History of Documentary

Wednesday, 21 September 2022

Documentary filmmaking is often focused on the documentation of true events, sometimes as they happen, but often after the fact in order to preserve and distribute history to others as well as to future generations. This definition, however, is somewhat malleable as one’s view of events can disparage accuracy or even add bias to the film. All films, no matter the filmmaker or intent, inherently contain certain biases, but a film that has such strong bias to the point where information is incorrect or fabricated cannot be considered a true documentary. However, Hitler’s Germany did just this with many films created before and during World War II. In fact, it was common to present footage taken from fictional pieces as factual in combination with other true footage in order to turn viewers against Jews and threatening foreign powers. In Erik Barnouw’s “Documentary,” we read, “The Eternal Jew then embarks on a ‘history’ of the Jew, purporting to show how his true nature shows through the acquired veneer. The story is here ‘documented’ through footage from fiction films” (142).

This pattern has not abated, particularly in countries with militaristic governments. As leadership continues to control the population through propogandist films, inaccurate portrayals of events poisons the minds of entire countries. In the film The Act of Killing, the filmmakers present to the main characters of this film – men who were tasked with the killing of thousands in the journey towards what they claim to be the eradication of communism – the ability to tell this story from their personal point of view in whatever way they desire. These men chose to reenact these events fictionally through a film featuring styles present in many films that inspired their styles of killing.

While the creators of The Act of Killing attempt to portray not the truth of the events of 1965-66 in Indonesia but the true lives, intentions and feelings of these brutal murderers, their subjects reveal themselves so readily with their refusal to include any actual evidence of what they’ve done besides their own personal claims, even to the point where they admit out loud they might actually kill an actor whose father was on the receiving end of their brutal treatment when he presents a story that makes them out to be in the wrong.

The question to ask here is whether or not things like the fictional film these men created can be considered a type of documentation. It can’t be considered a true documentary, but it can be considered a documentation of the true sentiments or mentalities of those creating it. This is why “documentaries” created by the Nazis are still so important: it shows exactly what their intentions were, what they were planning to do, and how they justified the cruel and horrible acts committed against the Jews and other enemies of so-called “racial purity.” Don’t misunderstand, the definition of documentary still stands – however, the power of the false retelling of history does challenge it and forces filmmakers to think more deeply about what, exactly, is being documented when such films are made.

Safit Pardede and Anwar Congo have a chat about morality while makeup artists prepare them for the day's shoot.

A large group of the gangsters responsible for the killings of '65-'66 use the son of a murdered communist to act out a common killing method. They joked about actually killing him.

Monday, 10 October 2022

Yesterday while scrolling through Instagram, a video popped up on my feed of a dermatologist reacting to a video of a woman with a very severe ingrown toenail – or at least, that’s how it was presented. As it turned out, the “toenail” was actually a dog chew toy shoved onto the woman’s toe, which the dermatologist easily explained. With the small amount of information presented in the first video and the expertise of the dermatologist to contradict the faked footage, this outright lie was easy to debunk. What happens, however, when there is a lot more information presented, truth is mixed in with the lies, or no lies are told but there is a large omittance of fact? In the world of documentary, it may be true that truth is harder to come by than we as viewers would hope.

The film Sicko, directed by Michael Moore, is a convincing example of a biased opinion presented as an impartial exhibition of fact. While the highly positive social aspect of socialized medicine was made absolutely clear, easily persuading a suffering American audience of the blessings of such a structure, much information was omitted from Moore’s argument that would shift the perspective. While he had stated that taxes wouldn’t be an issue and wait times would go down, this information isn’t entirely correct in every country with socialized medicine and nothing was given on the subject of personal choice when it came to a patient’s right to ask for certain tests or procedures. Even without delving into this complicated subject in the ways that Moore did, it’s clear to see that the full truth was not told. This was not an impartial documentary.

