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Notes on Blindness

Is creating a ‘fictional’ scene within documentary ethical? does it make it less of a documentary?

Notes on Blindness, while based in truth through the tapes recorded by the film’s lead subject, John Hull, the film’s vision is largely re-enacted or entirely created – as can be seen clearly in the scene wherein the filmmakers have created ‘rain’ inside the house. Can this be seen as a fallacy? Or is it indeed more representative of the truth as although it isn’t a recording of true events, it is a representation which offers the audience emotional insight into the subject’s true experience. Mirroring the subject’s blindness, here the vision is less important than the emotional and visceral engagement it allows. In this context, does this then present a more truthful representation of the story, as it affords insight that simply documenting the action as it unfolded in reality could not have?

When Errol Morris’ Thin Blue Line, was released, many criticised it for its use of re-enactments; which critics remarked as removing the film from the documentary realm, and fixing it within the fictional. Although many years on, such use of re-enactments has become a staple of the documentary genre, does this statement still hold any relevance? By re-enacting, are the filmmakers simply injecting falsities, conjectures and interpretations into what would have otherwise been fact? Or, through their use, are we the audience afforded further insight into the truth as we may better understand the situation, and become privy to the emotional, psychological landscape in which the depicted events played out?

For a film such as Notes on Blindness, wherein the visual landscape of the film is used to depict the emotional landscape of its primary character, such scenes are integral to the audience’s understanding of the subject, enhancing our ability to connect to and understand an experience which most have not lived.