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.

Doc Mode Activity Number 1 - Interactions

For this documentary mode activity, I decided to explore the observational mode. I decided on observational mode, because I was very intrigued by an idea that Nichols brings up in Introduction to Documentary, where he says that people who did observational documentaries chose to "observe the lived experience spontaneously" (pg 172). This was a massive part of my process for this project. I just went out with my camera, and drove around randomly, looking for things to shoot. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make a documentary about the environment, and the way that we are treating our environment in this area. I had a clear idea, but once I started shooting, that idea shifted as I filmed spontaneously.

 This project began to be about relationships, relationships between the natural and natural, natural and unnatural, and unnatural and unnatural. It was extremely interesting to me to see the interactions between natural and unnatural things, such as  the quail sitting on a man made fence, or the power lines that obstructed a beautiful view of the mountains. These were the types of shots that I set out to film when I started working on this project. However, as I filmed, I started finding examples of ways that the environment has affected structures that have been abandoned. For a long time, I have been very interested in places that are left to the mercy of the environment, and not the people around them. These abandoned places have held a fascination with me, that has not been assuaged by research or exploration. In summation, I love abandoned places, and I love seeing the power that the environment can have over things that are built to withstand the environment.

(exploration of an abandoned recreation center)

 I think that there is something incredibly profound and beautiful about these abandoned places. For this part of this project, I was highly influenced by the opening scene to Naqoyqatsi. The representation of this abandoned building revived in me my love for abandoned places, and made me want to see what was available in this area.

However, this project was really all about how everything is intertwined. As I filmed the interactions between natural things, I thought about the fact that butterflies are indicator species. This means that of something is wrong with the environment, butterflies will be the first to die, signaling potential future problems for other species. This illustrated the idea that if we are not careful with the unnatural aspects of our environment, then the natural ones will suffer. 

For me, there was also a sense of spirituality in this project. In the vast majority of the scenes that I documented, I found a disrespect or a disregard for the other part of the interaction. This was especially true in the scenes where man made structures are infringing on nature. I kept thinking that, if God has given us this Earth as a gift, then why are we not spending more time, energy, and resources to care for it, and to make sure that it is not being harmed. What right do we have to be callous with a gift from God? I tried to portray this sense of spirituality through the music that I put behind these shots. 

Interactions

Open Response 4 - Ethics and Documentary

This week, in our reading from Nichols, we read about the way that ethics crosses paths with documentary narrative. The point was made that documentary filmmakers have a responsibility towards ethical behavior, since they are dealing with real lives, and real behavior. However as was discussed in the reading, this responsibility has also been used in potentially negative ways for positive goals, such as in The Land Without Bread.

This reading discussed several sociological studies that are famous for their lack of ethics. These included the Milgram experiment, and the Stanford University Prison experiment. While reading about this, I also thought of the Tea Room Trades experiment, where an experimenter tricked people into trusting him with elicit behaviors, and then followed up a year later with questions about these elicit behaviors. All of these experiments are reasons that sociological and other research has to go through Institutional Review Boards, which decide if this experiment is going to be ethical or not. While it is definitely a responsibility of the researcher to design ethical experiments, there is also a floodgate that makes sure that the Milgram experiment will not happen again. However, in documentary film, there is not a litmus test or floodgate that makes sure that the documentary was ethical. Sure, donors and investors can withhold funding from the start, but who can say what the eventual message or tone of a film will be or portray. The filmmaker is the only one who has true responsibility over his subjects. In addition to this, I think that it is sometimes easy to forget the problems that a group has had with ethical representation. For example, not many people remember the problem with Disney and the lemmings, and Disney is one of the most revered movie making companies in the world.

In the critiquing of a large institution, I think that the observational documentary mode is the most ethical way to go, at least in At Berkeley. This documentary completely allows the viewer to make their own decisions about the things that they are viewing, without the commentary of a person telling us how we should feel. Although the filmmaker has control over the sequence of the things that we see, the fact that we only hear words from the people who are directly involved with Berkeley makes a bug difference in representation. I think that the style of At Berkeley is the most ethical way to handle institutions or groups of people that we may not fully understand without passing judgement or being insensitive to their opinions.