At this point, viewers have to consider whether what they’re watching is political or educational. In chapter four of Erik Barnouw’s “Documentary,” he explains in a section called “Promoter” the issues western countries – specifically the United States – had with documentaries, documentarists, and communism from the fifties up through the eighties. Instead of focusing on the facts, pressure from fear and pride within the government and society had begun to ostracize artists and intellectuals accused of being sympathetic to communist views. Documentarists were being forced into the role of biased reporters in favor of anti-communist pieces. As Barnouw says on page 54, “Such moments made a documentarist ponder his role: was he a chronicler of current history, or a promoter?” Although this might have been one of the first western examples of this issue and of documentarists being forced to take a certain stance when creating a film, this question can and must be asked about Moore and others like him in today’s world as they present films as impartial when they are, in fact, withholding important information that could change a viewer’s perspective.

After examining these examples, we now have a question we must ask ourselves: is a documentarist required to provide a news-worthy, impartial picture of a situation for an audience? Are documentarists automatically expected to provide a whole picture, or is there a reasonable expectation that they may lie or withhold information should they so desire? In today’s world, even news outlets cannot be expected to tell the full truth; there may be standards we hope they will abide by, however it has been proven in recent years that these aren’t followed and there is no organization holding them to it. In short, the answer to our original question is still up to interpretation and our own personal perspectives. What is it that truly defines documentary? Is there one working definition that we all must go off of if we are to become documentarists? As things stand now, we must find the whole truth for ourselves through using our own powers of discernment regardless of how information is presented to us.

Michael Moore and a company of 9/11 heroes-turned-victims of the American medical system sail triumphantly to Cuba.

“Conflicting interpretations are often a central concern, as we have seen with debates about cigarettes as a cause of cancer or global warming as a man-made problem.” – Bill Nichols, “Introduction to Documentary: Third Edition”

Wednesday, 26 October 2022

Kallon and the Cards, short cut, 2022

As I planned how I would go about filming this documentary, I knew what my subject matter would be and who my subject was, but had to think twice about how I was going to present it. Kallon, my subject, is my roommate and one of my very best friends. Her approach to faithfully practicing tarot as an active member of the church is inspiring to me, especially as it has brought her closer to her ancestors, temple work, the Spirit, and strengthened her relationship with God.

Knowing Kallon, I understood that she likely wouldn’t be extremely comfortable on camera if there were more than two people in the room and if she couldn’t interact with the person behind the camera. In order to help her be more comfortable, I took a more active role in this filmmaking process and allowed the reading she did to be on me rather than filming her doing it for someone else. I felt that making this choice also would allow the viewer to identify with me, the filmmaker without a face, as someone who is accepting a tarot reading readily. While most of this documentary is expository, in order to help my subject and the viewer be most comfortable with this piece, I also took a participatory role and allowed my personal life to shine through. This reminded me of Sicko, the expository documentary by Michael Moore, who begins his film with narration and finishes it out as the most active member of the on-screen crew. In order to lead the audience to believe and buy into his narrative, he includes his own personal efforts to give healing to those who can’t access it and his feelings while visiting nations with better public health coverage.

It was interesting to see how Kallon wanted to present herself as well. As she prepared for this, carefully cleaning her side of the room and putting on nicer clothes, I let her know this documentary wouldn’t be seen by that many people. She replied with, “I know, but I don’t want to perpetuate the stereotype of Gypsies being dirty.” Instead of addressing me as the interviewer all the time, she often addressed the camera directly; while she interacted with me very naturally as she normally does, she knew she had an audience and used this platform to directly state what she wanted people to know, which did slightly change how this experience usually goes when she reads cards for people.

My hope with this short documentary is that viewers who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will feel more comfortable with practices they are unfamiliar with. Rather than condemning something they don’t understand, they will keep an open mind, just as we hope outsiders will with the practices of our faith. At the end of this piece, Kallon says, “It should be a practice of love, and if you meet someone who is not practicing it with love, know that it’s not true.” This statement goes not only for tarot, but for those looking in on the Church as well. I hope viewers will see this connection as clearly as I did and feel inspired to change their perspectives if necessary.

