In his article, “The Documentary Film as Scientific Inscription,” Brian Winston extrapolates on cameras as scientific instruments and two movements that were heavily influenced by the understanding of cameras as inscribing devices.  He first investigates the history of the photograph, and how it was coupled with other scientific instruments such as thermometers, microscopes, and hygrometers that they represent nature.  Because of this understanding of cameras Winston argues, “documentaries cannot readily avoid the scientific and evidential because those contexts are “built in” to the cinematographic apparatus” (41).

The first movement that Winston takes on is Direct Cinema. Direct Cinema, according to Winston is “recording life as it exists at a particular moment before the camera” which would be “uncontrolled” (44). First generation Direct Cinema filmmakers stood behind the idea that film should not be reconstructed, or essentially the idea that one must be at the right place at the right time. This idea of capturing “raw footage” was one that heavily influenced American journalism as an ethical necessity (44).  The second generation Direct Cinema Filmmakers took an even further approach that they would not intervene with the film. Some of the techniques of this second generation include: handholding the camera, utilizing available light and sound, long takes, crystal control mechanisms, putting in lack of commentary, using as little editing as possible, music and sound effects, understated titles,  and using black and white stock footage  (45).  These techniques were to make the filmmaker a fly on the wall, and were conceptualized as recording the film in the most objective manner possible.

Unlike Direct Cinema the Cinema-Verite filmmakers to a reflexive approach and showed themselves in their films. Thought to portray the truth of their own observation, Cinema-Verite filmmakers were restricted to making films about making films (51). Winston argues, “Cinema-Verite might luxuriate in revealing its processes, allowing for a claim that the work is personal, “signed,” and mediated in an open and aboveboard fashion. But the gesture becomes hollow because the spirit of Arago yet hovers over the enterprise, urging us to believe that what we see is evidence, evidenced of documetarists making a documentary” (53). Reflexivity for Winston is not enough because it still is coupled with science, and is portraying an objective film about the documentary filmmaker.

With this response to the reflexive approach to Cinema-Verite Winston offers another perspective, that of thinking of documentary as the definition that Grierson offered, “an artistic treatment of actuality” (56). He calls for thinking of art over science. He explains, “the price would be a more ‘analogical’ relationship to the preexistent signified” which would turn back to considering documentary as a creative treatment” (56). This was what I was thinking about through my process of understanding what documentary film is or could be. After reading Donna Haraway and her call for poetic and metaphorical language in science studies and Catherine Hayle’s discussion of Herbert Wiener and analogy, I thought that one way to address documentary and objectivity would be to hang on to the artistic element. I think Trinh Minh-ha does this well, and although her films (well I’ve only seen one) are very complex, maybe their complexity is wound up with the literacy we have when watching documentary films. The artistic element that Minh-ha clings onto provides multiple meanings, and does not subscribe to one school in documentary filmmaking.

Documentary film is not easy to explain what it is. I have delved into many different definitions which provide different approaches to what documentary is. But before she gives documentary a fleeting definition, Minh-ha attacks the idea of getting to a final meaning because rather she argues meaning is “on the run” (92).  With this in mind she provides different ways to think of what documentary is. The first sentence of her article is, “There is no such thing as documentary.”  Okay, does this mean stop here? A little later Minh-ha offers Lindsay Anderson’s notion of documentary, “It isn’t a question of technique, it is a question of the material. If the material is actual, then its documentary. If it is invented then it is not documentary” (92).[1] Minh-ha suggests that documentary film has been conceptualized the anti aesthetic (98), that it has been sometimes reduced to a mere vehicle of facts (94), but that it is never neutral (100).  So with all of these competing and different directions to think about documentary film, Minh-ha is avoiding finalizing documentary’s meaning. Avoiding the process of reducing “film theory to specialization and of expertise, one that serves to constitute a discipline” (93).

Minh-ha then goes into detail of how documentary has had a specific aesthetic, what she calls the “aesthetic of objectivity” (93). She explains some of the ways directors have tried to create this aesthetic is with real time, minimal editing, and filming independent of the tripod as ways of capturing that seems more “authentic” (94).  Since the documentary film is trying to inform us, notions of recording the truth have been infused in it. Documentary film makers have been challenging this notion of objectivity. Minh-ha writes, “documentary reduced to a mere vehicle of facts may be used to advocate a cause, but it does not constitute one in itself;hence, the perpetuation of the bipurtite system of division in the content- verses-form rationale” (99). In Minh-ha’s film Surname Viet Given Name Nam she does use a documentary convention, interviewing, but she weaves it in between poetry, imagery and music. In fact, after reading my notes on the film I wrote things like “confusing” and “distracting.” These are not things to give a viewer the information so easily and I think it avoids some of the conventions of documentary that she takes up as problematic.

