Week 5. Documentaphobia, Moore's Dystopia, War Porn. Cathy's section

I found that the reading for this week was very interesting. Just beginning to read it, I realize that documentaries are a very difficult subject to really define since there are so many different types and views. There is always questioning going on as to whether a documentary is really portraying the truth accurately. Nichols’s different types of documentary modes shed light on many things and got me to understand the types of documentary modes a bit better. It is also interesting that Moore is apparently taking a stance on the issue through his commentary, and choice of editing, making it clear who his audience is. However, it is also very clear that Moore did it intentionally since he is clearly presenting his own point of view instead of at a fully objective point of view. And Moore does present many truths in his documentary. And the film does reveal many things about Moore’s childhood. Moore effectively does get many points out, especially the callous ways in which many of the common people are treated by the corporations. I could really relate to Moore’s fear about Documentophobia, because I too often find myself bored with documentaries if they aren’t told in an interesting way, though that should not be the point of a documentary. I also agreed with the author’s views that Michael Moore would do well in the television scene. With Klawan’s writings, I find the metaphoric analogies to bowling very interesting and similar to a light tone often used in Moore’s films. And he does point out good points about Moore’s personal views. I also find it interesting that the writer, who is clearly being critical of Moore, failed to mention that with the bank scene, Moore had clearly signed up for a service to the bank ahead of time, because there is a waiting period where a background search is conducted with any arms dealers. He also fails to mention that when he addresses the South Park style animation that the South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey had nothing to do with it, yet it often gave many people the impression that they did because it was put in so close with the interview from Matt Stone. This author clearly does not think that Moore is intentionally letting people know that he is making the documentary personal, or maybe he is critical of Moore because he is. War porn is also a very interesting article, albeit, a bit long and drawn out like most wars are. There are many techniques that are discussed in the article, and many of them are successful in bringing out many of the qualities and emotions associated with war. It presents itself with many of the techniques such as narratives and time that all help to make the film better.

Documentary texts supposedly aim to document reality and expose truth in their depiction of people, places and events. However, it is nearly impossible to show reality without creating a narrative that may be fictional in places. Of course, any images that are edited cannot claim to be wholly factual, they are the result of choices made by the photographer on the other end of the lens. These choices can be represented by modes. In order to understand the work of Michael Moore, Matthew Bernstein attempts to explain Nichols’ essay regarding the different modes that documentaries exemplify. Although Moore rejects the documentary classification, Bernstein suggests that “Roger and Me” can be measured and designated. Moore actively engages himself in the situation he is documenting, the closing of the Flint plants, and brings to the surface social issues assembled into an argumentative frame. Interactive and expository modes are evident in the film. Moore establishes a thesis and organizes his film to support that thesis. This method is also prevalent in Bowling for Columbine, in which Moore proposes reasons and causes for the Columbine High School massacre and other acts of violence with guns. Moore focuses on the background and environment in which the massacre took place, and some common public opinions and assumptions about related issues. Moore's central theme is that the Columbine massacre is not merely a product of the easy availability of guns in the United States, but also of the sense of fear that he asserts is produced by American media and society. Through the incorporation of a variety of clips, some necessary and some absurd, Moore creates a film that is unnerving, stimulating, and entertaining. It seems Moore is better at pointing out problems than actually finding solutions for them. He only touches on the surface of the issue, but manages to leave the viewer with a strong desire to explore more. While reading “War Porn”, I was reminded of a video I read about made by members of the Florida National Guard in which soldiers are shown kicking a wounded prisoner in the face and making the arm of a corpse appear to wave. It is sickening that this is the soldiers' means of coping. It illustrates a frightening pessimistic view: when you have no way out of a nightmare, what is there to do but embrace it? How many killings stem from fear and how many stem from a pump-you-up-to-kill-the-bad-guys rush? The at-home reaction is just as monstrous, with many citizens in denial, playing at innocence. It occurred to me, while reading this piece, that it captures the essence of what bothers me about people who are pro-war. They move so effortlessly between heralding our noble soldiers who are saving the world, claiming that anyone who accuses them of doing anything wrong is lying, and then savoring the violence. I felt the article made a strong statement in that the war in Iraq is warping young men and women, who can only cope with its horror by turning into moral monsters.

