told us earlier.”

Oscar Emcee Steve Martin softened the affront by joking that he had stopped by a web browser on the way to the podium, and “it was so sweet on the Internet, you should see it. Sarah Brady was removing every mention of Moore’s Oscar from the Brady Campaign’s web site.”