Mississippi Chicken es super bien.

First of all I loved the film.  The reason why I think it was so successful was John’s fortunate circumstance to have a person connected to the subjects he wished to capture.  He talked about this during class, and I thought it was a great lesson to take home.  Documentaries will be enhanced not from the outside looking in, but from the inside looking out.   This I thought to be counter intuitive as we documentary film makers try to distance ourselves from the subjects in order to get as close to an objective and pure perspective as possible.  Yet, by doing this, we lose something.  We lose the bond between the filmmaker and the subject.  We create a divide.  And certainly, the subjects will always feel the camera presence in some way, so it is up to us to fill that presence with our own story.  We need to give to them as they give to us.  This I thought was very prevalent in John’s film as we are able to see the interactions between his wife and the community as she establishes a bond of friendship that surpasses her expected duties to the community.  I felt that instead of observing the community as it was and would be forever in a contained little world, the filmmaker was able to bring in the outside world.  By adding an outside/insider perspective, we are able to be apart of the community as well.  This makes a very compelling story that is bitter sweet.  We see tragedy and oppression, but also witness new relationships and progressive actions.   We are no longer just observers of the community but active participants while we follow our ambassador that unfolds the story as she discovers it herself.

Wrote this paragraph in 94…

2pac Resurrection was a really enjoyable documentary to watch.  Apart from its ability to portray a larger than life figure in different and paradoxical ways, I felt it was also successful at relating 2pac to the average person.  They were able to do this through his relationship with his mother and his reminisces of childhood.  I remember him talking about not having a dad, and being shy in school and not having very many friends.  He also talked about the complex relationship he had with his mom, which I thought really humbled the infamous rapper and brought him down to a level that the audience could empathize with.  I suppose that is why the film is so successful, that in the midst of constant controversy and political scrutiny, we are reminded that 2pac is still human. This is also emphasized by the fact that he is talking to us directly.  We don’t hear from a third party or a close friend, it is 2pac narrating his own life up to his death.  In almost eerie and poetic way, he outlines the human condition as we experience the rise and fall of a cultural icon that brought hope, fear, and life to the scene of hip hop and society.

The documentation of memories

I meant to post this awhile ago after The Road to Guantanam but im a noob to blogs so…

I always thought that the greatest strength of documentaries was their ability to display truth through actuality and not constructed reality.  Now I understand that even the most “truthful” documentaries undergo a certain level of bias and construction, but after watching both Waltz with Bashir and The Road to Guantanamo, I was left puzzled by what kind of truth these films were actually documenting.  I thought about it, and the best thing I could come up with was that these films are documenting the truth behind the interpretation of memory. 

In Waltz with Bashir, the movie was constructed through animation that was supported by dramatic lighting and impossible camera shots in order to enhance the emotion feel of the characters reminiscing about their past.  In a “true” documentary, none of these would be used at all, as the filmmaker would shoot the scene as it is displayed in actuality without little interference on how it is in reality.  But, in Waltz with Bashir, it was appropriate to have completely unrealistic scenes and repeated events that are more appropriate at displaying the truth of memory than actuality.  The most vivid example I can think of is when one of the soldiers runs out with a gun, spraying fire aimlessly at a fleet of enemies held up on the other side of the road.  In the movie, the character tells of how he danced along shooting, for what seemed minutes, while a dreamy piano carries the man’s waltz with death.  In reality, im sure the story teller was heavily stressed and thought that the guy was a freckin crazy moron for going out into the road ,but in the retrospect, the the crazed gun man became a symbol and a hero for the main character. had become a whimsical dancer in the face of demise.

In The Road to Guantanamo, the story was reenacted through actors and staged events.  Although im sure there were several gorilla shot scenes, and little stage production was used, still, the film lacked the ability to capture true actuality.  However, while watching the movie, it had the feel of the documentary, and the style of a documentary.  I definitely felt that all the events taken place were occurring in real time, minus the talking heads.  Truly, the only thing that kept me from believing that it wasn’t a documentary was the impossibility of how most of the scenes could be captured.  I mean, who’s going to let a camera man into a terrorist holding facility where inhumane acts of torture are committed every day…

 I guess in the end, what I am trying to understand is how we judge the credibility of these hybrid documentary films.  As we all know memory is rarely regarded as credible, which is why in the US court system lawyers must present an array of evidence and proof that links the guilty to the crime scene, not solely an eye witness.  Which is why I can say that I would not sentence anybody to trial over these films, I see them more as personal interpretations of traumatic events.   Which is probably why my favorite part in The Road to Guantanamo is how each of the three men dealt with their torture in later years.  One man said he wouldn’t change anything, and was grateful for the experience.   Another man became a more prominent practitioner of the muslim faith, a faith that brought a lot of his torture.  The other adopted a pessimistic view of the world.  All three experienced the same event and all three had different interpretations and reflections on it. Now that is the truth.