More on Documentaries

Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s 1996 documentary, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, is a chilling critique of the American judicial system and how societal norms too easily shape law in the United States. The film, which follows the court cases of Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin as they are tried for the murder and mutilation of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, presents an interesting and abnormal case in documentary standards as HBO, who produced the piece, become pivotal in the story that is being told. While the documentary begins by evenly presenting the various perspectives of those taking part in Misskelley, Echols, and Baldwin’s trials (the defendants, victim’s families, lawyers, etc), the film takes a sudden shift when one victim’s father leads a film producer to reasonably believe that he had actually killed the three boys, and not Misskelley, Echols, or Baldwin. From that point on, the documentary notably shifts in focus and presents the trial from the perspective of the teens being tried. Because the film uses a fair amount of unedited footage from the trial, one still gets the sense of authenticity behind the images they are shown. However, “behind-the-scenes” footage of the case, like shots of legal teams discussing how to go about the trial, muddy the narrative’s absolute truthfulness. Thus, one is genuinely perplexed as to whether or not Misskelley, Echols, and Baldwin are guilty or innocent.

Teaching Activity:

In the spirit of examining television news and who funnels funds into the production of news broadcasts, I think it is equally important to examine who is funding documentary productions. After all, documentaries, even more unabashedly than traditional Hollywood films, push an agenda of some sort. Thus, I envision having my students picking a documentary, screening the film, and then researching who produced the film and the ideologies of said producer – looking at trends in the films they make, what audiences they bring in, what they do with their money, etc. Then, using VoiceThread, I would have each student discuss the implications of having the producer of their chosen documentary tell their film’s story.

Looking at the News

KSTP 5 Eyewitness News at 4:30PM

0:10 Introduction

• Credits

0:36 Local Headlines

• Pedestrian killed on Grand Avenue
• Deadly shooting in St. Paul alley

0:25 Weather Check

5:20 Local Stories

• Republican legislature and gambling
• Decision to keep North High School open
• Man cited for drunk driving
• Improvements to Target Field slated

0:18 Coming Up Next

3:45 Commercials

3:54 National News

• Wall Street closing bell update
• FCC cell phone bill changes
• Cruise ship stranded
• Cheating students in Florida college

0:50 Local Interest Stories

• 400 year-old map visits U of M campus
• 35^th anniversary of Edmund Fitzgerald sinking

2:46 Weather

2:53 Health Story

• Effects of new cigarette labels

3:36 Commercials

0:57 Wrap Up

• Coming up on 5 Eyewitness News at 5:00PM
• Weather Recap

I’m a fairly avid watcher of the nightly news. It’s one of the only television programs I regularly watch. One of the interesting aspects of news, in my opinion, is the way most viewers are conditioned to watch specific stations from an early age and tend to not question their viewing habits as they get older. For instance, in my childhood home, we watched ABC for all of our news. My parents trusted Peter Jennings’ style during the national news, and our local affiliate, WISN Channel 12 News, is consistently ranked as one of the best ABC affiliates in the nation. So, when I came to the Twin Cities, I continued to watch ABC for my news, even though KSTP is not one of the better news teams in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Plus, they are known for their donations to conservative organizations. I’d bet that most people are the same way with their viewing habits. Whether ABC, NBC, or CBS, I think that we tend to view whatever news station we remember growing up.

Even though I usually watch the 4:30PM broadcast of 5 Eyewitness News, looking at the newscast more closely shed light on the fact that the entire 4:30 show is a preview of the 5:00PM broadcast – basically begging viewers to keep tuning in. With the exception of the weather and their health story on cigarette advertisements changing, all of the news stories were brief headlines for what was coming up at 5:00. Most of the stories ended with a call to watch the coming broadcast for more, in-depth information.

It is no secret that Hubbard Broadcasting Corporation, who owns KSTP, is a conservative, right-wing company. Still, in my opinion, most news organizations, whether transparently conservative or liberal, report news in a conservative manner. For instance, when a crime is committed, more often than not, the story is reported from the authorities’ point of view. Despite minor political hiccups and missteps, government and the law is usually seen as a good thing. In terms of race, crimes involving minorities, and those in urban settings more specifically, are overrepresented. Minorities are seen as either delinquents or charity cases. Finally, when a story involves some sort of ethical decision, traditional and conformist beliefs are usually depicted as the “right thing.” Fitting in with the status quo is shown as a desirable thing.

