Essay Film – Annotated Bibliography

Title: This Will be a Good Place…

Duration: 02:43

Synopsis: The Yarra River is an important geographical and social feature of Melbourne. This film explores the river’s history, the people who spend their days by the banks and the need to maintain its ecological balance.

1) Arthur, P 2003, Essay Questions, Film Comment, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 58-63.

This article has enriched my understanding of the essay film. It speaks of contemporary contributors to the essay film form, such as Agnés Varda, Werner Herzog, Michael Moore and the likes. But it also looks at early essay films by the likes of Jean Rouch, Alain Resnais and Chris Marker. The latter on this list have inspired filmmakers such as Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Raúl Ruiz. On reading about these filmmakers, I’m not only given new ideas to explore in my own filmmaking but I can tack certain style tropes to my understanding of essay film’s esoteric and genre-resistance definition.

I could argue that Arthur’s statement, about nonfiction filmmaker’s reticence to posit personal opinion is fallacious and somewhat misleading for the reader. In my opinion, most nonfiction films are born from personal agendas. Even if they explicitly aim to present unhindered ‘fact’, for example in D. A. Pennebakbr’s observational film Don’t Look Back (1967), filmmakers are perpetually and craftily shaping our opinions.

2) Blight 1996, film, BBC, UK, Directed by John Smith.  

This short film rhythmically samples audio interviews of a neighbourhood affected by ruthless gentrification in the UK. It is an audio, visual and textual feast laden with symbolism, euphemism and intertextual references that invoke further questioning into the hegemonic control of the lower class.

As well as expositing similar themes to those that I intend to apply to my work (social appropriation and industrial affliction), Blight’s stillness, minimalism and powerful thought provoking text has offered potential ideas for future projects.

3) Galt, R & Schoonover, K (eds) 2010, Global Art Cinema, New theories and histories, Oxford University Press, pp. 143 – 163.

Objects and signs make up the language of cinematic communication. In this chapter, ‘Pasolini’s Exquisite Flowers: The caiman of poetry as a theory of art cinema’, John David Rhodes explores the language of art films as defined by Pier Paolo Pasolini who deems day-to-day images as “im-segni” and understands them to be temporal, objectively concrete and non-abstract. Pasolini’s, almost Cartesian whittling down of basic semiotic understanding has helped me look closer at the images I included in my work, their importance to the participants and their relevance to my narrative.

4) Kent, J 2005 , “I Walk the Line.” Film Comment, vol. 41:1, January-February

Kent reminds us of how the lines between fiction and nonfiction documentary are ostensibly blurred. 

In relation to Abu-Assad’s film Ford Transit (2002) he calls into question what has been staged and what is reality. Kent puts this and other films into a hybrid category where the filmmaker is overt about combining the two, heightening the ‘truthfulness’ of their text.

I particularly liked the tongue in cheek quip that Jones made with reference to the dramatic hours of O.J. Simpson’s police pursuit telecast, exclaiming that “All that was lacking was a theme song” emphasising the likeness to fiction. Similarly, commercial documentaries supposed ‘reality’ is extended through editing choices, backdrop, affectations and the likes. Some films aim to objectify and subvert these displays through humour and satire, putting them in the spotlight and inviting the audience to look below the surface.  

5) Man With a Movie Camera 1929, VUFKU, Kiev, directed by Dziga Vertov.

Using rhythmic editing and counterpoint image sequences, I find this film artful and fascinating, not least because of its eastern European backdrop, but also because of the political climate circa 1930. In my essay film, I have applied this rhythmic editing as a homage to the early avant-garde filmmakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z97Pa0ICpn8

6) Nichols, B 1991 Documentary Modes of Representation, Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary, Bloomington & Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, USA.

This reading is a part of Bill Nichols’ seminal treatise which aims to codify documentary’s engagement with viewers and participants, Nichols identifies 6 key modes of participation. With regard to my essay film, Nichols would say that I’ve incorporated the participatory and poetic modes however, such black and white definitions invoke sedition as some styles are difficult to define yet still aspire to be included into the broader documentary genre. In addition, I find it utterly megalomaniacal to even think about categorising my own work in such a way, I perhaps should let someone else be the judge.

7) Night Mail 1936, film, GPO (General Post Office) Film Unit, UK, Directed by Harry Watt & Basil Wright.

This film is not participatory but more expository despite its strange and unexpected rhyme that plays like an infomercial jingle. But this does not, for me, fall into the poetic mode as its exposition dominates. Night Mail uses reenacted scenes, complete with poor performances. It is an exemplar of early ‘faction’ (a portmanteau of ‘fiction’ and ‘fact’) documentaries as seen in Nanook of the North (1922). It is difficult to discern whether the prose read by the narrator is a tongue-in-cheek  wink at the people who work for the railroads, or an early, albeit fallacious,  prediction of how future documentaries would be accepted. This film enriched my historical understanding of documentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WO7JxYlhOM

8) Rascaroli, L 2008, The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commitments. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, 49(2), 24-47. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/stable/41552525

As the class seemed vague about what was expected of an essay film, this reading was welcome insight. An interesting thing that I took home from Rascaroli’s reading was her curated definitions of ‘essay’ and in turn, ‘essay film’.

