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| They may set off to be objective... ...but they end up advocating something. |
Two critics agree so much they finish each others’
sentences…
Gene: Documentary films may set out to be objective…
Roger: …but most end up advocating a point of view.
Gene: Seems to be true even of films attempting to follow a cinéma
vérité style.
Roger: Sometimes it’s subtle…
Gene: …as in the films of National Geographic. And some are
confrontative…
Roger: …like Michael Moore. And most docs fall somewhere…
Gene: …along this spectrum.
____________
Voice-over
Documentary films may present facts akin to describing a scientific
experiment (Spurlock’s Supersize Me, 2004) or a social science ethnographic
presentation (Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth, 2006) or they may follow a
literary narrative pattern, involving characters, plot, problem and solution
(Hustwit’s Helvetica, 2007). Sometimes the documentary develops into a
narrative of its own (Psihoyos’ The Cove, 2009).
1 comment:
It is interesting that so many influential people say documentaries can not be objective. I feel that this is of the nature of man. we find stories entertaining and what makes stories entertaining is archetypes. so for a documentary to be entertaining it must create a good guy and a bad guy, because this is what the audience wants to see.
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