In Bernstein’s article, he uses Nichol’s modes of documentary to help give a better understanding to the documentary making of Michael Moore. Nichols helps to give a better understanding of documentaries by classifying them into different modes. These modes include, expository mode, observational mode, interactive mode, and the reflexive mode. Each mode describes the different purposes that documentaries serve. Nichol’s points out that these modes are not used solitarily but are intertwined. These modes are said to be similar to genres in fictional filmmaking. Although Moore rejects that his productions are documentaries, viewers still recognize his films as giving the different modes of documentaries. Moore constantly tries to reject the idea that his films are documentaries although they posses all of the qualities and contents of a documentary. Documentary or not, Moore has a very creative way of producing his films. He is proactive in somehow intertwining an autobiographical content into his films whether it is through describing his childhood and directly identifying himself or by intertwining home videos or photos into various parts of the production. Moore is very successful in cleverly using framework to show contrast between scenes and ideas. He cuts from one scene to the next and back and forth to show the variations between life and the consequences that it has. Moore uses the framework, the crosscutting and the voice offers to avoid making “a three hour movie” which would bore an audience into not wanting to watch. Nichol’s explanations of the modes of documentary help to convey Moore’s work in Roger and Me as an expository documentary. In the article by Stuart Klawans, Stuart helps to reveal the true meaning of Moore’s documentaries and helps to identify the various tricks that Moore uses to convey his message to the audience. Stuart first describes how Moore often digresses from the true topic of his films and adds in unnecessary information in order to distract from what he is truly trying to address. In doing this, viewers are easily losing focus to what they should be paying it attention to making it less important for Moore to actually make a point. Klawana describes the way that Moore jumps around in his movie, ‘Bowling for Columbine’, which is supposed to focus on the use of firearms in the US. Moore goes through the film in mocking interviews, connected to insignificant videos, which are eventually connected to a cartoon TV Show, and then to an interview with high school students who experienced the Columbine shooting. But through all of these motions, Moore’s objective does not even appear to be accomplished. Perhaps Moore knew he would be unable to accomplish an objective so he instead decided to create a film, which never really conclude anything but distracted viewers from identifying a solution. The final article titled, ‘War Porn’, discusses how many tragic events in America are masked and people often put a façade over what truly has happened and chose not to come face to face with reality. This is often done because it easier to not confront the truth and instead be blind to what happened, this way, there is less hurt, less heartache and less of a feeling of heartache. The article concludes that in doing this, Americans are only hurting themselves even more.

Matthew Bernstein, in his “Documentaphobia and Mixed Modes” first discusses Bill Nichols’ essay that offers different “modes” that documentaries take. These modes have certain characteristics that differentiate them and which allows them to be recognized by the audience. These modes are: expository, observational, interactive, and reflexive. Expository mode is where the visuals serve to prove the point and where the filmmaker assumes a universal narrative. Observational breaks away from this as it primarily observes rather than comments. The third mode, interactive, involves the filmmaker, where they can be on-screen, as a voice-over, or simply indirectly imposed. And then there is reflexive, which questions the filmmaker’s ability to adequately represent reality. Bernstein contends that despite Moore’s rejection of the label of a documentary, the “Roger and Me” can be quantified and assigned modes. The prologue seems to be interactive as it expresses how it really is about the filmmaker’s perspective and then it shifts into expository, which basically means that it asserts the filmmaker’s perspective as the message. Even though Berstein thinks that the fact that Moore explicitly expresses his views and then asserts them as the truth is worth critique, that by itself cannot depreciate the value of the film as a documentary; in this sense, it is just a documentary of Moore’s perspective, which he agrees to by making it autobiographical. “Bowling for Columbine” reveals how easy it is to acquire firearms, though that’s not the message and there is more. The main body of the film, and therefore Moore’s argument is that the problem is not that we Americans have too many guns, but our social-mental imbalance in particular makes it dangerous. Klawans’ breakup of the heart of the film analyzes how the relevant and the irrelevant come together to create a sense of encouragement for the audience to laugh at the material, which is unquestionably intended. Moore distances himself from the screen and lets the material speak for itself, but yet at the heart lies the self-righteous perspective that Bernstein alludes to; no matter how the extremely intense material is portrayed, there is no doubt that it is still Moore’s perspective, despite the expository nature the film adapts. Even Klawans concedes when discussing the Kayla Rolland remembrance, “Worse still, Kayla Rolland doesn’t seem to be the focus of this little drama; it’s all about the sensitivity of Michael Moore.” Both Bernstein and Klawans would agree that even when Moore’s films seem to be objective and have an omniscience aura, they are in fact very limited by Moore’s biases and opinions. Where they would differ is in the importance of the fairness of his method of argument: Bernstein scorns it while for Klawans, it gives the film a whole new look and ultimately does not matter. Jean Baudillard’s “War Porn” posits how far the media can go in expressing the images before it parodies war so that the aesthetics and excessiveness begins to resemble pornography. The war on terrorism is unique in the sense of media technology makes it is possible to capture every facet of the war, 24/7.