Commentary in Night Mail

In Nichols book, a discussion takes place that expresses the idea that commentary in the expository mode should be separated completely from the images on the screen, and that the audience takes their cue from the voice commentary that they hear. While this was very true for both The Fog of War, and the Civil War, it was not nearly as true with Night Mail. The Civil War piece had an especially God-like voiceover tone, as we never saw the narrator. This was contrasted by The Fog of War, which was narrated by the literal subject of the entire documentary. I thought that the narration by Robert McNamara was extremely enjoyable to listen to, as the audience got to experience a little bit of his personality and character. That is something that was not available in the Ken Burn's piece, because it is impossible to get the real voices of people who fought in the Civil War. However, the commentary in Night Mail was different. Although there was an unknown, unnamed narrator that never appeared onscreen, the commentary did not feel completely God-like, as in the Ken Burn's piece. Instead, this commentary worked to combine with poetry, and seemed almost interactive with the film. This was especially accentuated in the scene where the commentary is an actual poem. We learned several things from this style of commentary. We learned again that the modes of documentary can overlap. Even though this piece was expository, there was definitely a poetic aspect to it. I also felt like this type of narration was closer tied to the images on film than some of the other pieces that we have viewed this week. This week was interesting, as it allowed us as viewers to see styles of narration that are not as common today, especially in the use of poetry to make an argument.

Documentary Narrative and Society

Awhile back, I had a conversation with someone who used to be in this program. They revealed to me that the reason that they left this program is that film does not affect society in any way. They said that they thought the study of film was completely pointless, because there was no way that society was ever going to change because of something in a movie. At the time, I wholeheartedly disagreed with what they said, and after this week of class, I wonder how they ever came to the conclusion that film is pointless. From the films that we have viewed this week, and the readings that we have done, I think that it is incredibly apparent that media heavily influences society. After watching the Why We Fight film, I thought about other examples of war propaganda from the United States. These pieces of media, including film, print, radio, cartoon, and others are what convinced the people in the United States that it was acceptable and necessary to go to war. Each of the pieces that we saw this week influenced the nation and the people that it was made for, and the time that it came from. In addition to this, the reading this week ( I think it was Nichols), discussed the fact that early documentary media was not truly documentary media, as it purported to simply show what was happening, and not make any argument about it. It was not until several years later, when films were made to support an argument that the documentary tradition was truly born. From this, I think that documentaries originated to change people's minds about the world, and the way that others think about the world around them. I think that most, if not all documentary filmmakers set out to prove a point, which will hopefully change one mind, or maybe a lot of minds. And hopefully, this will change communities, nations, and the world. We have historic proof of the power that documentaries can have over societies and nations. And we can see it today, in documentaries that are helping to change state and federal public policy, such as Blackfish.

That's the dream, isn't it? To inform people in such a way that minds and hearts are changed? I think so.

What is a documentary?

I have always known that I have loved documentaries, and have always enjoyed watching life, and the way that it is documented. As a young child, I used to love to watch the news. When my mom would suggest that I watch something more age appropriate, and that the news was too heavy for a seven year old, I would reply that I put more value on watching real life being documented than the fact that it was heavy. But until this week, I always had a very specific idea of what a documentary is. It was generally a talking head piece, but really, it was anything that was widely accepted enough to make it onto Hulu or Netflix. This week has already revolutionized what a documentary means. This moment of realization came during the viewing of the Persian Series 1-3 and A New Year. When viewing these pieces, I at first thought that they were nonsensical in nature. In addition to this, I have rarely been a huge fan of surrealism, as I generally prefer the realism that I associate with documentary. However, these pieces resonate with one of the definitions of documentary that is given in Introduction to Documentary by Bill Nichols. This definition states that documentary work is a "creative treatment of actuality." While this definition can be stretched and applied to many things, I had never before considered that documentary work could be a work of showing feelings, thoughts, or reactions, especially in a surreal way. For example, the film A New Year was an exploration of a teenage girl's world, and the way that she interacted with her world. It was very much a work of documentary, as it explored her real life, and the things that she was experiencing at the time. This is a piece that I would have never considered to be a documentary, but after this week's discussion, I have realized that the term "documentary" is extremely broad, and really can deal with anything that explores reality. This realization, of the depth and breadth of documentary film, was my realization for this week.