I’ve seen Grizzly Man at least three or four times, and my opinion of it has changed quite a lot since my first viewing. Watching it through the lens of ethics and this studio has given me a new appreciation for Herzog’s complete disregard for the rules of documentary filmmaking.

I was surprised to hear people in our class discussion say that they felt Timothy Treadwell’s ex-girlfriend Jewel seemed inauthentic, like her emotions in the scene where Werner listens to Treadwell’s death tape were too “perfect” to be impromptu. But I don’t think people have taken into account that being on camera naturally compels people to look within themselves and really feel their emotions. Werner Herzog isn’t above playing tricks, but he’s always in search of some kind of authentic and genuine (if not literal) emotional truth. Jewel doesn’t seem to me like the kind of performer who could pull off a scene like that.

The coroner, on the other hand… that guy is fascinating. The scene in which he speaks directly to the camera about Treadwell’s death (and the recording of it) has always been my favourite scene in the whole film, and emblematic of what I love about Werner Herzog. The coroner seems so comfortable in front of the camera that I’ve always suspected he may be an amateur actor or something — maybe in local theatre — and Herzog decided that he was too compelling to just shoot in a standard talking-head style. The scene is so strangely shot, with the coroner awkwardly standing still for a few seconds before he begins speaking (like he was waiting for Werner to call “action”), and then staring directly into the camera across multiple different shots as he recounts the tale. It completely breaks every rule documentary filmmakers are supposed to follow, and yet it feels completely authentic in the final product. Perhaps I’m only saying this because I’ve seen a bunch of Herzog films and have been conditioned to expect anything from them, but the scene is just right.

I think some of my classmates can’t shake their expectation that documentaries should only show literal truth (“the Real”, as all our readings call it), which is interesting to me because they’re all much younger than me and have presumably always existed in a world in which filmmakers are radically experimenting with the rules of what a documentary is.

I’ve previously mentioned my dislike for the film Finding Vivian Maier on this blog, and I was reminded of it again this week watching Born Into Brothels (though for different reasons): I am suspicious of any filmmaker who makes a film with them as a main character. John Maloof made a film “about” Vivian Maier but ultimately concentrated more on his part of the story than on Vivian’s. Advanced Style (2014) pretends to be about stylish ladies of advanced age but really it’s about Ari Cohen, whose blog the ladies were featured on (and there’s even a scene, shot and left in the final edit by Cohen, who produced the film, in which the ladies talk about how much they love Cohen and his blog). It’s a surprisingly pervasive issue in documentary filmmaking, and one I am extremely sensitive to.

In Born Into Brothels, its focus on the white woman, Zana, as a main character only made me question her presence. If this film is about the children of sex workers in India, why not focus on them? Why does Zana need to be a character at all? I think it’s because in actual fact, Zana wanted to make a film about herself and her quest to get the kids into boarding schools and education programs, and not about the kids themselves, which actually means that the kids are only minor characters in their own story. I felt as if Zana was exploiting the kids and their situation for her own purposes, noble as her actions may have been.

To me, Zana comes off as a White Saviour with little understanding of the cultural context she finds herself in. While it’s tempting to say that it’s admirable that at least she’s trying to help these children, I think that’s actually a dangerous position to take. White people behaving as if is their responsibility to “elevate” the “uncivilised” people of the world and “improve” their lives by “educating” them (using white culture’s understanding of what education is) has led to centuries of colonisation and the decimation of cultures around the world. While I believe strongly in the ability of rich nations to eradicate poverty and disease around the world, a top-down approach where white people unilaterally decide where and how their “help” will be applied — regardless of the wishes and context of the culture they’re trying to help — is not the way to go.

One white lady taking some gifts to India and shoving a movie camera in the face of some poor people isn’t going to benefit anybody in the long run, and in fact may do more harm than good.

So, ultimately, I think Born Into Brothels is an interesting case-study in how not to shoot a documentary in a developing country, and I’m honestly surprised it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Today we pitched our documentary project to the class. My group — Alice, Anna, Izzi and Zitni — and I all agreed early on in the process that we’ve made several “documentary portraits” already and we wanted to tackle something slightly different, like picking a topic or issue and finding interviewees who would fit into that topic.

Coming up with ideas is my biggest weakness, honestly. I’m pretty confident with my ability to use camera equipment and translate my creative vision to the screen (though I have a lot more to learn there, too!), and I think I’m a good collaborator in that I can develop other peoples’ ideas, but I don’t have a large social network of acquaintances and have struggled in the past to think of interesting subjects to make films about from scratch. (And yes, I recognise that having ideas is fundamental to being a filmmaker…)

Anyway, as a group we came up with the idea of talking to female drivers. At first we were going to base our film around a single driver for the female-only ride-sharing service Shebah, but with help from Rohan we decided that it might be more interesting to compare a Shebah driver to other professional female drivers (taxi and Uber), and see if they have common experiences or outlooks in their life and work.

We have collaborated well so far to develop that initial nugget into a fully-fledged idea — something that could conceivably be turned into an actual film. We’ve got a central question, a structure and some ideas for the visual style we hope to achieve. The biggest question mark is whether we can find not one but three interview subjects who: 1) are willing to be interviewed, 2) are available during our filming schedule, 3) are comfortable on camera, and 4) have something interesting to say. But our initial enquiries have been positive, and I think we’ll benefit from the fact that professional drivers are generally quite personable because they communicate with people all day.

I’m a little anxious that the success or failure of our film lies entirely in the hands of people who we’ve never met, but I want to get out of the comfort zone of only interviewing people I know personally. Here goes!