arnold is big

So I wonder if we are buying the fascist argument? Are there other sorts of claims you can make about Pumping Iron?

People in Grizzly Bear Costumes

Herzog's ongoing VO commentary resides somewhere between an intense interest in reality and a (contemporary) concern for intersubjectivity. Through this odd (read: not usual in doc) blend he both challenges the importance of the documentary (form) while still maintaining an interest in the real.

There is a poetic assigning of meaning at every turn, almost ignoring a statement in the middle of the film that Treadwell didn't "realize that seemingly empty moments had a strange, secret beauty." Or, from the last scene of the film: "Out of all the bears we see, only in this one do I not see reflection only the indifference of nature."

SHERMAN's MARCH

Here's a space for response to the film for this week.

Don't Look Back

Please feel free to leave your analysis/engagement of the film here.

The Thin Blue Line

So? What of it?

TITICUT FOLLIES

That's right: there's no assigned reading for this week's film. Enjoy. However, there will be class discussion, beginning with a wrap-up of our talk about Grey Gardens and style, which should then segue into a discussion of Wiseman's film, done as well in a "direct cinema" manner.

What sorts of 'readings' can you give to Titicut Follies? Although there's not much story (it's about this place and these people but not in a linear, cause-effect way), there is style. What do you make of this style? Can you imagine choosing such a style for a documentary you are making? What are the shortcomings/advantages?

Grey Gardens

I totally appreciate our initial discussions of the film, as we exposed a dichotomy I've not noticed prompted by any other film we have watched this semester. I am eager to learn more about it. You can start such conversations here.

FOG OF WAR

You can post something about Fog of War here.

Film club meeting

Did you know GSU has a student film club? And, that it is meeting on Thursday (Sep 17) at 4:20 in the screening room? There they will be setting some of the semester's agenda and working to establish a local chapter of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Participation in the club has reaped benefits for many students already. I encourage you to join and attend.

NYTIMES article

Check out the following from today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/business/media/14moore.html?_r=1

The Ineffable and NIGHT AND FOG

Given our (good) recent discussions about the nature of meaning and its creation in the viewing process, Night and Fog is the perfect film to follow up with in terms of meaning creation and memory. I know that you've not watched the film (perhaps you have for another class, but I don't assume such), but you will have read the article before class (on 9-14). Take a close look at the first full paragraph on page 205. There we find a thoughtful but also arguable position taken regarding the ways in which documents (generally) work. Can you take this discussion to another film we've watched this semester? Or, if you've seen Night and Fog previously, can you extend this conversation some? Is there another way to discuss the article's claims about the tension between meaning, history, and audience involvement in such? What of the tensions of cinematic strategies for representing the past (as with Night and Fog) or others (as with Th True Meaning of Pictures and Reassemblage)?

Age of Terror and Docs

We have discussed many facets of documentary truth and the creation of meaning (which, of course, alters our conception of what truth is). We may have even come to recognize the ultimate impossibility of a totalizing understanding of such a thing as truth. I use "thing" here intentionally as a vague, nebulous, amorphous word since truth is too. Specifically, we noticed how Trihn Mihn-ha points to the complications and slipperiness at the intersection of reality and moving image. To quote Reassemblage regarding the way that film (specifically ethnography) seeks to establish 'meaning' to every sign: "what about the internal commentary that escorts images?" In other words, do images "mean" something from the outside (the critic, theorist, observer), or do images manifest their own logic independent from this outside?

We have not yet talked about the ways that documentary appeals to our genuine desire for 'truth'. That is, although truth may be always already gone when we think we 'have it', our want/need to go after that truth is real and genuine. We want stability, something to fall back on; Higgins' article works from that side of the truth discussion. If Mihn-ha highlights the fissure between sign and reality, Higgins points to our human desire to bridge the gap between sign and reality. For her, documentary serves a particular purpose here, based no small part on our tradition of putting faith in images.