With these conventions of documentary Minh-ha argues that documentary film has an empashis on “capturing the reality ‘out there’ for us ‘in here’” (95). She argues that the viewer is a spectator where everyone is not responsible for what they see” (95). This really struck a note with me because I had been talking to my sister about The Cove, which I have never seen, but watched the trailer. She was explaining to me how captivating and devastating it was. The trailer is about eighty percent about how capturing the images was difficult because they were forbidden and had to break into wherever they were shooting the images. It almost seemed that the excitement and the action of the film was what really drove it, not the material they were catching. Or is there even a schism between the two? Also, Minh-ha’s comment that spectator’s influence with monetary aspects seem somewhat true. Since the director made it an “action documentary” it has won many awards, and you can also text a seven digit number to donate ten dollars to a fund that will ” help make a difference and end the yearly dolphin hunt in Taiji, Japan,” whatever that may mean.

Minh-ha then writes about the anthropologic documentary.  Specifically she focuses on how anthropologists try to make meaning with a “scientific” film they reiterate power relations, and that by taking up reflexivity it is often reduced to a technique or a method (103). I think this is possibly shown in her film Surname Viet Given Name Nam, too. In the film we do not see Minh-ha, but we hear Vietnamese women talk. I know it is not going for the “objective method” because it is artistic visible in the editing practices that she takes up and the type of imagery that she includes. Minh-ha does not think that self-reflexivity is enough. Instead she calls for self constitution is the place where the self vacillates and looses assurance in which “the paradox of such a process lies in its fundamental instability; uninstability that brings forth the disorder inherent in every order.  The ‘core’ of the representation is the reflexive interval “(105). So instead of self-reflexivity, Minh-ha offers self-constitution. Reflexivity isn’t enough.

[1] I don’t think that Minh-ha is stating that she thinks that there is an actual gathered but maybe as an event captured.



Vertov considered documentary film to be an artform that could be used as a universal way to communicate in the world. Petric explained that Vertov believed that documentary could function as the “truly international language of expression and communication” (Petric, 29). Technology, the movie camera, was the vehicle for this international artform to take shape.  Aufderheide explains that Vertov found the camera as a cybernetic extension of weak human capacity for sight, and that Vertov was fascinated by the camera-eye’s (kino-eye) capacity for truth-telling beyond human dimensions (40).  The camera was valued in a positive way as a beneficial extension of a man.

Film-eye (kino-eye) was one of Vertov’s over arching concepts. He argued that “The ‘film-eye’ offers the opportunity of making the invisible-perceptible, the unclear-clear, the concealed-public, the acted-nonacted, and the false-true” (Petric, 30). Basically this means that films should be unstaged and unfictionalized. According to Vertov the purpose of “film-eye” is to record “life-as-it-is,” disseminate the communist view of the world, and all the people must continue to act and function in front of the camera as they do every day (“life-caught-unaware”) (Petric, 31).

Vertov noted and emphasized the political aspects of his films rather than trying to be “unbiased” as we sometimes see in documentaries today. Vertov believed Marxism was the new science of society, and so he found it essential to incorporate as part of his “film-truth” (Aufderheide, 39). For Vertov, the camera was the vehicle by which Marxist ideology would spread allowing people to “percieve things they wouldn’t otherwise” (Petric, 30).

As for technical aspects of film, Vertov theorized how the film needed to be constructed in order to get at “film-truth.” First, the all the shots of the film fell under three types: as hidden camera, as shooting unawares, and as observations of the environment (Petric, 32). These types of shots were able to avoid staged film and to encourage a new form of documentary (Petric, 32). Vertov argued that it was not enough just to get shots that represented reality, but rather “to organize the chaos of real life into a communist truth” through themes that got at truth ( Aufderheide, 40).  Vertov transformed a musical “theory of intervals” and applied it to montage because it was “a way of producing a kinesthetic impact on viewers” causing the viewers to be “active seers not observers” (Petric, 35). The montage would be a rhythmic succession between close ups, angles, interactions of movements, dark and light interaction and interaction of shooting speeds functioning as intervals (Petric, 36).

I appreciate Vertov’s idea of making his politics visible, but of course today we (?)/I would reject Vertovian observation and the notion of a scientific ideology getting at “truth.”[1] I appreciate Vertov’s experimentation and looking at film differently, but I do not think that his theories are any better at getting at “the truth,” it’s better to think of his films at getting at a truth. I zeroed in on Vertov because I think that his organization of documentary film is memorizing, and departing from the documentary films before his. I liked that Vertov conceptualized the camera as an extension of the human body. This could be influenced by my recent readings in Science Studies which removes the human subject from the focus and allows non-human actors to be noted for their influence in our lives. The camera allows us to get at something we never could. Just as the camera was seen as a way of mobilizing and getting at the truth the internet is conceptualized the same way. I would like to see how documentary film, such as interactive documentary, is affected by the developments in technology.

