Documentary Online Response #7: Autobiographical Mode

Our in-class conversations about the Autobiographical Mode had my mind regularly revisiting the writing of Dr. Brene Brown, who specializes on the mechanics of vulnerability and shame, which are hot spots that an autobiographical film seems destined to have to deal with.  In her book Daring Greatly Dr. Brown wrote “If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.”

When crafted with care, it seems that an Autobiographical documentary is ideally constructed to foster the kind of empathy and understanding that would counter or destroy the threat of shame that might make such a vulnerable enterprise become too vulnerable to undertake.  Describing Vanalyne Green’s Saddle Sores: A Blue Western (1998), Fox(41) says that “Putting her own face (and body) onto the taboo subject of sexually transmitted disease, Green disarms us, makes us laugh, and ultimately prompts us to think… exploring public taboos about venereal disease and perception of the diseased…”

This process described by Fox seems like a template for effectively approaching a topic typically judged harshly or dismissed.  First, the filmmaker disarms their audience through the transparent subjectivity of their story.  By completely foregoing any “voice of authority,” the filmmaker disarms the audience from their prejudices of what is and is not “knowledge,” rendering friction between opinions moot, because the filmmaker is not sharing their “opinion” per se, but rather their “lived experience,” which is not so easily argued against.   This disarmament was also prevalent in 51 Birch Street, where Doug Block’s premise of telling about his own family of origin set the stage for exploring more universal frictions.

Secondly, Fox credited Green with making her audience laugh, which has been a key to constructing a sympathetic character throughout most of the history of narrative.  Once an audience is primed not to resist the filmmaker because of the filmmaker’s claim of subjectivity, they are then helped to invest in the filmmaker’s subjectivity as the character of the filmmaker in their own film becomes a sympathetic one.  The usefulness of this tactic was well illustrated in McElwee’s Sherman’s March, as McElwee several times dwelt on the humor of his situation through visual irony, timing of sound, and a general sense of the character and thought processes behind the person to whom all commentary to the camera was addressed.

Once arguments against the film’s perspective are disarmed, and the filmmaker’s voice is rendered sympathetic, the autobiographical film becomes uniquely poised to “prompt us to think” about situations and perspectives that a viewer might otherwise have been prone to dismiss. Certainly this seemed to be the goal of  Rea Tajiri’s History and Memory: to re-orient the viewer’s sense of history to include an often omitted chapter, one to which many people might have had a defensive answer in place, had Tajiri’s film had any pretense of objectivity.  Thus her film becomes an effective vehicle for provoking thoughtful reflection on an oppressed and choleric perspective, allowing a vulnerable story to be told in a way that shields it from shameful repercussions

Fox, Broderick. "Movements and Modes." Documentary Media: History, Theory, Practice. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2010. 40-44. Print.

Documentary Online Response #6: Reflexive Mode

According to Nichols[1], “Reflexive documentaries ask us to see documentary for what it is: a construct or representation.”  A reflexive documentary is therefore a use of a medium to explore the phenomenological mechanics of its own medium, which certainly seems in keeping with post-modern reflexivity and intertextuality in other mediums.  Perhaps this is more resonant in documentary because of the reputation for objectivity and omniscience that more traditional modes, such as expository and observational, may have established for the entire medium/genre of documentary film.  We see a similar self-reflexive tendency in fiction films such as Day for Night (1973) that explore the process of creating a fiction film, or in a Mel Brooks parody like Blazing Saddles (1974) or Young Frankenstein (1974), making fun of fiction genre conventions and addressing the audience directly, but it seems that a documentary being reflexive about its own creation feels a little closer to the source, a little more willing to be vulnerable about its own limitations, and far less likely to use self-reflexivity toward a comedic end, as comedy tends to imply a control that seems incompatible with self-reflexivity about social actualities. 

This integral vulnerability came across strongly in This is Not a Film (2011), in which Jafar Panahi was on several occasions open to the ambiguity of the project, and how it was not going to turn out to be the original project he had devised (a reading of his banned script.) but was instead evolving into something more complicated and nuanced.