I thought the article on Moore was very interesting and informative about the filmmaker. Although some people do complain and point out that Moore is too prejudiced and filled with his own opinions, which he incorporates into this documentaries (which violates what a documentary means to some people), I think his perception make watching the documentary more interesting. He’s filming about people and we constantly speculate on human behavior and why we do the things we do, no one is ever completely unbiased. Moore has only attracted more attention than other documentary filmmakers because he tackles very controversial issues that affect us today. He’s not touting whatever he says as truth, he’s only speculating from the facts he’s collected and he’s trying to convince you of his views. It’s really just him trying to explain some stuff in life –as we all do- and seeing whether you’ll agree with him. To say it isn’t a documentary isn’t completely correct either. It’s just that it’s more of a documentary about Moore’s viewpoint on a certain situation. I really enjoyed the documentary we watched on Tuesday in class about the Latino filmmaker who went to go investigate her uncle’s death. It was a very interesting documentary and though it was done with simple techniques, it was a very fascinating subject matter that was fueled even more by the conflicting stories over who, how, and why her uncle died. The whole thing was very well planned out, very well set up so that the viewer never got lost in different stories. The filmmaker interviewed lots of people and wasn’t afraid to back down despite rebuffs from her relatives who weren’t entirely too happy she was looking into their affairs. She had a lot of voice recordings but she didn’t have that many home videos to go off of, however she made do with old family photos and objects used as representation –which still ended up being effective tools for storytelling. In addition, I noticed there were a lot of water images in the scene and I liked that sort of cultural touch to everything, from the music to symbolism. The plot stuck to the point and tried unravel everything through the most logical way possible and yet in the end the filmmaker was unable to uncover the mystery. The movie was very smooth, never any jumping transitions or unexplainable leaps of logic. Nevertheless it had an expected end, to such a peculiar death; that in the end, the secrets revolving around her uncle’s death would remain buried despite all of her efforts to crack the cold case. I think perhaps she meant for the unsolved ending to be a metaphor for life, how not everything turns out the way we hope and sometimes we’ll still come out in the end unsatisfied, but at least we had the journey and we know in our hearts we tried our best.

I don't know if I'm supposed to post under "add new comment" where it says reply, but I'm posting it here because I don't know where else to. I liked the article about Michael Moore’s Roger and Me, because I liked the way the Bernstein, the author, explained Moore’s technicalities in making documentary movies as a whole. Michael Moore uses the audience’s direct participation to build on his argument throughout the movie and, in my opinion, this distinguishes him as a filmmaker. The frankness with which his entire message in the movie is carefully constructed is what defines Moore’s movies, and Bernstein describes it perfectly: “Moore has a thesis about why General Motors closed its manufacturing plants in and around Flint, Michigan, and he has a clear argument about its effect on the town. The film is rhetorically organized to support this thesis.” Not only is it organized in such a way that the viewer is made to feel guilty if his or her views originally differed in some way, but Moore manages to convince his viewers of the importance of the matter at hand, and to represent it in a most unambiguous manner. As Bernstein writes, Moore’s commentary leaves the viewer without the chance to misinterpret an event, an interview, or a circumstance that was filmed. What I think is most neat about Moore’s films is the rhetorical style with which he tells a story. Careful editing makes his films what they are, and the order in which events are shown create an emotionally moving experience for anyone who sees them, no matter what heir point of view originally was. As mentioned in the article, Moore’s “creative chronologies” weave a story through the manner in which time is represented—not necessarily the most accurate form, but certainly rhetorically convincing to the average viewer. What also captured my interest was how “Moore’s narration ironically contrasts his childhood naiveté with his adult political sophistication” This element in the movie, for me, is what makes the viewer understand the process by which Moore came to make this movie in the first place. His ignorance on the whole issue is evidenced by the fact that he thought that GM only employed three people (or at least he thought so as a kid), and he uses this to convince the audience that the whole problem was never really that complicated to understand and more importantly, he was explaining it to them as simply as could possibly be. The term “documentaphobia”, for me, was explained perfectly by Bernstein in that Moore’s ultimate goal was to entertain an audience while telling a story from his point of view and convincing others of this point of view. The way Moore installs small details (such as the “wouldn’t it be nice” song) that I think more documentary filmmakers should use to amuse the audience with, especially since the idea of a “three hour” movie does really sound unappealing if its telling a story about real life. What I realized is most important in Moore’s movies is how audience perception is held so high in expectations that without that reciprocation, his movies would be completely different. He expects an audience to respond somehow, and the plot builds on that as much as possible without losing the audience’s interest at any point.