Online Response 5

The Participatory Mode

There were many moments where the participatory mode was extremely compelling in the films that we have seen this week. This was an aspect of participatory mode that was discussed in the reading, and also in class. Participatory mode works to engage an audience by bringing them into a story. We discussed in class the way that participatory mode draws in and engages a viewer, simply by making the filmmaker a social actor in the documentary that plays out. There were many moments this week that I felt more engaged with the story than in previous weeks. I think that this was mainly due to the act of participation that occurs onscreen. These films really filled the role of activist for me, because even the filmmaker is not taking a passive role. Everyone in the film is taking an active stance, and that was extremely invigorating and engaging.

One thing that I enjoyed from Harlan County USA was the way that Barbara Kopple engaged with both the men and the women in that town. I think that, particularly in the 1970's, and especially since the subject matter was primarily centered around men, that the film would have lacked a women's voice if the filmmaker had not been a woman. In this way, Kopple was able to act as not only an activist for the community, but as an activist for a fair and equal representation of that community. If the director had been male, the voices of the women, and their strong role in supporting the strikers would have likely been lost to other aspects of the film. In addition to this, it is interesting to see the way that the other people in the town treat Kopple, most likely because she is a woman. This was especially true for the men who were working to break the strike, and who treated Kopple with significant disdain. Her role as a participatory filmmaker added extra layers of meaning to the film, but in a fairly subtle way. We never see her on film, and we only ever actually hear her twice.

This subtlety is lost on Michael Moore, who, in Capitalism: A Love Story zoomed around Wall Street putting up yellow tape and demanding that the nation get their money back from the big banks. I thought that these antics almost detracted from his argument in the way that they were so over the top, and difficult to completely process. It was much easier to accept Kopple's subtlety.

In addition to this, the topic that Michael Moore is arguing about is much more civil than that of striking coal miners. This makes his antics look ever crazier, in comparison with Kopple's subtle ways.