Understanding Documentary Filmmaking: From Nanook of the North to Modern Perspectives

1. Lesson 13:Documentary Professor Aaron Baker Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922)

2. Previous Lecture • Film Authorship • French Ideas of Auteurism -Film as Art -Director Unifies Film/Communicates Personality (World View) -Uses Style and Theme -Film Can Be Commercial and Meaningful

3. Mira Nair • Global Auteur • Her Themes: -Diasporic Indian Culture -Gender Roles • Represented Through Mise-en-Scene (Color), Sound (Music), and Characters Choosing Hybrid Identities, Strong Women Resisting Traditional Roles • The Namesake (2006)

4. Today’s Lecture • Documentary -Form -History -Economic Context • The New Documentary • Errol Morris, A Thin Blue Line (1988)

5. Part I: Documentary Form The River (Pare Lorentz, 1938)

6. Expectations • Shows Reality • Voice Over • Interviews • Stock Images • Animation • Boring: Lack of Drama, Excitement

7. Errol Morris: • “People think of documentary . . . as a species of the news, or journalism . . . about reality.”

8. All Films Have a Perspective • No Film Fully Objective • Choices about Content, How to Interpret It • Still Documentary makes “claims to truthfulness” – Pat Aufderheide When the Levees Broke (Spike Lee 2006)

9. A Certain Kind of Viewer • Already Knowledgeable • Interested in Learning More • Willingness to Act As Citizen Based on Information Learned from Documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005)

10. Part II: History of Documentary

11. From the Beginning • Documentary Popular from Origins of Cinema • 1890s Lumiere Brothers • Actualities • Travelogues/ “Scenics” • Flaherty, Nanook of the North (1922) • Cooper, Schoedsack Grass (1925)

12. Clip # 1: The Lumieres’ Actualite • Workers Leaving Photographic Factory in Lyon, France • 1895/First Film • 46 seconds • Louis Lumiere • Cinematographe

13. Flaherty: “Artistic Representation of Actuality” • Artistic License • Essential Truth • “A definition that has proved durable because it is so flexible” --Aufderheide

14. Cinema Verite • Direct Cinema • Location, Handheld Camera, Synch Sound • Observation • Minimal Director Involvement Frederick Wiseman’s High School (1968)

15. Political Documentary • Harlan County 1976 Barbara Koppel • Coal Miners’ Strike in Kentucky • Their Own Words • 1976 Academy Award

16. Fahrenheit 9/11, 2004 • Negative Portrayal Pres. George W. Bush • Claims -Inept Handling 9/11 Attacks -Ties to Saudi Royal Family • Clip # 2

17. Angry, Controversial—Not Boring • Fits New Documentary Style • Humor, Strong POV • Top Earner All Time for Documentary

18. Propaganda? • Eternal Jew (1940) Anti Semitism • Olympia (1938) Nazi Superiority • The River (1938) Support for New Deal

19. Oppositional Viewpoints • Inform Public of Views Don’t Often Here • Freedom of Speech • Question Authority • Instigate Reform Emile de Antonio’s Point of Order (1964)

20. Wal-Mart The High Cost of Low Price, 2005 • Filmmaker Robert Greenwald • DVD Distribution • Impact on Small Business, Employees • Sought Legislative Pushback

21. Reaction from Wal-Mart • Attack Ads • Blogs • Mainstream Media Coverage • Bill O’Reilly on Fox: “Greenwald . . . is a ridiculous human being.”

22. An Inconvenient Truth, 2006 • Filmmaker, Davis Guggenheim • Presentation by Al Gore • Global Warming • Information on Climate Change and a Definite POV

23. Jim Hansen, NASA: “Al Gore may have done for global warming what Silent Spring (1962 book) did for pesticides. He will be attacked, but the public will have information.” --Quoted in Auferdeide, 8.

24. Born Into Brothels, 2004

25. Original Plan: Show Prostitutes • Zana Briski, Ross Kauffman • Calcutta Red Light District • “An inherently abusive place”--Briski

26. Their Kids • Gave Cameras to Kids • To “See this world through their eyes”

27. Their Perspective • How do we get the kids point of view in this clip? • Clip # 3

28. Their Voices/Viewpoints • Kids are each introduced. • Protagonists • We see them taking pictures. • Briski’s Voice Over • Kids speak also.