http://www.interactivedocumentary.net/

I watched this film before reading, speaking with others, or knowing what it was about, and this helped me conceptualize the structure of the film. The film is a weaving of archival material, during the trial, and of present day interviews and sometimes audio from the past fused with present visuals. Jarecki frames the film to be a conversation of conflicting stories back and forth which does not disclose any single “truth.” This seems not to get at truths, but rather it functions as not verifying whether or not the Friedmans are guilty. This forces the audience to make up their own opinion based upon Jarecki’s narrative. When one argument is made that might add to evidence of the Friedmans’ innocence something equally as challenging supports the other side. (For example, having no physical evidence to the molestations juxtaposed to Arthur’s letter explaining he was a pedophile). These continual twists force the audience to constantly question “what really happened?” It becomes a dialog between what people say, what people say people did, and what was recorded by David during the trial. The end product is a narrative of uncertainty.

It seems that even though Jarecki must have an opinion about what happens, he frames interviews and information in a way that there is no answer and appears to be neutral because of this uncertainty structure. This is problematic for me because Jarecki is framing the entire film that shapes the viewer’s perspective, and there is no objective way to frame anything. We will always come to a situation with preconceived notions, values, and understandings of the world. There is only one part in the film that we start to see Jarecki’s opinion. We hear Jarecki’s voice when filming in one interview which is with one of the boys from the computer class. Jarecki questions the hypnotized experience that this man from Friedman’s course “recalls” and leaves the audience with a taste of what these allegations may be, made up. Here, for a short moment (perhaps too short) we can get at Jarecki’s politics and position.  So, if other people celebrate that there is not an “answer” to what happened, I would argue a treatment of reflexivity could point out politics and turn from “objectivity.”  Although I do not want the truth I think recognizing positionalities is important.

Historical Questions of Western Philosophy
The question “How might one live?” which May outlines is something of the 20^th century developed by Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre.  May traces the questions of philosophers all the way back to Ancient Greece where the question was, “How should one live? (4).” This question is associated with how one fits into the cosmos, and how they should pursue life (4). Modern philosophers asked the question “How should one act? (4). May explains instead of seeking the correct position (hierarchy), for modern philosophers it is about asking what my proper actions as a member of society and individual before God, am I required to perform (5-6). When Nietzsche came to “the death of God” a new question had to be asked. This leads to how might one live? (7).

Foucault and Derrida: Continental Philosophers Who Ask “How Might One Live?”

If we neglect this question we are left to live with what we already have. May writes, “Our conformity is not solely a result of individual cowardice; it is built into the world we inhabit” (8). He explains that recent French philosophers have sought to free us from these structures that produce and reproduce conformity. He writes, “They have recognized there is an intimate bond between the ways in which we think about ourselves and the ways in which we construct our lives, and they have sought to address that thinking in order to reach us in our living” (9). May writes about Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida who address this question. Foucault comes to it in a historical perspective. May explains Foucault takes what seems as natural and the inevitable and shows that it is historical and contingent. He quotes Foucault who explains, “All my analyses are against the idea of universal necessities in human existence. They show the arbitrariness of institutions and show which space of freedom we can still enjoy and how many changes can still be made” (10).

Derrida on the other hand takes a linguistic approach to this question. May explains that our oppressions are not just in historical legacy, but in our very words. May explains that Derrida argued that “terms operate in a dynamic (economy) relation of distinctness and mutual envelopment where the line between them can neither be drawn nor completely erased.” (12). Words, May explains, bleed into one another without being able to fix the borders of their meanings. The meanings we ascribe to ourselves or others are not stable or fixed, but they still hold injustices and marginalization (May, 12). By realizing words fluidity this opens up more possibilities of how might one live?

Deleuze: Continental Philosopher Who Asked “How Might One Live?” Differently

Deleuze comes to this question differently than both Foucault and Derrida.  Foucault and Derrida reject ontology (what there is) because Foucault sees abnormalities as a violation of norms of the human existence and Derrida sees it as doomed by the economy of the terms it uses and cannot get at what is “out there (14-15). May explains that Deleuze does not abandon ontology, but rather embraces it.

May explains that Deleuze denies the inseparable ontology by creating a series of ontologies that challenge two assumptions underlying the rejection of ontological approach to the question (16). These two assumptions are 1) ontology is discovered rather than created, and 2) that the worlds of ontologies constrict rather than widen the question of how might one live (17). Since we cannot properly represent ontology when abiding by these assumptions many theorist reject ontology, but May explains Deleuze’s point that the failure of ontology to discover identifiable entities does not spell the end of ontology (18). Instead, Deleuze calls us to “abandon the search for conceptual stability and begin to see what there is in terms of difference rather than identity” (19). How does Deleuze suggest we do this? He says we should form, invent and fabricate concepts because it is a way to articulate the hidden virtual reality out of which the actual experience of reality emerges (19). These concepts are to disrupt, disturb, and move beneath the stable world of identities to a world of difference that at once produces those identities and shows them to be little more than the froth of what there is (May, 19). The concepts collect on a plane of immanence or “the plane that secures conceptual linkages with ever increasing connections, and it is concepts that secure the population of the plane on an always renewed and variable curve” (19).

