To ask, “What’s wrong with simply observing the world” we are essentially forced to also ask the question ‘what’s wrong with observing rather than altering or participating in the world?’ Is it possible to just observe in today’s world? Like Schrodinger’s cat, the act of observation itself becomes implicit in affecting the outcome. Indian Philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti says, “Observation is action, therefore in the state of integration there is no lag time between observation and action and no separation of the observer and the observed.” A question of right and wrong is inherently an ethical question, and the factors with which we determine what is right and wrong are usually situational and depend heavily on context to define them.

One perhaps semantic issue that arises from the question in a broad social context is that in order to understand and give meaning of the world we observe we must interpret it, connect it, compare it, contrast it, and communicate it with others. Communication is in itself an action beyond mere observation, and with it ethical and epistemological constraints of information come into play. In addition we could at how we are compelled as human agents to communicate our observations, through to examining the public right to information and the normative structure of information as an action (Spence, pp.22-26, 2011, Floridi, pp.33, 123-145, 2002.) If this were an essay of more substantial length we could explore these notions and that to not communicate information regarding the reality of the world would encroach on fundamental rights of those the information was denied to. But for reasons of space let us just acknowledge the existence of such potential paths to this question and note that if we were to simply observe the world, without committing our observations to communication, we would likely have no social structure or cultural content. Content like arts and film, public phenomena that lends itself inherently to acting beyond observation.

The act of documenting through film, then editing and distributing means we never truly just “simply observe”, even if we commit ourselves to impartiality, to depicting truth through employing techniques of verité or direct cinema, we still participate and affect the world by producing media from our observations. While some genres of film claim to be observational, they carry “inherent liabilities: humanist ambiguity, fake objectivity, liberal empiricism, and the complicity of spectacle” (Waugh, 2011, 12), to truly “simply observe” there would be no act of creation. In asking what is “wrong” with this mode of observation (without additional action) consider simply observing injustice, the struggle of the oppressed, or violence but not acting on it; Desmond Tutu famously said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality”. In a media context the ethical and epistemological expectations around interference are intriguing. Journalists for example, are widely expected to operate under a role morality that involves a lack of bias, impartiality, and a commitment to deliver accurate information of public interest without interfering or intervening in the content. A documentary film maker though – if we take the commonsense understanding of the label “documentary” as a combined idea of “nonfiction and education, with social seriousness, non-commercial or alternative or television distribution and the creative treatment of actuality” (Waugh, 2011, 9) – is also expected to present reality. Therefore documentary film is largely expected to present accurate, truthful information, subject to the epistemological nature of information, but, perhaps by virtue of its association to the form of cinema with it’s creative and entertainment intentions, the filmmaker is less expected to maintain an impartial stance; it is more accepted for them to agitate, interject, intervene and express a bias. This is particularly evident in films Waugh and others before him have labelled “committed documentary” and “radical”, “activist film.” Waugh prescribes this genre as aligned politically to the left, though I believe committed filmmakers need hail from both ends of the spectrum, despite my below naming of mainly films from traditionally “Left” perspectives, if we take the paraphrased Marx definition of “a committed filmmaker is not content to interpret the world but is also engaged in changing it” (Waugh, 2011, 6) such films by definition are not restrained to any particular political ideologies. Such filmmakers dominate contemporary western documentary in the E21C.

Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012) attempts to interrogate the nature of impunity by allowing former Indonesian death-squad leaders to recreate their mass-killings in any cinematic genre they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and immoderate musical numbers. The Oscar-nominated film has stimulated robust discussion among Indonesians about the crimes and the need to hold responsible parties liable, there were suggestions that it could have a similar effect in the United States, for its role in the killings, though as yet nothing eventuated.
Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish (2013), another critically acclaimed E21C documentary film, focuses on constructing an argument against the confinement of Orca’s, and other marine life, for entertainment. The film landed reproach (from admittedly vested interest) Michael Scarpuzzi, the Vice President of Zoological Operations for SeaWorld San Diego who says the film uses Orca trainer Dawn Brancheau’s death and its shocking details to “not inform the public, but, rather regrettably, because of the desire to sensationalize”. In early 2014, the family of the late trainer said neither it, nor the foundation named after her, were affiliated with the film, and that they did not believe it accurately reflected Dawn. Other SeaWorld Orca training staff have said they gave interviews that were cut as their views did not support the assertions of the filmmaker.

Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine (2002), Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Sicko (2007) and Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), all present for examination a broken system. Moore implores, often blatantly, the viewer to get up and speak out against these flaws. In a similar way, Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for Superman (2011) or An Inconvenient Truth (2006) explore both, in the former, a broken education system and, the latter, predicted global catastrophic environmental issues. Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc. (2008), Shaun Monson’s Earthlings (2005), John Pilger’s The War You Don’t See (2010), all take a position and to various degrees encourages change. In 2009 Helen Shariamadari was joined by Sir David Attenborough, very typically regarded as an observational documentarian, to produce a film which explored the politically charged questions of sustainable human population growth in her film “How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth”. These examples present the observations of the filmmakers, and their interpretations of them, as all films do which in itself takes a step beyond mere observation, and ask us as the viewer to also do more than observe.
In considering how our interpreting, documenting and communicating reality shapes it, what comes to mind is one of the true stories behind the film, The Bang-Bang Club (2010), the first, and somewhat ambitious, dramatic feature film of documentary filmmaker Steven Silver. In March 1993 photographer, Kevin Carter, took an incredibly moving photo of a Sudanese child. The picture spoke a thousand words of the famine in Sudan. The child was starving and curled up in a ball trying to reach food aid, behind her lurked a vulture. Carter only observed and documented- he took the Pulitzer Prize-winning image, but seemingly didn’t do anything to help the child or intervene in the reality he observed. Reportedly he was told not to touch locals for fear of transmitting diseases. Other photographers on the trip have recounted alternative versions of the reality of this situation, asserting that he in fact chased the bird off after taking the photo. The point is that in observing the poverty and trying to communicate the reality of it to those who had never witnessed it, the presence of the photographer changed the reality of the situation to audience.

Carter likely did not intend to place himself in the context of the photo, however the viewer’s awareness and the universal morality of life and death overwrites the expectation of ethical role morality of the photojournalist remaining objective, impartial and uninvested in the situation. The reality was documented and communicated in the New York Times. The audience accepted this was reality, that this was an observation and documentation of the real world, and hundreds of people contacted the paper to inquire about the fate of the young girl pictured. The paper reported it was unknown if she reached food supply or not. Although not his intention, a lot of criticism emerged for the role of the photographer in the girl’s ostensible and unpromising fate, even more so after in 1994 the image was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. After coming under huge public scrutiny and pressure around the photo, burdened by financial troubles and haunted “by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain […] of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners”, Carter took his own life just months after winning the award.
We may at times intend as creators of media to remain impartial and objective, to steer as close to simple observation as we can, but the reality of our presence, the process of our documentation, and the communication of our observations whether intended or not alter the things we are observing, and are all acts beyond observation. If we were all of us to “simply observe”, meaning and media would not exist and information would not disseminate. If observation itself is the least of all actions, arguably conducted involuntarily, we are not agents of will until we act beyond that, whether the intent is to alter the world or simply share our interpretation, it is human condition to act beyond simple observation.
“Do you decide to observe? Or do you merely observe?” J. Krishnamurti 5th Public Talk Saanen 26th July 1970

“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”

– Marcus Aurelius