Comments on: Record of Relationships

By: Gordon Brander

Gordon Brander — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:46:24 +0000

Whatever the style of film, the person behind the lens has an immense amount of power over the perspective of the viewer.

I think the strength of cinema verite is not that it somehow forces objectivity, but that it leaves in some of the raw awkwardness of real life. It’s a sort of earnestness captured on film that says to the viewer “I’m doing my best to show what I believe is real here”. This earnestness can really be powerful and emotionally compelling.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:30:09 +0000

you assert that moving film picks up more subtleties. More accomplished photographers would argue not. A discerning, trained eye.
In the end, it’s not so much if both have their uses, as much as are you presenting an honest piece of work? Are you calling it what it is? As Schaeffer says in his work Art and the Bible, how much “validity” does your work carry? How true are you to documenting what happens for the sake of documenting what happens, not for dedication to a documentation style.
~C

By: Cooper Strange

Cooper Strange — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:48:01 +0000

I can see how it would be a leap for those trained to negate their own presence to then begin to allow for the opposite to happen. Not having that specific training, it is not a hang up for me.

In still photography, telling a story also relies heavily on the relationship between photographer and those inside the story, but I can see that with moving film, when you have a person, all their mannerisms, and maybe that awkward reaction (to an unknown inverviewer) which could ruin that passage of the film, some things do change. It seems to me that both styles would be helpful (and everything in between): both the fly-on-the-wall to focus entirely on the subject and also the naturalness which would come from the conversation with the filmmaker.

By: Cat

Cat — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:06:32 +0000

Oh goodness, this post gets me thinking…

Setting out my three point sermon below. Forgive me for my abundance of thoughts:

So even if you could obtain objective truth in what you have captured, were that even possible, what you select, edit-out and present to the public eye is still your hand deciding what ‘truth’ represents. In a video or audio narrative, your influence on what is included, and what is left out, belies what you find important. It is a marker of your perception more than it can ever represent ‘truth’.

And the timidity at showing your own work only proves that it represents you personally as much as, if not more than, your subject. If feel the same when I post a picture I have taken to my blog or site. I am worried what the viewer will assess about me and give little thought to whether it is a flattering image to my subject or not….

Also, I think that representing your point-of-view can be more valuable than attempting to represent ‘truth’ anyway. Lately it seems that our societies crave nothing more that to peer through another’s eyes. It seems that more documentary’s and biography’s win our best selling book and movie award than ever before. Even the rise of social media like facebook and twitter and eye-witness reports show that viewers accept, and even love, that they are getting one man’s perspective on any story. We crave interaction with each other, relationships. It’s no longer taboo at all to hear the interviewer as the questions (like TAL) or have the photographer be the key witness in their own multimedia project. ‘Journalism’, in its truest form, is racing to keep up with these changes and, like you said, “compelling documentary WILL take advantage of cinematic liberties”. And that makes it a wonderful, growing, adapting medium.

Oh, and have you seen Gonzo: Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson? Your mention of play acting made me think of it. I think the clips from the film “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” interspersed through the documentary really add a lot. It’s a good example of that working I think…

Ok, coming off the soap box I just discovered that I had. If you’ve taken the time to read this, thanks. And thanks for providing and environment to foster thoughts on the subject!