So this leaves the question of “How might one live?” quite open. If we recognize what is identified is only a single manifestation there are endless possibilities. The “death of God” does not paralyze us if we take on Deleuze’s offering of concepts, difference rather than identity, creation rather than discovery, and planes of immanence.

How Can I Apply This?

Trick question. I do not know yet. I have been thinking about after every time that I show or discuss the film (still in the making) recording the audience and adding it onto the end of the film, or editing it to include it. What if I deconstruct a camera after? (Not a good idea… it’s my mother’s camera). What if I tell everyone to wear 3D goggles, but make the film with a normal camera? This question will have to be addressed later, but for now my project has changed to ask:

How can I construct a documentary that is different not identifying, that is creating not discovering, and that is getting at something different than convention yet still being recognized as documentary?



“Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” written by Walter Benjamin
Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction, written by Patricia Aufderheide
Science: the very Idea, written by Stephen Woolgar
Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction written by Todd May

I am interested how and to what degree film is accepted as capturing actuality (derived from Flahtery’s quote from last week).  I want to look historically at the conventions of representations in documentary film and the social networks that have affected those representations as actually capturing actuality. For instance, Aufderheide writes about how the History Channel would use stock photo in combination with reenacting accounts of the past in order to create a documentary because it is cheaper.  This is a implication which in turn changed the conventions of documentaries (as we know them).

But why was documentary film considered as representing actuality more than literature, paintings, or a vocalized account? Benjamin argues, “With Atget, photographs become standard evidence for historical occurrences, and acquire a hidden political significance.” Benjamin explains that the camera is capable of expanding space (with close-ups) and extending movement (with slow motion). The camera is capable of introducing us to unconscious optics. Technologies change how we come to know the ontological. Some argue that it can “get at actually” better than with our own eyes.

Dziga Vertov takes this notion and runs with in his concept of Kino-Eye. His manifesto states:

“I am kino-eye, I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, show you the world as only I can see it. Now and forever, I free myself from human immobility, I am in constant motion, I draw near, then away from objects, I crawl under, I climb on to them. I move apace with the muzzle of a galloping horse, I plunge full speed into a crowd, I outstrip running soldiers, I fall on my back, I ascend with an aeroplane, I plunge and soar together with plunging and soaring bodies. Now I, a camera, fling myself along their resultant, maneuvering in the chaos of movement, recording movement, starting with movements composed of the most complex combinations. Free of the limits of time and space, I put together any given points in the universe, no matter where I’ve recorded them. My path leads to the creation of a fresh perception of the world. I decipher in a way a world unknown to you.”

Cameras are able to represent things very different than how we are able to perceive them alone. If we think of technology as agents (actants?) we can perceive the world in a new way. Technologies, in regards of film, have been changing drastically. With 3D television coming out in June 2010 the ideas of “capturing what is there” is drastically changing. How and will documentary change with it? What other social networks affect the conventions of documentary? I want to ask, at this point:

What conventions have been historically considered best to “capture actuality” in documentary film, and how did social network affect these conventions?

If I make a reflexive documentary what alternative ways of representing and what conventions will I come up with; can I get at the virtual?

Trinh T. Minh-ha in her essay “The Totalizing Quest of Meaning” found in Theorizing Documentary states,

“There is no such thing as documentary–whether the term designates a category of material, a genre, an approach, or a set of techniques. This assertion–as old and as fundamental as the antagonism between names and reality–neds incessantly to be restated despite the very visible existence of a documentary tradition” (90).

But here I am making a documentary about making a documentary. I wonder, how do I represent what I know I can’t and what do I call it instead? Well, that is what I want to explore in the next week. Professor Schneider offered ideas for titles, perhaps the impossibilities of documentary, or referencing Derrida and titling it, Documentary.

This next week I will begin playing around with a camera with no background knowledge, and reading Deluze and more Minh-ha. By practicing capturing film perhaps  I can address these questions in more depth.

The inspiration of this course came from a course I took at the University of Amsterdam in 2008 titled, Images of the Real: Mediating, Representing and Creating Reality in Documentary and Non-Fiction, taught by Karen van Stapele and the International Documentary Film Festival held there each fall.

The books which I be reading from this semester include:

Aufderheide, Patricia. Documentary Film A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions). New York: Oxford UP, USA, 2007. Print.