What makes documentary political and poetic?

The marriage of politics and poetry is what creates a memorable and timeless documentary.

To me what makes traditional documentary political and poetic is the way that human stories fit into the frameworks of society throughout history. Events are made meaningful by the people involved in them.

China Doll (1998) directed by Tony Ayres discusses the uncomfortable discrimination and stereotyping of gays in Australia and is made poetic by Tony’s own unique perspective as a queer, Asian-Australian growing up as a “double minority” in a  predominately white environment. One thing that stood out to me is the title breaks. Tony emphasises in his narration that he was constantly pushing away his culture, he would avoid Chinese restaurants etc so as to appear more Western. However, the documentary is stylised with red and gold screen titles in Chinese which ironically but proudly bring in a strong Asian aesthetic that he was so ashamed of in the past. Furthermore these titles have double meanings. “Forbidden fruit” refers to how homosexuality is frowned upon and not allowed by the Chinese community.

The film opens with a childhood story of how his mother would feed him vitamins that would make his urine more ‘“yellow” and that at the urinals he boys would torment him with remarks of “Chinese pee.” It was something that he struggled to conceal, like his culture and his sexuality. The bright yellow also alluded to a derogatory term for Asians and referred to the yellow ‘inside him.’

The documentary includes heartbreaking history of the AIDS crisis side by side with photos of Tony trying to “blend in” with white friends which blends. While losing friends due to the disease he was also struggling with his own identity as a minority. Interviews showcase the humour and striking personalities of queer asian men which, paired with the film’s upbeat and unapologetic style make a documentary that is both sensitive and politically relevant to this day.  

For documentary, a distinctive style becomes the voice. For our film Breathe we used a disturbing, erratic style to create a sensory exploration of anxiety. Shooting consistent footage underwater was very challenging so ended up creating visual consistency by upping the contrast and using a monochrome filter.

As we group we faced many challenges in every part of the production process. Reviewing the footage after the shoot, we realised the pool tiles were too visually prominent for the abstract look we were going for.  It distracted from the our intended non-specificity of the location, making it seem like it was meant to be about pool safety. To pull focus away from the tile background we picked close ups and low camera angles with no tile shots from our raw footage. We then went with black and white and edited with fast cuts and changed the aspect ratio. Black and white also helped subtly remove the subject from the familiar blueness of the swimming pool.

Having a 4:3 aspect ratio matched the grid – like pattern of the pool and created a sense of claustrophobia and somberness.

No interview, no voice over.

Taking away voice also took away our ability to directly say what our message was. But this allowed us to create a more vague message that the audience would have to think about. The point of our film was that everyone is susceptible to external sensory experience, especially distressing ones. By removing words, viewers fill in their own internal dialogue about anxious experiences.

Taking away specificity of time and place was removed another. 

What happens when we take away a direct reference to politics/ time place event from a documentary? Poeticness is when the style reflects the meaning.

Non- narrative, non- specific. 

Removing the constraint of specificity and historical accuracy lead us to create a “documentary” without the politics.Traditional documentary often depicts a specific time in history. Our documentary doesn’t discuss an event, it instead explores a state of mind. The meaning of this film will undoubtedly change over time without our control which is what makes it more interesting. It is the imagination of viewers that might make our film meanigful. 

 Although particular laws or governance of a countries end, poetry is what makes the politics forever relevant.

Assignment 2: The Art of Persuasion

What’s wrong with simply observing the world?

To ask the question “what is wrong with simply observing the world?” we are basically asking, “well, what is the point in doing so?”

Documentaries can only be made with an intention, no matter how basic, and audiences will always view them through their own cultural lens of the time. Purpose and opinion formed from a point of view, is what pushes us forward as creators and as a consumer of media. On the other hand, although it easy to say that to be passive is pointless, from a director’s point of view, the practice of objective observation in documentary can be a powerful tool. It can allow the subject matter to reveal itself in a way that could never have been perceived by a more biased eye. But as social beings, is it possible to perceive anything without the filter of our existing point of view?

Propaganda film during WW2 had served the purpose of imposing ideas and values on a receiving audience, not allowing them to think for themselves. The horrors of the propaganda period cultivated a desire for honest, truth seeking cinema. A new style was born, documentary with no voiceover, score or scene setting where the directors role was to bring to audiences an unadulterated glimpse of the world. When making a documentary, attempting to observe with fresh eyes can be a powerful device for new discoveries. Many directors have attempted to capture real life with a ‘fly on the wall’ approach; creating a movement of cinema. These overlapping genres: direct cinema, cinema verite and observational cinema breathed life into the concept of truth in filmmaking.