It seems like, while elements of self-reflexivity may be becoming more common across all documentary modes, a primarily reflexive mode would be difficult to pull off, as it would require either an immense willingness to show vulnerability and fallibility from the filmmaker, or else an enormous ego; or perhaps, in the case of a filmmaker like Nick Broomfield, a bit of both. In a film like Driving Me Crazy (1988), Broomfield chose to be willing to portray the frustrations his subjects had with his film crew, but he was also willing to show some of his financial backers in an unflattering way.  He certainly allowed himself, his small crew, and his subjects to all be portrayed as parts of a complicated relationship, which in turn allowed for an engaging portrayal of the ups and downs of documentary production.

Nichols went on to say that reflexive documentaries “examine the nature of (such) belief rather than attest to the validity of what is believed.”  This felt especially true about Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s  Chronicle of a Summer (1961), where, in the final sequences the subjects view and discuss the film made thus far.  Watching the ways that they arrive at different conclusions about each other as social actors, and about what worked best in the film, invited introspection into one’s own perceptions and relations with the same footage, as well as requiring a concession that opinions other than one’s own could be deduced from the exact same film sequences; which ultimately invites a certain vulnerability from the audience as well.

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[1] Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2010. Print.

Documentary Online Response #3 - The Expository Mode

Born Into Brothels (2004), begins with a disembodied, direct address, but the voice in that address is quickly embodied in Zana Briski, who also becomes the central character in the story that unfolds. By the time the film wraps up, it feels that the overall voice of the film was embodied (by Zana and the children she featured) and that the distinct perspective the film promotes is conveyed more indirectly than directly.  The strongest rhetoric in the film lies in what is not said that the audience must fill-in with their own assumptions.

According to Bill Nichols, "The idea of voice is... tied to the idea of an informing logic overseeing the organization of a documentary." As we discussed in class, if Zana were only a subject and not also a director of this piece, the voice would be weighted differently.  But because she comes across as our storyteller and our lens, it has both an autobiographical and a participatory bent to it.  She certainly appeals to a certain Western morality and standard of living for the film's perspective on the squalor of the children it featured. Their situation certainly seems more dire in contrast to the esteemed gallery events that featured their photographs within the film than it might have in comparison with other poverty-stricken cultures or societies.  The starkness of the contrast that was included in the film, along with the effect it seems designed to provoke, are evidence of the construction, voice, and desired effect of the filmmaker(s).

Nichols also said that "the voice of the film betrays its maker’s form of engagement with the world in a way that even he or she might not have fully recognized.  It speaks from and reveals a distinct perspective on the world."  Zana's outsider-ness in this culture she's determined to make a study of and participate in is ever-present.  She never manages to assimilate into this culture - she has no desire to.  And so while she verbally proposes her intent to "let the children tell their own story... through their photographs," the film never becomes about their stories, but rather about how their stories fit into, inform, and catalyze Zana's story. 

The rhetoric of this film, and the assumption underlying Zana's quest to secure boarding school admittance for these children, rely on the type of "common sense" rhetoric that Nichols found common in documentary. "Common sense makes a perfect basis for this type of representation about the world because common sense, like rhetoric, is less subject to logic than to belief."  Certainly the film is sympathetic toward Zana's zeal for education as the only constructive option for these kids, and unsympathetic toward all those institutions and individuals who did not share her passion (extending even to the kids themselves.)  This belief in education functions within the film as an assumed shared belief with the audience.  (It is likely a nearly universally held value among English speakers likely to be choosing to watch a documentary about a social issue - so it's a pretty safe belief to build a rhetorical argument upon.)   

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Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids. Dir. Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman. Perf. Zana Briski. Red Light Films/HBO/Cinemax, 2004. Film.

Nichols, Bill. "What Gives Documentary Films a Voice of Their Own?" Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2010. 67-93 and 167-171. Print.

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Documentary: Beginnings (Response 2)

Bill Nichols[1] defines the documentary tradition as the convergence of four elements in conjunction with compliance to the expectation of documentary viewers that a documentary film tell a story about something that actually happened to real people, within their same diegetic world). The elements that came together to evolve a tradition of cinematic documents into documentaries were: indexical documentation (or fidelity to reality), poetic experimentation, narrative storytelling, and rhetorical oratory. 

It’s evident, as illustrated in his text that the narrative storytelling was first introduced to non-fiction film with little concern about indexicality by filmmakers like Robert Flaherty, but that the ability and willingness of audiences to engage with the narrative in his films made it clear that a narrative structure could be a powerful tool in structuring non-fiction as well as fiction films.   In his prescient cinematic niche, Flaherty straddled the indefinable chasm between fiction and documentary, as perhaps was only possible before documentary conventions became more codified, and audience expectations more rigid.