The reading offers some succinct examples from Adorno, Lukács, Jean Starobinski, Aldous Huxley, Snyder, Renov, José Moure and more (pp. 25-26). It was interesting to learn that heresy is one of the “key markers” of essay films according to Rascaroli (p.39), this I can truly relate to especially with my PB2 project. However, I’m of the belief that ALL documentary films blur the lines between fiction and nonfiction, Rascaroli seems to frame essay film as being exclusive to this conflict.

9) Sherman’s March 1985, film,

Ross McElwee’s documentary feigns as a personal travel memoir documenting his pilgrimage as he follows the path of an American historical figure. It is later revealed that he is actually on a quest for love.

His methods have been heavily criticised for being too self-reflexive to the point of solipsism, however, it is this self reflection that I’m most interested in for my own work. I believe, that as we are endowed with such a volume of knowledge through technology, we seem to have adversely focussed more on ourselves rather than the human race. 

In week 1, we aimed to explore such paradoxical notions for the student chronicles in an investigation of DIY user-generated and self-reflective forms that are ubiquitous today.

Sherman’s March points the camera back on ourselves and it could be said that McElwee’s work was prophetic in that it bears semblance to an elaborate ‘selfie’.

10) Vlada, P 1974, “Dziga Vertov as Theorist.” Cinema Journal 18:1 Fall 1978, pp29-44.

In this paper, Petric outlines Vertov’s methods, one that resonated for me was  “Film Eye” which is described as the documentation of ‘life as it is’. Any theatrics or affectations in film are considered outside of his definition. However, within this ‘organisation of reality’, he insists that the ‘method’ maintain a communistic sensibility. For me, Man With a Movie Camera (1929) was a classic propaganda film where I was left with the sense that Vertov’s societal focus centred on happiness, the encouragement of hard-work, strength and functionality. As aesthetic as his productions were, I cannot help but see the textual and filmic agendas within.

Through investigating documentary classics, the current political situation becomes bathed in a new light. 

Project Brief 1 

In this brief, we’ve been asked to identify 3 groups of people to potentially base our documentary around. After surfing a stream of consciousness, this is what I came up with…

1) Emerging conceptual artists   

Conceptual artists must always push the boundaries of social, political and internal conventions to help make sense of the world. With the exponential growth of the digital universe comes an increasing challenge to decipher abstract concepts that flow through our day to day lives. It is for this reason that, as humans, we must be ready and willing to embrace ‘the abstract’. By extension, the tumultuous  political  climate seen throughout most of the world, requires new modes of thinking as we become more fearful and dismayed with the world. It is an artist’s freedom of expression that will get us through (McLuhan).

It is my hope that any emerging artists involved in a documentary project, such as what our class is proposing, will gain further exposure to their work and may enlighten non-artists to see the world in new and unique ways.

They may or may not want to participate but if they do, I’ll make sure that I’ll do my utmost to engage but not interfere with their process.

2) Free surfers  

I am a surfer and I am drawn to waves with a particular erotic magnetism that only a surfer could relate to. Aside from the fitness and the thrill of ‘the ride’, there is something more about surfing that has people worldwide clambering to the shores like hungry zombies looking for flesh! When a person meets another person, one might ask the other, “how was your day?” or, “how about this rain?”, but when a surfer meets another surfer, it’s always the same… “Get any waves?”

It would be interesting to explore how people feel about their wave addiction, where it comes from and why it sustains when that thrill in so many other sports, like snowboarding for example, can seem finite.

Two perks a surfer gains from participating in this production; is, again, exposure to a wider community (should they want to move into professional surfing arena), and a ‘third umpire’ like second opinion of their skills.

3) Actors 

They reside at a junction between megalomaniacal fulfilment and utter self-loathing and contempt. These two mental states inevitably spill into the other creating, either; a beautiful choreographed representations of reality or, tragic soups of tangential inner diatribe.

I recently ran into an old friend on his way home. He looked sharp and confident, unlike anyone onboard that evening commute, he was calm, cool and could inadvertently take down a low flying aircraft with his good looks and charm that, no doubt, contributed to him taking best actor at the Logies some years before. When I ask him where home was nowadays, he replied, “In my office, I’m homeless. I shower at the public Baths”… all without batting an eyelid!

Did he consider his life’s trajectory as a shameful fall-from-grace, or new living arrangements — new beginnings? I don’t know, but it certainly said a lot about that cliche of chasing a dream no matter what.

Dawn of the Dead (1978) – George A. Romero