Introduction to Documentary Response (Sean Strelow)

Before this reading, I was aware of some of the different forms of documentary, but I never thought about the social and economic conditions that prompted their creation until now. This was the most interesting aspect of it for me. It made me realize that all art is a reflection of the state of society at the time, even if it tries not to be. An example of this would be the film Nightcrawler, which I saw over break. Its story reflects the trend in American media to perpetuate a culture of fear, highlighting only the disturbing events that happen in order to get more views, but at the same time promoting a falsely afraid view of society. It also speaks to the obsession in modern society of watching things removed from them instead of actually a part of them, which is especially relevant now as people are more and more easily able to record things with smart phones and such.

I find the trend in films recently to make pseudo-documentaries, sparked by films like The Blair Witch Project and continued with the Paranormal Activity series, to be very interesting. It almost speaks to the power that people give to the camera, that if the camera operator is made present to us, as viewers, we will trust that the events in front of us actually happened, or at least, be entertained by the thought that they could have actually happened. I wonder if they comprise their own special category of documentary. If so, I would put Man with a Movie Camera, a film mentioned in the article, also in this category. The film purports to be a purely cinematic recording of the happenings in various Russian cities, but is clearly staged in the scenes where the cameraman becomes visible.

One of my favorite documentaries is Marwencol, a film about a man named Mark Hogancamp who, after being beaten into a coma by five thugs and unable to pay for therapy upon recovering, uses dolls to act out his own stories in a fictional Belgian town set in World War II. It’s an amazing story and one that uses both the participatory mode in the form of interviews and the performative mode in that it tries to align the viewer with Mark’s perspective. The following link shows the interview nature of the film, which reflects its participatory mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrM9TLw3hTU