Groundbreaking for its time, the film Primary (1960) directed by Robert Drew did just that, changing the meaning of documentary. During JFK’s political campaign Jackie makes a speech with her hands behind her back, facing the audience. What they see is her political persona; confident and charming, but Albert Maysles the cinematographer captures her nervousness by observing. The shot of Jackie anxiously wringing her hands could have been “embarrassing,” Maysles explained but he thought it was more important to capture the truth of the moment. He could have made an assumption that she wouldn’t have wanted to be seen in that light and never captured the footage. Maysles reminisced that he if he was so, “overprotective, then [he] wouldn’t have shot it (1) ” This shot demonstrates the power of objective observation without interference . Despite Maysles’s hesistence, after seeing the shot Jackie said, “Let’s keep this film for my grandchildren(1).”

Drew said in an interview that he wanted to “,create something where people who weren’t there could have been there.(2)”

Observing the world is now a major part of our lives for makers and consumers and today, the lines of what defines documentary are even more blurred. Without compulsory conventions such as interview and voice over, what makes a documentary? To me it’s anything that adds a another “dimension(3)” to the current time being depicted. Constantly scrolling through newsfeeds on facebook, instagram, twitter etc we often forget that we are visually being fed the opinions, interests and happenings of the time. When a certain issue is dominating the sphere, like marriage equality, our feeds are flooded with media of parades and protests and opinions. In a way, we are watching a merging, updating documentary. When I post my family holidays, or friends birthdays I wonder what people will think of it now, or a hundred year from now. When we post media to the world we have posted an unintentional experimental documentary, our audience, responding with “likes.”

Observation is an important exercise for reflection. A modern example of of how simple observation can speak to an audience is Austerlitz (2016) directed by Sergei Loznitsa. The documentary takes the idea of watchfulness to a new level by allowing the audience to watch people who are in their own state of observation. Paying homage to the novel by W.G. Sebald, the film follows  the visitors to a memorial site that has been founded on the territory of a former concentration camp. A woman squints, head bowed at memorial, couples walking hand in hand, cameras click and flash, families stroll in unison through what was once a slaughterhouse. People choose to spend their time on a beautiful sunny day at a historical place of genocide.The somber, monochromatic study places the audience in a unique position of contemplation; it encourages us to search for meaning. It makes us question: Why do they go there? What are they looking for? For each of us the answer is different, which is what makes the raw presentation of documentary so important.

Documentaries are not a “reproduction”of the world but a “representation(4),” and will always be influenced by the directors POV. However, by practicing a measured approach to interview in documentary, we can go deeper into understanding other perspectives. Louis Theroux, famous for his unphazed interview style on confronting stories, puts his audience in an unusual position of seeing the subject in a neutral light with knowledge of the disturbing point of view on the world. In California at a neo-nazi’s home surrounded by skinheads, Louis was asked if he was Jewish. He made choice to respond without confrontation by simply saying he’d prefer not to answer. Louis says the most the “most interesting place to be” when making a project is when he’s “liking” them but thinks “what [they] do is ghastly(5).” In another incident Louis finds himself in the kitchen of a neo-nazi home chatting to a mother of two while her children play hopscotch on the tiles. Casual conversion is had while it is revealed that the hopscotch is a swastika. The nonchalant unveiling of the feared symbol emphasizes that antisemitism is so deeply ingrained that it has become the norm for them. This recording of a candid moment makes the point better than if Louis directly commented on their alarming way of life.

When making documentary, it is important to consider how this content can be weaved into your own story. Like sewing a patchwork quilt -a mismatched tapestry- it is essential to have a binding seam throughout, or else it wouldn’t be a very good blanket. In the same way, what unifies material we have collected is not just the consecutive placement of media, but the overarching belief or intent. Without the goal of expressing meaning, there is no story.

References

1. Christina Haskin interviews documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles about  his films 2010
2. Interview at  Paley Center on October 6, 2010
3. (P.g 2) How Documentaries Represent the World, Nichols, B.Introduction to Documentary, Second Edition.Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.
4. (pg 42, 1st para, Nichols, B. Introduction to Documentary, Second Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010)
5. The Project 2017 Interview.

Murphy, A., & Potts, J. (2002), Culture and Technology. Palgrave MacMillan. — Introduction and Ch.1 on ‘Theoretical Frameworks’

On page 27 the author makes an interesting point regarding the neutrality of technologies, using guns as an example. He argues that the “gun creates the precondition for extreme harm”, and thus refutes the “claim that the technology is in itself neutral” – even though the gun proved to be a vital means of survival for many people throughout the past century and has played a pivotal role in history, both good and bad depending on one’s perspective. Perhaps when arguing about the effect the presence of a gun in an otherwise non-fatal fight, guns are not a neutral tool: in this situation, the goal of the gun’s presence is to cause harm, but that is not a fault of the technology as a whole. Regulation is important because in modern times the gun has proven to be increasingly used in such situations, but casting the blame on technology is going a step too far. This mentality has become dangerous in issues like the so-called “dark web”, which like a gun is merely a tool – yet simply because it has become frequently used to facilitate a number of illegal activities, the blame has been thrown onto the technology, and by extension, many other forms of secure, private communications.