Wednesday, 2 November 2022

As a child, I remember watching March of the Penguins on an almost weekly basis. The exploration of the life of the emperor penguin was fascinating to me, unrelatable, alien - and yet I was so emotionally attached to the lives and well-being of these birds. I imagined them all alone, huddled together, suffering in their little habitat and surrounded by crews of camera men… what? That was something I hadn’t expected, to learn years later that not only did this footage NOT drop magically into the laps of filmmakers ready for distribution, but it had to be captured by brave souls who were willing to venture into the icy tundra. The cameramen were there THE WHOLE TIME. I wondered forever after that if the behavior of the penguins shifted at all during observation. Did more eggs die? Were the penguins stressed? What I have learned over time is that no documentary can be truly, fully observational.

Documentaries such as The Gleaners and I and Sherman’s March acknowledge openly that the creator has played a very large part in the creation of the content being watched. Every person is acknowledged as a participant in any given situation – even, at times, the camera. In Sherman’s March, one of McElwee’s love interests asks Sherman to put the camera away; if it was any other inanimate object, its interaction within the situation wouldn’t be questioned and despised by someone wishing to have a private conversation. The social participation of the camera is more prolific and scientific than we assume in a time when constant camera presence has been normalized. As I filmed my own documentary with my roommate, I found simply having the camera out changed the way she behaved and looked. She got more dressed up than she had been and usually is at ten at night, cleaned her room better than she usually does, and spoke differently – as if there was another person in the room. To any subject, the camera counts as an unknown audience, and we must remember that a strange set of eyes can be a threatening presence to anyone watched by them.

This isn’t to say that documentarists who wish to hide their faces or portray their involvement differently are incorrect or immoral in their decision. Their influence still exists, but instead of making that known more obviously, it is up to us, the audience, to remember there is always a pair of hands behind the camera. What we see may still well be the truth, and it may well be just as true as any participatory documentary. Whatever way the information is delivered to us, it’s our responsibility to acknowledge whatever participation or influence was had on the subjects in the film, even if it isn’t obviously explored.

In 1801, the scientist Thomas Young performed the first version of the Double Slit experiment. He was trying to measure the behavior of light to see if it was a particle or a wave. As it turns out, neither was true – light exhibits both properties, and more so that of a wave when being observed and measured. The simple presence of a watchful human eye changed, entirely, the way in which light behaves. When unobserved and unmeasured, it acts more as a particle. If even light is scientifically required to perform for its audience, we must assume that anything and everything else must change as we document it as well.

A filmmaker and a penguin share a literal connection on the set of March of the Penguins (2005).

One of Ross McElwee's many love interests asks that the camera to be turned off during a serious conversation (it wasn't).

Documented results of the Double Slot experiment, proving observation changes the behavior of the materials observed.

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

Alison Knits, 2022

In this second documentary project for the semester, I decided to try for the performative mode. My subject matter was pretty straightforward and easy, so there wasn’t really any great nuance in what I was saying. There are definitely ways in which others can disagree with what I say, as a lot of what I divulged was opinion and experience from my own life, but it didn’t come close to the depth and intrigue of the documentaries we watch in class. In this way, my documentary wasn’t representative of true performative mode as I didn’t use my experience with knitting to say anything deeper about the subject itself or my life or anything else I talked about. I did film some other content about classical patterns in eastern Europe that I didn’t add which might have helped this. I talked about how there are unusable patterns coming out of those regions based on sigils from paganism that bled into common culture, because those sigils are what inspired the Nazi swastika. I explained that perhaps it’s time to examine how we look at symbols stolen from a nation or a people and are used as symbols of oppression and evil, and decide to repurpose and reclaim them for a revival of their original history and correct culture. In the end, I felt it was too big of a leap from everything else I was saying and decided to leave it out.

