A Dogma for the Authentic Documentarian
The function of documentary is inherently subjective as the person who makes a movie, a person who views it, and another who extensively critiques it will all have different mindsets. People think there is a wrong and right time to pick up the camera and capture something, that a documentary should do one of many things: incite a change, capture the change, look back on changes, or tell us what we should know about any given topic. No one can objectively tell a director when the best time to make a documentary would be and that is not what I intend to attempt in this essay. I do not even want to attempt to tell anyone what they should film, rather, I want to tell directors how they should carry themselves whenever they do decide to pick up that camera. Whatever aspect of any situation that can be documented can be intruded upon by careless filmmakers who sway the film towards their desired result, include themselves to steer interviews towards making subjects uncomfortable and unnatural, and sometimes even falsify events in the name of documentary. These detractions from authenticity cheapen the effect of documentaries that do the work to attempt capturing the closest we can to reality and so I want to propose a Dogma of authenticity for documentarians regardless of mode, subgenre, or approach.
My first rule goes strictly for a director’s off-screen presence: you can make yourself known through style and technique, but it should not overshadow the main focus of your film. For example, Errol Morris’ style of reenacting a crime scene over and over with distinct differences based on the storyteller in The Thin Blue Line (1988) is iconic, along with his style of interviewing, but the focus remains on the murder case at hand. Viewers should not walk away talking about what the director as the first point of conversation unless they are the main focus of the film. Your subject should be what is in the forefront of any viewers head with your flourishes being thought of in later dissection of the film itself. Another great example of accomplishing this balance of stylization and story focus would be Keith Maitland’s Tower (2016). His choice to have rotoscoped animation for the majority of the film is somewhat jarring at first, but you become so tied up in the story that you do not stop to think about the animation so much as the personal accounts of the shooting. I would say he certainly walks that line with impressive imaginary sequences, but they stem from a victim accounting her thoughts and physical reactions, so they keep that balance. I would say this can be a tough rule to follow for film makers trying to prove themselves, but when you step back and look at the story or footage you have and think that it cannot be worth watching without your handiwork ever-present throughout, it may not be worth making.
My second rule follows close in hand with one of Jill Godmilow’s major pleas on defying the documentary as we know it, “Do not produce freakshows of the oppressed, the different, the criminal, the primitive,” (Godmilow, 5)¹, or as I am putting it: Do not look down on your subjects, no matter their conduct. Morris again follows through on this rule expertly in his film as he gives full attention to anyone willing to give their report on the case with no interjections of his own thoughts or any insinuation that they are inherently wrong, despite how obvious it may come across to the viewers. The Maysles’ must have had to exercise this rule when filming Gimme Shelter (1970) as well. Perhaps they never thought the Altamont concert would end up as horribly as it seemed doomed to be when looking back on it, but if they ever had that notion, they do not give off any inclination of it in what we see. They make no effort to interject or point fingers at anyone involved in organizing and executing the event. Like Morris, they go through different accounts from the band members, Hell’s Angels members, and attendees to give a full scope of what exactly happened during the festival. Equally impressive would be Gillo Pontecorvo’s fair depiction of the French military in The Battle of Algiers (1966). It is clear from the perspective of the film that he sides with the Algerians, but he does not go as far as to depict the French as intentionally incompetent or as lesser people, which is meaningful considering his inspiration. His neorealist inspirations from Italy, most notably Roberto Rossellini, would occasionally be known to accentuate negative stereotypes in their villains, yet Pontecorvo does not stoop to these levels, which shows restraint considering their actions. The reality of the film is that there are horrors committed on both sides, so while the Algerian radicals are the protagonists, they are not depicted as purely victims either.
My final rule goes hand in hand with the previous one: do not attempt to follow your own agenda, let the story tell itself naturally through your subjects. The Maysles brothers’ refusal to interject in the events leading up to and including the Altamont festival are a perfect example of this rule. They may have felt just as guilty as the Rolling Stones appear in reviewing the footage and recounting the events because they were powerless to stop it if they ever tried. As I mentioned, we never get any notion that they stepped in at any point to give their opinion on the event, they simply let history take course as they filmed. Alternatively, the story of the Algerian revolution found Pontecorvo after Italian directors turned it down. He became invested in the history and chose non-professional Algerians to be in the film, some of which were actually involved in the events depicted. He did not simply construct a story he thought would make for a good movie or try to capitalize on the past of others for his own gain, he had the story brought to him and followed the accounts of those who lived it to construct his film. Not unlike Pontecorvo in her approach, but different in her inspiration, Agnès Varda felt compelled by a painting to explore the meaning of a word, the culture around it, and her own mortality in The Gleaners and I (2000). Beyond the base interest in a painting of women gleaning, Varda seems to have no real plan of action besides seeing what people have to say about the objects they glean and what it means to them. She travels all over to see what culture there is to be found in collecting trash to make art, picking misshapen produce out of the dirt to feed a family who cannot afford the picture-perfect ones, and the gleaners in all of us, collecting memories through different objects we keep and pictures we take. She shows us everything from her lens dancing in the wind, her hands as they become wrinkled and frail, and her newly acquired collection of heart-shaped potatoes that she holds dear. She lets her subjects inform her on different lifestyles that form from gleaning and the lives people who glean can lead and she allows her aging mind to wander and give meaning to footage most might find meaningless.
Thus concludes my brief Dogma of authenticity. If I could make a rule dictating that directors and subjects should remain natural in spite of camera and other film set ups, I would, but there is no way to really control that. As far as director control is concerned, I think following these three rules will at least keep budding filmmakers in check as far as the typical boundaries people are tempted to cross when trying to make their films rise above the rest. Content-wise, make whatever film about anything you want, it is not my job to give you a topic. As I said in my introduction, I will not be the one to tell you what, when, or why you should film something, but whatever you do end up filming for a documentary, you should try to make it authentic.
Sources
[1] Godmilow, Jill. “Kill the Documentary as We Know It.” Journal of Film and Video, vol. 54, no. 2, 2002, pp. 3–10. Journal of Film and Video.
[2] The Thin Blue Line. Dir. Errol Morris. American Playhouse, 1988. DVD.
[3] Tower. Dir. Keith Maitland. Independent Lens, 2016. DVD.
[4] Gimme Shelter. Dir. Albert Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, David Maysles. Maysles Films, 1970. DVD.
[5] The Battle of Algiers. Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo. Igor Film, 1966. DVD.
[6] The Gleaners and I. Dir. Angès Varda. Ciné-Tamaris, 2000. DVD.
