As
an aspiring documentary filmmaker, I’ve been wrestling with what it means to
craft truth in documentary storytelling and the ethical and moral implications
of accurately or inaccurately depicting truth. I looked forward to reading Crafting Truth: Documentary Form and Meaning
by Louse Spence and Vinicius Navarro in search of answers. As I read
through the book, I realized that I will have to come back to it again and
again both to revisit concepts and analyses that I may not yet fully comprehend
as a novice filmmaker and to familiarize myself with the rich filmography
referenced by the authors.
The
book is divided into three sections: 1) general concepts of authenticity,
evidence, authority and responsibility; 2) structural organization which
includes argument and documentary styles of the dramatic, poetic and essay; and
3) the formal techniques of editing, camerawork, the profilmic and sounds. The
underlying question throughout the book, which moves from macro- to
micro-analyses of the filmmaking process, is “How is actuality treated in order
to sanction the documentary’s claims to be telling the truth?” (2). Spence and
Navarro expand on the definition of John Grierson, who first coined the term
documentary in 1926, as “the creative treatment of actuality.” Spence and
Navarro argue that documentaries are a filmmaker’s construction of reality (2),
that is, their version of truth. How this reality is constructed is affected by
a myriad of choices. In their discussion of evidence, for example, in Chapter
2, Spence and Navarro assert that documentarians sift through data and make sense
of it, thereby determining what is and what is not relevant for their story
(4). Later (Chapters 5 and 6), the
authors describe how documentary filmmakers transform evidence into a coherent
whole through different structures, like an argument, a dramatic narrative or a
poetic meditation.
As
I read and reread this book, I realized that topics in all three sections of
the book inform my thought processes about filmmaking and shed light on
filmmaking techniques and styles. For this paper, I will primarily respond to
those topics that resonated most for me: the concept of reflexivity and
different notions of truth.
According
to Spence and Navarro, “A reflexive documentary lets us know how it was made
and what was involved in its making, turning the process by which the
documentary produces meaning into part of the film “ (51). The final product
reflects upon its own “constructedness.” One example explored is Errol Morris’s
The Thin Blue Line (1988), about the
faults in the trial of Randall Adams. In this film, Morris simultaneously
critiques the judicial system and assesses the difficulties he has in
presenting conflicting evidence (52).
Last
semester, I wrote a treatment for my documentary about Iranian Jewish
immigration during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. I had started the film in 2008
when I was a student at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts. Michal Goldman, my
mentor last semester, suggested that the film may also be about my foray into
filmmaking as a student filmmaker. Like Errol Morris who highlighted the
challenges he had in crafting The Thin
Blue Line, the reflexivity in my film could be the technical and conceptual
challenges I’ve had in telling this story.
Similarly,
some of the critiques I received on my film “Salad Stories” suggested including
reflexivity to break up an otherwise linear, predictable format. Cesare
Pietroiusti encouraged me to enlarge and play with moments that are part of the
video making language so they become intertwined with the story, as I did when
I delineated the difference between subtitle translations from Arabic and
subtitle translations from Hebrew. Lynne Cooke suggested I introduce some
reflexivity in “Salad Stories” to cut the familiarity of the framework I set up
and make it more participatory. According to Spence and Navarro, “reflexive
strategies can tell us something about the making of a documentary and its
intervention in the world of lived experience” (53). I believe that such a
viewpoint can enrich the documentary work that I undertake.
In
discussing different notions of truth, Spence and Navarro, state that
“Different people or different groups of people might look at the same event
and see different things. As a result what is perceived as truthful by the
filmmaker or audience, can also vary depending on who is looking at the facts, in
what circumstances and with what purposes” (22). I have wrestled with such
issues of truthfulness when I’ve watched films depicting the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like The
Gatekeepers (Dror Moreh, 2013) about the Shin Beit, the Israeli internal
security service; Budrus (Julia Bacha,
2009) about non-violent demonstrations conducted by the Palestinians of Budrus;
and The Law in These Parts (Ra’anan
Alexandrowicz, 2012), about the court system operated by the Israel Defence
Force in the West Bank. Last summer I attended a conference at the Jerusalem
Film Festival about the documentary protagonist. Brian Winston, a scholar
referenced throughout Spence and Navarro’s book, spoke about how funding
sources may condition the message of a film. Winston pointed to Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers, funded by the French
television channel Arte, an institution that supports films disparaging Israel.