This film was much more of a mess than my last documentary for this class, but this fact tells me that if I’m to pursue documentary filmmaking the performative style may not be my best bet as long as I want to say something meaningful. I also definitely spent too much time filming and editing this project for something that we were instructed was to be low-effort. This wasn’t, however, due to a desire for further complication: It’s easy to critique what other people do in front of the camera and judge what is appropriate for the audience to see, but when it’s yourself in front of the camera, it gets harder to make those calls. I’m not usually an especially self-conscious person, but this project did provide a challenge in that I had to look at myself critically. While I don’t enjoy watching this project and will be deleting it from my website as soon as this class concludes, I think this has been a great project to learn from when it comes to how I will portray others in documentaries or projects in general. It will hopefully become easier to be kinder and more empathetic to others within my films when I know how hard it is to portray even myself in a manner which I can be proud of. Acting a part is one thing, but it really takes guts to put your true self out there on display.

This project made me think about, in much more depth, the bravery of Ross McElwee in his film Sherman’s Marchas he displays his past conquests and confusion on screen for anyone to see. I felt so insecure looking at how lost I was in my own footage and not knowing what to talk about or where to take my storyline, so I can’t imagine what it was like looking at his hours and hours of footage and attempting to create something from it without beginning to hate himself and his past choices. I’m sure he had help working through it, but even if he only worked on it for a few days out of the weeks or months I’m sure it required, my one hour was enough for me to realize it can be so embarrassing to relive old moments. I have a much higher respect for his hard work on that project.

Wednesday, 16 November 2022

The topic of race relations isn’t a comfortable topic for anyone. Not only does it imply a barrier between two groups, both imagined into boxes that cannot mix by oppressive and abusive people, but it is clear that improvements towards the situation are more difficult to manage than most people realize. The boxes, though imagined, live on in the minds of everyone. For myself, a white woman so pale and lacking in melanin so as to be borderline translucent in the winter, who has only ever lived in strictly white-bread, saltine-cracker areas, navigating this issue hasn’t been something I’ve had to think very much about. Working towards the abolition of these boxes hasn’t been on the forefront of my mind because the boxes were never taken out of the back closet and dusted off. I think I had about three conversations with black people before I turned 18. In high school, I read the stories about the American Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, did the assignments, and moved on. Box checked. I’ve had many more diverse experiences since then, but an answer to the question of what I can do to find solutions to the problems of race we face in the United States wasn’t on my mind because I felt I couldn’t have anything to say about it. I had no right, and I was unequipped to speak out. And then we read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book “Between The World and Me.” There on page 7, a thunderbolt struck: “But race is the child of racism, not the father. And the process of naming ‘the people’ has never been a matter of genealogy and physiognomy so much as one of hierarchy.” Ah.

The documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” says this same thing in much broader terms. It’s worth watching not only because it presents an extremely educational timeline of events for the Civil Rights Movement, but it also explains how the institution of whiteness has caused all the problems we currently face and are having such a hard time solving. While listening to these words from James Baldwin, images pass across the screen of white men in white wife beaters carrying signs saying “white supremacy,” marching around with big smiles and baseball bats. Whiteness and the implementation of the other, of the boxes, was and still is used as a weapon. The existence of whiteness was – and horrifically still is – used as sign to black people that their existence is subservience while the white is one of dominance and power. While I haven’t done anything in my life to support the horrific claims of “white supremacy” and I never will, the mere fact that I exist may be used against the black community because I represent a majority and look like people who use skin color as a weapon. You don’t have to be the cause of the issue to represent it, and I’m mad at the people who continue to make that a reality for me and for minority communities.