Teaching Activity

Bring the class to a computer lab or have a set of laptops available for use in the classroom. Break the class into groups according to the number of local news stations in your area and assign each group to one of those stations. Typically, this will mean a total of three groups for affiliates of national stations – one for ABC, NBC, and CBS. Then have each group research the ownership of their station or affiliate and the implications of that ownership on how the station broadcasts. Have them look at story choices, slants in coverage, commercial choices, etc. Next, have each group create a mind map, using MindMeister, that illustrates the chain of ownership for their assigned station or affiliate and the implications of that ownership. Finally, have each group present their findings to the class.

Documentary Prezi

Everything is Political - Documentary Film

My favorite type of film/television genre is documentary. What I find most fascinating about documentaries is the fact that they purport themselves to be fact; yet, directors must answer to no one, so strict adherence to truths is completely unnecessary. Any framing of an image, whether for television, cinema, or even an art gallery, is inherently a political act. In my opinion, the representation of reality and the investment viewers have in the truthfulness of what they see is unmatched to viewer expectations of any other genre. If an action film fails to live up to the number of explosions one might like, for example, the film is typically shrugged off as a poor example of an action film. A documentary that contains even the slightest misrepresentation of truth, however, ceases the work from being documentary altogether. In fact, it may be classified any number of ways but documentary.

The same repercussions can be said for literary works deemed memoir or biography, which is why I see teaching documentary as a vital component to the traditional language arts classroom. Take the firestorm surrounding James Frey’s novel, A Million Little Pieces, for instance. After it was discovered that many of Frey’s accounts were fictional, readers, and most notably Oprah Winfrey, were outraged that they had been duped. Their indignation had everything to do with genre. If Frey’s novel were packaged as fiction, would it have changed the literary merit of the text? It’s doubtful. Would it have made his story any less poignant? Probably not. The point is, genre matters, and so does whether or not something is purported to be true. It is my hope to get students asking: Why do we care whether or not a film, television show, or piece of writing is truthful when it is presented to audiences as entertainment? This would be my way of presenting the notion that entertainment is never just entertainment – that everything is political, has meaning.

The main feature of documentary films is that they represent truth in some way. This doesn’t mean that they represent universal truths, but rather that the filmmaker can take facts and organize them in such a way to present a semblance of truth. Though there are a multitude of subgenres to documentary, each of which contains their own specifications, voice-overs, interviews, and archival footage are three of the most prevalent characteristics of modern documentaries.

Voice-overs are typical in today’s documentaries for the purposes of narration. Such narrations not only facilitate the message of a documentary piece, they also lend a sense of credibility to the images one sees on-screen. Here is an example of narration by both director (Werner Herzog) and filmmaker (Timothy Treadwell) in the film Grizzly Man:

Interviews are also popular in modern documentaries. “Talking-head” sequences, as they are called, often validate the filmmaker’s message by providing first-person narratives and/or expert opinions. Director Spike Lee relies heavily on interviews in his documentary film, When the Levees Broke:

Archival footage is typically used in documentaries to justify arguments without using narration or voice-overs. The archived footage, in essence, can speak for itself. Though stock footage is typically used in documentaries of a historic nature, it can also be employed to comment on issues that persist beyond a set historical period. Sam Green and Bill Siegel’s film, The Weather Underground, is riddled with stock footage to comment on historic events and to illustrate themes that span beyond just the 60s, 70s, and 80s:

While documentaries attempt to depict truths, they are also limited by those truths. After all, once a director fabricates any aspect of his or her show or film, all credibility is lost. The problem with documentary is that it is held in such high regard that it often supersedes reality itself. Because documentary is seen as factual, one all too easily forgets to question the images they are presented with. Again, every time an image is framed, the author’s intention must be called into question. This notion of realness is one of the many facets of documentary (and real life) that Jennie Livingston tackles in her documentary, Paris is Burning:

What does it mean to be real? Livingston suggests that authenticity is the ability to pass as reality without anyone questioning otherwise. This, in my opinion, is the backbone of documentary form. Documentary films are those cinematic and televised works that make audiences unquestionably think they are witnessing reality. After all, anyone who has seen Luis Bunuel’s world renowned documentary, Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan, knows that images can lie. Everything is political.

Teaching Activity:

Because Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan only runs approximately 30 minutes, I would hold a screening of the film. After, I’d pass out copies of Vivian Sobchack’s article, “Synthetic Vision: The Dialectical Imperative of Luis Bunuel’s Las Hurdes,” have the students discuss the article in pairs, and assign them the task of shoot their own ethnographic documentary in the form of Bunuel.