Poetic mode
- engagement with form “as much as or more than with social actors” (Nichols, 2010:162)
- association and pattern ~ involving temporal rhythm & juxtaposition
- fragmented, subjective impression
- social actors are not complex – arranged like any other object
- alternative knowledge ~ in the sense of things we might not see: mood, tone effect (as opposed to fact or argument)
- “The poetic mode has many facets, but they all emphasize the ways in which the filmmaker’s voice gives fragments of the historical world a formal, aesthetic integrity peculiar to the film itself”. (Nichols, 2010: 166)
Reflexive mode
- Reflection upon the practice of documentary representation
- Questions its own status as documentary
- Interested not so much in talking about the historical world (e.g. showing things that really happened in the world), but addresses the question of
how we talk about the historical world
Interactive/participatory mode
- Expository mode: voice of god narration, commentary directed at viewer, rhetorical continuity, impression of objectivity
- Observational mode: fly on the wall, filmmaker hidden behind camera, nothing staged, no voice over, sense on unfettered, unmediated access to the world
Characterised by:
- Filmmaker’s presence & voice
- device of filmmaker participation, as well as its effect.
- filmmaker is the centre of attention
- the filmmaker addresses the social actors on the screen rather than the spectator
- a view of the world from someone who inhabits it
Like the observational mode in last weeks film Don’t Look Back, this mode was also made possible byby lightweight, portable camera and sound recording equipment that emerged in the late 1950s, early 1960s – so both modes both occur at roughly the same time
The Observational mode
- Fly on the wall (no staging)—it aimed at unmediated representation of reality (emphasized by roughness of footage which implied ‘authenticity’)
- No camera or filmmaker present in frame
The legitimacy of the claim to authenticity in Observational films is subject to question.
- Filmmakers working in the Interactive/participatory mode felt that to actively exclude or repress the presence of the film crew at the scenes they film was to hide a significant element of the event itself—a significant shaping and manipulating of that material to deliberately create a specific effect and to get a specific response from the viewer.
Both:
- Made possible by lightweight, portable camera and sound recording equipment late 1950s, early 1960s & both occur at roughly the same time
Observational:
- Fly on the wall (no staging)—aimed at unmediated representation of reality
- No camera or filmmaker present in frame (implies a transparent window on the world)
Interactive:
- Also emphasis on immediacy (captures rather than preplans)—but emphasis is different to the Observational because the impact of the camera/filmmaker presence is acknowledged
- This lays out for us the major differentiating feature of the interactive/Participatory documentary: the filmmaker and the camera are acknowledged as existing in the same world as their subjects.
– It deliberately draws those social actors into a direct encounter with the film-maker, and it is this encounter which is in many respects the core of the documentary.
-The relationship between the film-maker and their subject or subjects, the dynamic that exists between them becomes or forms the core of the film, whatever the topic that is addressed through that relationship.
-The film-maker is thus free to take up a variety of roles or positions in relation to the people that appear in the film: mentor, participant, prosecutor, provocateur…
McElwee has been making highly personal and intimate documentaries not so much about himself as the immediate parameters of his world: love, death, birth, family, and what it means to be a ‘southerner.’
In Time Indefinite, McElwee is in some ways his own primary interview subject; the relation between the voiceover and the image is often one of questioning, reflection, even irony.
The images we see show us what he is engaged with and in at a given moment, but the v/o questions that very engagement, interrogates or explores what it might mean.
- The effect is partially comedic/ironic, but is also requires us to question the honesty of McElwee on screen – not in the sense that he’s lying to us, but rather to some degree to himself (being self-indulgent, narcissistic)
- McElwee frequently uses the camera as a kind of confessional, his father calls it the ‘big eye’
– His use of the camera, and his mode of engagement with the people he films (incl. himself) is in a sense a form of interview
THREE VERSIONS OF REALITY
Expository – a deliberate construction intended to convey a specific meaning
Observational – capturing life in action with a minimum of intervention by the filmmaker
Participatory/observational – filmmaker intrudes to provoke actions and reactions