This response is a lot more open ended and there are no solutions tied into my words. These words are merely my own insights into where “white” people can begin to unearth where our ancestors went wrong, and where the most uneducated and inexperienced of us might begin to understand why these problems continue to rage on and why black and other minority communities are still so hurt. While this issue isn’t something that directly causes daily problems for me, it is the fact that my pale, pink skin – which came upon me by chance and which not even the rays of the sun seem to be able to bronze – has been historically labelled as wholesome and clean that it is also my issue. I take issue with being put into a box and being told to keep quiet, and I take issue with my dear friends facing such a massive amount of hurt. I don’t have solutions, but now, maybe I have a small path towards supporting and building them.

Coates and his book.

One of the many images of disturbingly happy people holding "white power" signs present in I Am Not Your Negro.

Monday, 28 November 2022

Finding authenticity in spaces where authentic self is not accepted often feels dangerous. For some marginalized communities, it actually is. In this class we’ve watched many documentaries featuring complex protagonists and controversial issues, but none quite as important and prevalent in today’s society as those shown in I Am Not Your Negro and Paris is Burning. Our reading assignment “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates adds to this same narrative. All three of these pieces use individual experiences, opinions, and voices to assist the majority in understanding the complexity that comes with being a marginalized black individual – marginalized, black, queer individuals, in the case of Paris is Burning – in the United States.

Authenticity and individuality is hard to come by when an entire group is amassed into one foul set of incorrect and harmful stereotypes. Specifically in I Am Not Your Negro, we hear the individual voice of James Baldwin from within the Civil Rights era. While we today often look back on that time as all civil rights activists being followers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and more militant groups such as the Black Panthers, Baldwin says he felt no strong kinship with any of them in particular. This doesn’t mean he didn’t believe in the cause, he just had an individualistic take. In his book, Coates makes this statement to his son: “You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable.” In other words, don’t conform to the masses and their expectations for you so they can sit happy with their living stereotypes. Be yourself, live authentically. One of the most important and interesting parts of Paris is Burning is how incredibly diverse the viewpoints and experiences were of every interviewee. While they all had the queer community – and especially the queer drag ball community – in common, none of them behaved exactly the same as another of their fellows, or believed entirely the same thing about life and living. The point isn’t exactly what each of these people believed so much as how their differing viewpoints set them apart from their peers in the same minority group. This understanding, that individual, authentic people can have opinions separate and even sometimes conflicting with their minority group, is what can save us from mob mentalities that throw minorities under the bus and make majorities villains. These people live authentically, and their experiences are valid.

The minority experience is different for every person that must walk that path. For a few, it is easy; whether through luck or other means they are able to escape the pains that are usually assigned to that marginalized group. For others it is challenging, some arguing that hard work surpasses all barriers. Still more believe that these challenges are put in place by a system that favors those in the majority, using the backs of those who do not belong as a springboard into an easier future for themselves. We have seen that reality in many other circumstances in history (Hitler’s Germany with the Jews, Australia with the Aboriginals, today in Russia with Ukraine). Today, this same divisive logic is what is being used to turn us on one another once again. Who knows what the goals of these pointing fingers are; whatever the case, we must turn to sources such as these films and this book in order to remind ourselves what is at stake when we allow the majority to turn minorities into brainless, blind scapegoats: the loss of authenticity, independence, and humanity.

James Baldwin, the writer behind the narration in I Am Not Your Negro, sitting in an audience.

Individual expression is important in the Ball community - it's evident even and especially in style of dress and body language on the ball floor.

Wednesday, 7 December 2022

On Brain Damage, 2022

As I write this essay I’m struggling to remember what it was I wanted to write about. Once you watch my documentary I’m sure you’ll understand why. This film was created by taking footage from my daily life and a vacation I took to New York City, combining the two to create a clashing and confusing short documentary that accurately portrays my struggles against the aftermath of two traumatic brain injuries. Dealing with the pain of a traumatic brain injury, also known as a TBI, is challenging, but once the pain fades, the aftermath is decidedly worse. having to face the brain fog, disorientation, and struggles in almost every area of my life is hard enough, but it’s even worse when nobody knows what it is I’m struggling with. This documentary seeks to educate my audience on what it is I deal with on a daily basis through the reflexive and poetic documentary modes.