Transparency about funding sources is critical to understanding truth in a
film, and so are particular partisan leanings of the filmmaker. Of her film Control Room (2004)
about Al Jazeera and its relations with the US Central Command during
the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Jehane Noujaim said, “I am
not saying it is the truth, but it is our truth” (The Washington Times). Raymond Williams, quoted in Crafting Truth, suggests that we look
“not for the components of a product but for the conditions of a practice”
(85). Spence and Navarro expand on this, saying that documentaries involve
social relationships that are often unequal and therefore bestow responsibility
[on the filmmaker and thw viewer!] (86).
An
instructor of mine suggested consideration of the film Tears of Gaza (Vibeke Lokkeberg, 2010) about the
war in the Gaza seen through the eyes of Palestinian children. He felt that it
was impossible not to sympathize with the horrific images of children who were
victims of recent bombings. I found an LA Times review of the film, which stated the following:
What
is missing in all of this is any sense of context, any understanding of the
long and dreadful history of mutual violence between Israel and the
Palestinians. Whether military actions like these are excusable or not, if you
decide that your mission is so noble that you don't even have to make an
attempt to present Israel's rationale, you are creating one-sided propaganda
whether you know it or not. And if you are making propaganda, the last thing
that tormented region of the world needs, you are not the vanguard of the
solution but an integral part of the problem (Turan).
Tears of Gaza is a propaganda film. Spence and Navarro discuss propaganda films as
partial and unbalanced representations of the sociohistorical world that offer
a limited perspective on the events they represent (114).
I
also wrestle with my own depictions of truth. For example, my mentor, Michal
Goldman, engaged me in a brief discussion about the ethical use of a particular
photograph. Two of the characters I’d been investigating for my Iran
documentary had spent time in Iranian prison. One of them had photographs of
his experience. I wondered if it was acceptable to use a photograph from one
prisoner’s experience to depict another prisoner’s experience. Neither of the
characters was in the photograph, rather the person depicted was a prison guard
next to a cell. Michal thought it was acceptable.
Filmmakers
and artists sometimes resort to falsifications and fabrications to tell
stories. Examples include The Atlas Group
Archive by Walid Raad about the Lebanon Civil War which took place between
1975 and 1991 and Forgotten Silver
(Costa Botes and Peter Jackson, 1995) about a path breaking New Zealand
filmmaker. Spence and Navarro
discuss the partial fabrications in Halving
the Bones (Ruth Ozeki, 1995) about three generations of women in the
filmmaker’s family and the entirely fabricated David Holzman’s Diary (Jim McBride, 1968) about a young man making
a film that he believes will tell some truth about his life. Spence and Navarro
explain that David Holzman’s Diary
“uses staged material not to render visible an experience that is unavailable
for the camera [as in reenactments] but to upset our faith in documentary
representation and the presumptions that are often associated with non-fiction cinema”
(31).
The
book stimulated my thinking on how to
creatively present the information and visuals in my own documentary work. As
examples: Jehane Noujaim in Control Room
exposed two conflicting realities to discredit Donald Rumsfeld’s account of al-Jazeera’s
“misinformation” (38). Errol Morris in The
Thin Blue Line (1988) leaves the camera on the tape recorder playing a
confession because he lacked visual material (53). The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (Connie Field, 1980), about
women’s experiences in the workforce during World War II, reveals
contradictions between public history and private memories. Alan Berliner’s Nobody’s Business (1996) uses symbolic
displacement by showing the image of one tragedy that the viewer is supposed to
connect to another that is not shown (179). Chantal Akerman’s News from Home (1976) includes shots of
locations in New York City to depict the overarching themes in the film of
displacement and being away from home (222).
As
I move forward, in my study of film and development of my filmmaking skills, I plan
to integrate reflexivity into my work to break away from predictable, linear
formats, think more about my own definition of truth in filmmaking, and continue
to learn from other filmmakers about new and creative ways to present
information and visuals.
Works Cited
Spence, Louise and Vinicius
Navarro. Crafting Truth: Documentary Form
and Meaning. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2011. Print.
The Washington Times. “Al
Jazeera in Focus,” The Washington Times. Web. 8 Dec. 2004. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/dec/8/20041208-094251-7515r/
Turan, Kenneth. “Review” The
frustrating ‘Tears of Gaza’ leaves too much unsaid,” Los Angeles Times. Web. 20 Sept. 2012.
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