The move toward including elements beyond indexicality, along with the development of a reliable fiscal base for documentary production (pioneered by John Grierson), created an environment where the documentary tradition could thrive, and multiple practitioners could explore means and modes of imbuing films with the distinct voice of their makers.

Each of the 6 modes of documentary filmmaking discussed in Nichols’ chapter describe a way for the filmmaker to use or define their voice, imbuing the indexical documentation that is inherent in film or video with the other three elements that render the indexical subjective and constructed: poetic experimentation, narrative storytelling, and rhetorical oratory.

Nichols’ modes include, first, the Poetic, wherein the formal elements of filmmaking are used to a heightened sensory effect, which was possibly the dominant mode in Flaherty’s Louisiana Story – where the plot was extremely loose and fluid, (and was apparently scraped together by Flaherty’s exasperated editor during the two years of filming[2]) but the individual shots and juxtapositions were richly laden with meaning and detail. The Louisiana Story (1948)is far more poem than story.  (And possibly more story than documentary, as the ties to indexicality are few).  But the poetic mode seems to nearly always surface when filmmakers have chosen documentary subjects they already have an affinity for.  It figures strongly in affinity-for-sub-culture documentaries like The Endless Summer(s)(1966,1994,2000) or Dog Town and Z Boys(2001), or even in Ballerina (2006) each of which portrays a performance culture with a nostalgic attention to the nuance of successful technique, primarily through framing, editing, use of slow-motion, and music.

The second mode is expository – an equivalent to show-and-tell.  This mode tends to lend an omniscient air to its internal logic, usually through devices like voice-over narration written with a voice-of-god authoritative tone.  Biographical/historical documentaries (Like Salinger (2013)) and science documentaries (The Human Face (2001)) seem largely to default to expository mode.

The fourth mode (I’ll come back to #3) is Participatory mode, where the interaction between filmmakers and their subjects becomes an active part of meaning making in the film.  Regret to Inform (1998) is a film where the premise of the film is the filmmakers experience interacting with subjects in Vietnam, where her first husband had been killed years earlier during the war.  The film is entirely dependent on the presence and present interactions of the filmmaker for its existence.

The third mode seems a little elusive to me.  Pegged as “Observational Mode,” it’s premise is essentially fly-on-the-wall mode.  That the camera will somehow manage to be unobtrusive in some space and observe events that would have transpired even if the camera were absent.  Even with increasingly mobile and stealthy technology, I’m not convinced this mode can exist in a pure form, because the presence of cameras, and of the people using them changes cognizant behavior.  It seems like observational mode might only be possible with non-human subjects. But if the “unobtrusive” nature of the camera in this mode is ignored, it has little to clearly differentiate it from expository mode besides being slightly less likely to use voiceover narration.  But I have a hard time placing Land without Bread (1933) between Observational and Expository modes.  It almost felt like the film treated itself like it had managed observational mode in many instances where a heavy dose of sensationalism and unapologetic colonialism were informing filmmakers who were so convinced of what they were going to find among the “inferior” culture of the Hurdes that they didn’t manage to observe any of the culture on its own terms or with any measure of objectivity.

The fifth mode is reflexive, calling attention to the conventions of film production.  A fun example of this is Animals are Beautiful People (1975) which abuses montage editing and voiceover narration to a hilariously self-aware effect. But its also used more subtly as early as Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929).

The sixth mode is performative, which emphasizes the subjectivity of the filmmaker’s involvement with a subject.  My memory of Born into Brothels (2004) feels somewhat compatible with this mode (while it also possesses clear use of expository and participatory modes) – wherein the filmmaker was regularly addressing her emotional response to the information, footage, experiences and relationships she was encountering, as well as intentionally evoking performances (photographs) from her subjects, and where the purpose of sharing her own subjective emotion was to invoke social change. Her relationship with her featured subjects became an allegory for an entire social problem.

While any definition is problematic, defining the documentary tradition as the convergence of the 4 elements that essentially bring indexicality and voice together, allows for a better understanding of 6 (going on 7) modes of documentary production, and how each of them places different value on each of those 4 elements.

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[1] Nichols, Bill. "How Can We Define Documentary Film?" Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2010. 1-41. Print.

[2] http://astro.temple.edu/~ruby/wava/Flaherty/chap6.html