Before I had decided on what my film was about, I decided to record a few of my journeys in the car and my walks to and from campus. I also had recorded a lot of footage in New York City when I visited a few weeks prior, thinking I could make a story out of that instead. Realizing my inability to choose a single subject and continuing to be so torn about my subject – á la filmmaker Ross McElwee in Sherman’s March – was a result of my still healing brain trauma (hopefully not also McElwee’s case, I feel it necessary to add), it became clear to me that my subject was my brain trauma and how it causes me to struggle with facing decisions and making myself clear. However, instead of explaining within my dialogue about the reasons for including the extra footage as McElwee decides to do, I decided that including the extra footage with no explanation would become the explanation in and of itself. Thus was borne the woven tapestry of both reflexive and poetic modes within this film.

I wanted to capture first and foremost the chaotic and disorganized nature of my headspace as I navigate this trial of having a brain that doesn’t like to cooperate with basic commands and tasks. While the sounds heard and the extra footage displayed aren’t things I actually see or hear regularly when I space out or get confused (that would point to other mental issues which I thankfully don’t have), they simulate for the viewer my own confusion and distraction as I struggle to find the words to explain how I feel and what I’m doing. The best way to feel what someone else feels is to experience it yourself, which I tried to do here in real time as I experience it on the screen. In this way, the audience and I, myself, as the filmmaker, connect with one another as the reflexive mode requires. The reflexive mode doesn’t require the filmmaker to become the subject directly, but as this hardly counts as participatory since I am the only participant and there is nothing to interact with aside from my own mind, reflexive felt the more appropriate term. This film is also a more realist take, another departure from traditional reflexive mode. Trinh T. Minh-ha recounts her and other women’s experiences in Vietnam in the film Surname Viet Given Name Nam through the use of actors and careful staging, a very easy example of reflexive mode documentary. Although I was not purposely acting myself, one could argue that having the camera rolling while I was talking could have inspired me to behave as though I was. In this way, perhaps, it fits better into the category.

The reflexive mode I have utilized here, however, is useless without the addition of the poetic mode. Through weaving together clips that aren’t related, sufficiently confusing the viewer, I am painting a better picture to them of what it is I’m dealing with. I timed the sound cuts to match my facial expressions, utilizing repetitive noises enough to even become annoying, matching the sound cuts to when I space out and when I come back to myself. The videos I used were, hopefully, just disjointed enough that it can properly represent the randomness of my thoughts, of what takes me away from a moment and breaks up the thoughts I had been having. I enjoyed playing with opacity in order to superimpose footage on top of other footage, as was the case in Man With A Movie Camera, a classic poetic mode documentary. I also purposely left things rugged and unpolished. Every decision was intentional. The shock factor present in the sharp edges of unpolished sound editing and random video cuts that don’t make sense in a traditional editing sense provides the perfect amount of confusion to represent my own struggles in a more unrealistic way.

I share a number of raw feelings within this film that I otherwise would have been deeply uncomfortable putting out into the world. Because of the way in which I used sound and video editing around the reflexive footage of myself, I felt a lot more comfortable showing this uglier, more disjointed and confusing side of my personality. When creating a film surrounding any subject – especially touchy and sensitive ones – it is extremely important to analyze which mode of documentary will best represent the situation or state of being shown to the world. Something else I realized was that it’s important to use caution and ethical treatment of a subject even when it is oneself. I was ready to throw stuff out that I wasn’t even thinking was that sensitive, but then realized how damaging it could be to my confidence if someone who didn’t like me got ahold of that footage in the future. Everything I said in the documentary was true, and thankfully those few omittances don’t damage the film. Although I don’t plan on becoming a full-time documentary filmmaker, the different modes are a great informant on all filmmaking and should be studied and considered when telling a story. Hopefully, my own featured story here will only continue to go uphill and I will not need to make a part 2.