Deb's Documentary Media Blog

[docudeb]

Here's my end-of-semester shameless plug: follow my weird twitter account. 

[docudeb]

Maybe I'm out in left field with this, but I do feel like O'Rourke is dehumanizing the (white) subjects of his film as a means of drawing a clear parallel to how his subjects dehumanize the locals.  Am I okay with this?  I don't know.  I definitely think a lot of the subjects in this film are jerks and I would like to think that I'm "different" or "better" than them, but then here I am, sitting here from my own throne of self-righteousness. 

Can I pass judgment on these people when I, too, come from a place of privilege?  More specifically I'm referring the privilege of my education that has enlightened me on topics of which I used to be ignorant.

Either way, the film made me uncomfortable, and that's something I can say for certain.  Which I'm sure was the intention.

[docudeb]

So many documentary films, despite other political and cultural pretensions, primarily serve to make the audience feel good - feel part of an enlightened elite - as though they have achieved some cachet or absolution for themselves by the simple act of watching a film. And it follows that the audience identifies with their omniscient hero, the film maker.

Dennis O'Rourke

[drewheb]

Mankind's Oldest Dream.

Just wanted to highlight that in the Making of Winged Migration clip we watched the narrator said “flying with birds is mankind’s oldest dream”, or something like that. 

Uhhh, who decided this? 

[docudeb]

What I found most compelling about this documentary, and it's something that Harris points out, is how it offers us a glimpse into the lives of people that we watch, yet know nothing about.  We are so eager to learn as much as we can about popular celebrities, to the point that every detail of their lives has been recorded.  And yet, the "realities of those who make fantasies" (as Harris puts it) are largely ignored.  I thought that the format of 10 second clips taken over the course of 12 or so hours kept me considerably engaged.  I found myself flipping to scenes where the subjects were engaging with their significant others because I was genuinely interested in their off-screen relationships.  At the same time, this precise format also left me unsatisfied and frustrated at times.  Dylan, in particular, I felt had a lot of great things to say but I would often be left hanging.  There is simultaneously so much, yet so little content.

But this was not the only important juxtaposition within Harris' work.  The manner in which he chose to display it (paid and with limited access) was an intentional choice as a means of offering value to an industry that is frankly devalued by its audience.  We can see this both in how porn is cheap (often free), easily available, and abundant, as well as in how (as I mentioned before) those involved mean nothing to their audience once they close their browser window.

The conclusion I've come to is that I think we should care about people in the porn industry, but not necessarily for the reasons highlighted by Harris' documentary.  While I obviously do not expect I Love Your Work to be entirely representative, it does only provide the audience with a very tiny glimpse into the world of porn.  The reality is that for a lot of women, it is not a feminist nor empowering experience.  The reality is that a lot of women in porn are victims of human trafficking [x].  So if we are going to take the time to find more about the people who produce our fantasies, maybe we should be clear about exactly which realities we're willing to discuss.

[lickystickypickyzzz]

[docudeb]

After hearing the same question over and over from friends and family — “Why aren’t you married yet?” — art director Suzanne Heintz got tired of it and set out to do something about it. She got herself a little family…of mannequins.

Over the course of 14 years and 10,000 miles of travel, she took her fake family everywhere and took all kinds of “family” pictures….

I loved the comment of Laura:

 She’s underlining the fact that for many people, a family seems to be little better than a trophy or badge to prove that someone has succeeded at fulfilling society’s expectations of them. How many families look great in photographs but are actually empty inside? The point is not to condemn family life, but to refuse to accept that a good life is simply one that looks good to other people.

Reading this totally brought the Carpenters and the idea of the family album to mind.  I think this project is both brilliant and beautiful.  The artist makes some incredible commentary on the family photograph.

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To be listened to when gazing out the window has become a common practice.

Sonic Youth - Superstar

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I've been listening to this a lot lately.  It's really fucking haunting in the way that it highlights how melancholy the song was before Sonic Youth even covered it.

[memorysong]

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John mentioned in class how it seems the only times Karen looks truly happy are when she's playing the drums, and I know we're only looking at a snapshot here, but come on: look at her.

[drewheb]

Tarnation - Pumpkin Scene

Tough to watch.

[docudeb]

I have been thinking a lot about this scene since class ended a week ago - trying to make sense of why it was so difficult to watch.  After I thought more about it and how it affected me, I started to realize how real that private moment felt, even if I was experiencing it second-hand.  I personally felt uncomfortable because it was more familiar than foreign.  I am sure that I am not the only person who has family members who suffer from mental illness, so this hit home for me.  This hit home because I saw this scene acted out on more than one occasion before I had ever heard about Tarnation.

I think that is the source of my discomfort.

[docudeb]

No, because I didn't know I was making the movie; I've been making the movie for 20 years. There's the occasional journalist who has said I'm whoring out my mother for my own fame, but I think that's a crock of shit. I'll get accused of exploitation, of narcissism, of exhibitionism, but I don't care.

Jonathan Caouette

In response to the question: "do you feel with Tarnation that you are exploiting your mother?"

I know we brought this up briefly in class when John mentioned that some had accused Jonathan of being a bit of a bully with the camera.  I do disagree with those critics.  As Caouette mentions at one point, (I'm referencing the scene where he is interviewing Adolph about some of Renee's claims) this film was also about discovering himself/getting answers to his own questions. I believe that he, too, was uncomfortable at some points.

[bbook]

Every act of evil committed in our history is committed by human beings like us, and if we care, if we make films about these issues in order to gain insight into how these things happen so we can prevent these things from happening again, we have to actually look at the reality of what happens. So I had this rule that I see Anwar as a human being and if I ever felt furious or disturbed or so angry that I couldn’t see him as a person, I would stop and take a day out or whatever I needed to and come back as one human being filming another again. That made it painful also and I don’t know if I ever liked him, but I definitely have love for him as a person. Anwar has seen the film and is okay with the film and he and I are in touch fairly regularly, even as the film is primarily embraced. It’s screening very widely in Indonesia at these big screenings by invitation or in universities. As of the beginning of April there have been 500 screenings in 95 cities and it’s getting bigger every week. Mainstream Indonesian media has started to publish really in-depth investigations of the genocide as a genocide because of the film, perpetrators no longer boast about what they’ve done because of the film, and the official story about the killings is no longer accepted by ordinary Indonesians because of it. The film has come to Indonesia like the child in the Emperor’s New Clothes, pointing at the king and saying “Look! the King’s naked and everybody knew it but had been too afraid to say it.” So it’s functioned as we wished.

Joshua Oppenheimer on THE ACT OF KILLING (via bbook)

[tribeca]

[cinemasavage]

The Act Of Killing (Dir. Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)

[austinkleon]

I think that we all take the images of our life and we try to make sense of them. We try to order them in a way that’s congenial or acceptable, even flattering.

Errol Morris (via austinkleon)

[docudeb]

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So... this is pretty rad.  After doing some digging on Studs, I found a segment called This Train where Terkel interviewed participants on a train ride to Washington, D.C. for a civil rights march.

"Well, to me, it means that my relatives and people who are related to me after I'm gone -or while I'm still here- will have a better future and more secure life than what I've had."

[docudeb]

how i feel about usc election season

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Tying together James Nachtwey, photojournalism, and cinéma vérité, in class I couldn't stop thinking about Humans of New York.  Brandon Stanton (the creator of HONY) is a proud and significant participant in his art.  For those unfamiliar, he pairs a portrait with a story sparked by him asking his subjects questions.

He admits on his website that he only started out to create a catalogue of citizens, but his art just took a different direction.