Comments on: Beware of The Documentary

By: Captain Hate

Captain Hate — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:39:51 +0000

“Brother’s Keeper” from a few years ago was a good documentary, imo; it told a story of a death on a farm amongst these semi-unusual brothers who lived together and how the local people were somewhat protective of them. It had no real axe to grind (or if it did it was imperceptible) and came off as an honest portrayal.

By: Brown Line

Brown Line — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:08:13 +0000

I share Roger’s skepticism about the documentary form. The fact is that the movies can do a very good job of stimulating the emotions, but they’re a terrible medium for the transmission of information: their bandwidth is too narrow, and it’s extremely difficult to talk back to them. That may be why the movies are the medium of choice for demagogues.

Good film documentaries tell a narrow, focused story of real people. The best ones I’ve seen are all about sports: the much underappreciated film Hoop Dreams, and last year’s Murderball. Neither film tries to make a broad analysis; rather, they do what the movies do best: tell a story.

Just my $0.02 worth …

By: Yael

Yael — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:47:27 +0000

Beware not only documentaries, but also reviews of documentaries.

See for example http://bokertov.typepad.com/btb/2007/06/in-a-just-world.html

By: quickrob

quickrob — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:19:44 +0000

MikeD, excellent point. That brings us to the dilemma of a public that cannot differentiate between propaganda and documentary.

A solution could be to have a regulatory body rate a film as per it’s “truthfulness”, but I guess that’s actually a more slippery slope that I am comfortable with personally.

TD = true documentary
td = half true documentary

Republicans should press Congress for a “Documentary Fairness Doctrine” lol

By: MikeD

MikeD — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:14:03 +0000

Not to pick nits or simply argue the fine points of semantics but there is nothing wrong with the documentary of an honest filmmaker who aspires to truth and fact. The problem is with the producer not the genre. The films of Michael Moore and Al Gore are not documentaries they are just propaganda. The viewer/reviewer has to have enough intelligence to see the difference and select the right descriptive word.

By: Lem

Lem — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:07:52 +0000

At the beginning of ‘the kid stays in the picture’, Robert Evans says “There are three sides to every story. my side, your side, and the truth.”

The documentarian is a fourth. He aims is to keep that one completely under wraps, but as Roger says, that may be nearly impossible.

Some of you may also know this phenomenon as the Ron Paul effect.

By: quickrob

quickrob — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:59:55 +0000

I agree with you, too, Roger. Too many people see a documentary and make the mistake they are led to make and they assume that the film is accurate and fact-checked because it is a documentary…as if it’s just documenting the facts.

As for younger people in their PJ’s, hey I just got out of (pt. 1 of) college and I can’t get onto the real Pajamas Media blogroll if my life depended on it!

By: Luther McLeod

Luther McLeod — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:08:56 +0000

But don’t film ‘critics’ just look at film, as film? Set, direction, characters, story, etc… Method, in other words, or perhaps emotional content. But not facts per se. Maybe we need a new group of critics for documentaries, fact checkers. After all, that is what documentaries are about, isn’t it? Facts, or at least some magnified sense of same. Otherwise, just propaganda, one side/way or another.

By: StevenT

StevenT — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 03:54:01 +0000

There’s another reason to distrust documentaries. If Sicko had
been a book chances are many, if not most reviews would have
been written by people who have some level of expertise on
the health care system. They would have told us weather Sicko
is in fact trustworthy or not and cited examples. Film critics
simply aren’t equipped to do this.

By: D Anghelone

D Anghelone — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 00:34:24 +0000

Errol Morris is my favorite.
I only wish he did more.

I thought at first the characters in The Thin Blue Line must be actors. Robert McNamara perhaps is.

If Morris could collar more political figures…