Modes of Doc, continued

Given our discussions of the first two modes that Nichols identifies, we can see that SuperSize Me fits squarely in the expository mode: it is overtly argumentative; VO dominates the film; it is directed to the viewer; its editing maintains rhetorical continuity; and, by continually visiting doctors, etc. it aims toward a sense of objective judgment ("the charts don't lie"). Yet, as we will see tomorrow, the film also follows some of the strategies of the interactive mode: the doctors, et al he recruits for the experiment become the textual authority that the editing practices of another film would be (say, in Capturing). The ease of this assignment points to the ultimate lack of necessity of categorizing documentaries into specific modes: we know nothing more about the film by assigning it a mode. Moreover, Supersize Me employs techniques of at least two of the modes.

However, what we CAN get from the modes Nichols describes for us is understanding into how documentaries work, how they "make meaning." In tomorrow's discussion of the remaining two modes (interactive and reflexive), we will come to understand how each operates and how the design of the modes (in a sense) becomes the argument and subject of the filmmaking and film-viewing processes.

AND, we will watch and discuss Luis Bunuel's surrealist documentary Land without Bread (if there's time). This film operates in a manner influenced by many of the traditions Nichols highlights in his article on documentary modes as it performs a radical interrogation of documentary forms all the while using those forms (and this coming from a film made in 1932).

Documentary as a Capturing

I admit to being ambivalent about Capturing the Friedmans.

On one hand the film does a fine job of validating the claim that documentary is more of an "experience" than an "object." We are acutely aware that we are somehow active in piecing together the story. Moreover, we are aware of the film's very conscious (recognizable, not hidden) awareness that it too is putting this enigmatic puzzle together. We can recognize the choices the film has made in framing (the male on the couch) and in editing (intercutting between home video and contemporary footage). I don't mind a film's overt activeness in this manner (see any Errol Morris film, e.g.).

On the other hand (though I am sure there are more than two hands here), the film is frustrating in this very way. For instance, Debbie Nathan, the journalist who looks into false memory/sex abuse cases, is quite intentionally not given the space to develop a linear story. The film consciously stops her narrative telling and moves to another's view so often that it leaves me wanting to hear more from her (actually, she seems the only one able to tell the "whole" of the story). It's as if the film withholds information for its own "artistic/creative/power" benefit.

Thus, I admit I picked this film (quickly, I know) because of what it exposes about documentary film(-making), more than about what story it tells us.

The True Meaning of Pictures

Alright, if you didn't watch The True Meaning of Pictures yesterday, I might organize a mass screening at another time (though I think it is on netflix's view instantly feature).

If you did watch it, and were able to make it past the pig slaughter (yeah, if you did not see it, be aware, pig throat slitting, head chopping with axe to follow), nice job. I should note, though, that the pig incident is not what I really remember about the film as being most poignant. The film's ability to present both sides of a debate about the ethics (though the film never uses this word) of a documentary artist, his subject, and the viewer remains with me more strongly. That is, the film, even in presenting on a real debate on a real (memorable) subject nonetheless leaves the viewer in the middle (unlike, say, a Michael Moore film, which adamantly takes a side on its subject). The viewer, therefore, still has some contemplation at hand.

Does Shelby Lee Adams's photography exploit those he claims he is merely showing to the world, the world into which he continually reminds the viewer he was born? Remember, the one "holler" dweller who claims she's been "schooled" (ie, went to college) is the only one of them to also claim that the photos are exploitative. In contrast, another (near the end of the film) sees nothing wrong with the types of photos Adams takes, and she presents some pretty clear justifications for such a view. Which is correct? Is either correct? Do their comments expose more about the artistic and viewing processes than necessarily about the validity of their claims?

As you can read from my post here, we are not so much interested whether or not you like the week's film as much as we are in the ways it engages you, the ways it is put together, and the effects that such construction have on the viewing process. Moreover, with a film such as The True Meaning..., we can make argumentative claims about the ways the film is also a document about the tension between artist, subject, and viewer (really, though, this is fodder for discussion with every film).

Welcome to Film 4240: Documentary Film

I am hopeful you are able to join the course blog easily. I will forward notes about the class here as well as present topics for discussion. You should, however, strike new critical territory for others to read/discuss.