29. But Filmmakers’s Involvement • Briski and Kauffman tried to help kids. • Avijit to Amsterdam • Boarding School • Still Documentary? • Involvement Typical of “New Documentary” • Academy Award

30. Token Improvement • Partha Banerjee • No Improvement for Other Children • Social Context Too Complicated

31. Awareness Through Documentary Discourse • Paolo Freire, Brazilian Scholar, Activist • Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) • Everyone can be a human rights educator • Raise awareness through cultural discourse.

32. Part III: Economic Context

33. Not Commercial? • Documentaries Teach • No Entertainment? • Too Serious?

34. Since 1990s, Popularity Grows Revenue in Millions: Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) $106.8 Bowling for Columbine (2002) $21.8 Super-Size Me (2004) $11.4 Winged Migration (2003) $10.8 Hoop Dreams (1994) $7.8 Spellbound (2003) $6.7

35. Less Costly to Make • Fictional Films Avg. $100 million (MPAA) • Docs Cheaper • Still Require Business Model • Must Reach Audience • Broadcasters (PBS, HBO) The Secret History of the Credit Card Frontline Documentary on PBS

36. Reality TV, Not Documentary • Unscripted • Non Professionals (Usually) • But Artificial Situations • Emphasis on Drama • “Docusoaps” TheReal World MTV 1992

37. Sensationalism Sells • Sex, violence, controversy sell. • Aufderheide: Are Films with Those Elements, -Truthful? -Informative? -Challenge viewers to know more?

38. Fahrenheit 9/11: Selling Working-Class Rage? “He was encouraging viewers to look critically at the government’s words and actions. Potentially weakening this encouragement, however, was his calculated performance of working class rage, which can lead viewers to see themselves not as social actors but merely as disempowered victims.” Aufderheide, 7

39. Part IV: New Documentary and The Films of Errol Morris

40. New Documentary • Ross McElwee Sherman’s March 1986 • Errol Morris The Thin Blue Line 1988 • Reenactments • Stylized Form • Personal and Objective

41. Errol Morris • Eleven Films • 2004 Oscar for Fog of War As Interviewer: • Fewer Questions • Let Subjects Talk • Stream of Conscious Interview

42. Interrotron • Like Teleprompter • Subjects Speak Directly to Viewers • No Filmmaker Presence • Clip # 4 Using Interrotron from The Thin Blue Line

43. Film to Video • Changed from shooting film to HD Video • Sony 24 P Camera • From 11 Mins. In Film Magazine to Unlimited Shooting • Marathon Interviews

44. The Thin Blue Line, 1988 • Argued Randall Adams wrongly convicted for murder of a police officer in Dallas County, Texas • Initially avoided documentary label for better marketing

45. Murder Case Reopened • Adams served 11 years for murder. • Chief witness, David Harris, confesses at end of Morris’s film. • Adams’ conviction overturned. Thin Blue Line

46. David Harris • Harris Committed Another Murder the Weekend Scheduled for Morris Interview • After Adams acquittal film called “documentary” • Harris Executed in Texas in 2005

47. Worked as Private Detective • Has called himself a "detective director” • Spent 30 months investigating Adams case for The Thin Blue Line. • "Adams told me he was innocent," Morris remembered. . . , "but everybody in prison tells you they are innocent. It was only after I met David Harris that I began to suspect that the wrong man had been convicted of murder."

48. New Documentary Stylization • Dramatic Reenactments • Staged Shots • Slow Motion • Clip # 5

49. Dreamscapes “Part of what I love about documentary is this idea that you can reinvent the form every time you make one. And you can create visuals that are really strange. Oddly enough, that are severed from reality. They’re not reenactments, per se. . . . They’re dreamscapes that you’re creating to go with interview material.” --Errol Morris

50. Critic Linda Williams: • The Thin Blue Line upsets traditional opposition truth vs. fiction • Morris’s film instead shows more important choice between which strategies of fiction to use to reach relative truths. Linda Williams, " iMirrors without Memories," in Barry Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski (eds), Documenting the Documentary, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1998.