OT: How does a documentarian remain objective?

smhontz wrote on 3/9/2013, 10:29 AM
My friend and I went to see the movie "A Place at the Table" last night. It is a documentary about hunger in America and I highly recommend it.

One question that my friend asked: if you are working on a documentary like this, where you are involved with some very poor families for several months, and you're filming scenes where children are going hungry, where their mothers are crying because they don't have any food to give them, how do you NOT get involved? Knowing that after the day's filming is done, you're going to go home to a hot meal, how could you not give something to the very people whose story you're trying to tell?

How do you balance your humanity with trying to tell the story without altering it?

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 3/9/2013, 10:51 AM
Volunteer for a service that is already giving assistance or at a Title I school. Your participation will be welcomed and remembered.
farss wrote on 3/9/2013, 12:28 PM
"How do you balance your humanity with trying to tell the story without altering it?"

That's a question that's vexed documentary film makers from the very beginning.
The first significant documentary was Nanook of the North, much controversary surrounded it, how it was made and promoted.
I think Musicvid's suggestion above is an excellent one but it still leaves open moral questions for which there is no right answer.

Bob.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/9/2013, 12:40 PM
How do you balance your humanity with trying to tell the story without altering it?

You can't. A documentary is meant to be a look in to something real, the simple fact you're there changes what's going on in the situation.

Besides what musicvid said, you can also help them get out of poverty (which would be more useful). Some times it's due to a job loss, a spouse dying, an emergency that took everything. Most of the time (in 1st world countries) it's either to do laziness (refuses to work, would rather have someone else support them, etc), greediness (spent all their resources on nonessential, to proud to do something, etc), or purposefully bad life decisions (unmarried and having children, no commitment to a job, not saving any money, etc).

It's also a reality that there will always be two sides of a spectrum with humanity. You can't save the world but you can give someone the ability to make their lives better then before, if they don't take the help then there's nothing you can do.
rmack350 wrote on 3/9/2013, 12:51 PM
The food issue is especially tricky since you have to feed your own group meals during the workday, but in general you know as a filmmaker that you can't get the story if you start altering it. This is not as hard as you might think if you're busily working and don't leave yourself too much idle time to think. You're usually focused on getting the story.

You can also rationalize a bit with the understanding that your telling of the story to a broader audience will have more of a positive effect than just interceding would. And you can compensate indirectly with things like donations to related organizations.

Another thing to consider if you're not trying to embed yourself with a family over a long period is that they'll be able to tell this story even if you feed them lunch. Also as end viewers we're usually unaware that we're only being shown the footage that works for the film. We use the part of the interview where the parent cries because that's the dramatic part of the interview that best tells the story we want to tell. The story, even in a documentary, is a manufactured thing.

I'm reading a book about Edward Curtis, famous for his photography of native Americans at the turn of the last century. He did a lot of bribing and gift giving in order to get closer to his portrait subjects and to learn about religious rituals. You have to use some judgement about these things to decide if your actions will change the story. Sometimes a little interference makes the story come easier.

Rob
Dan Sherman wrote on 3/9/2013, 4:47 PM
Ask Michael Moore! LOL!!!
Grazie wrote on 3/9/2013, 5:20 PM
" . . how do you NOT get involved? "
I would suggest it's not possible. To what degree or how much would be a better or appropriate question. But again, if the person is to become a reformer as a result of having the shades dropped from their eyes, and sufficiently motivated to do so, then that's what will happen. Choices.

"Knowing that after the day's filming is done, you're going to go home to a hot meal, how could you not give something to the very people whose story you're trying to tell?"

Then give. What ever is given will be short lived anyway. But will be gratefully recieved.

"How do you balance your humanity with trying to tell the story without altering it?"

I suggest you can't even start. The "story" would continue with or without me. Their pain and injustice is with them till they die. The other option is NOT to tell the/their story in the first place. Now THAT'S a different type of poverty. Once that happens, then we can all call it day and go home.

Look, read some of the Webb's Social Histories of Britain or anything from the Joseph Roundtree Trust - these were the equivalent of video documentarians of their day. They asked the same questions of themselves too. But they got on with the job. And ultimately out of their work and influences came the British Welfare State, the National Health Service and State Education.

If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound? Answer is yes, yes it does! - If I am there to record it? More's the better.......

Great spontaneous thread and poignant provocative questions.

Cheers

Grazie


Grazie wrote on 3/9/2013, 5:25 PM


I suppose, we must all keep communicating and telling our story . .again and again and again . . .

.......
ushere wrote on 3/9/2013, 10:32 PM
indeed, a very interesting thread....

puts me in mind of the old joke about the professional cameraman's dilemma on seeing a car crash into a lake. should he:
a. dive in and try to rescue the occupants
b. swap out the wide angle for a telephoto

i have worked as a cameraman on the frontline and witnessed situations where i could (perhaps?) of influenced the outcome. however, the broadcasters whom i worked for (a number of international ones) ALL had very strict rules about NOT getting involved in any situation no matter how 'life threatening'. since i was working for THEM, i obviously obeyed their conditions, no matter what my heart told me otherwise.

afterthought - given the op's situation i would probably try to explain my moral dilemma and hope the subjects understood that their 'suffering' was for the greater good. once having wrapped, i would then do whatever i could to help out.....
Rory Cooper wrote on 3/11/2013, 4:49 AM
Wow what an important issue.

You don’t have to discard your humanity to be objective, and being modest will help you come to terms with your limitations.

For example I am doing a documentary on gangs and during the shooting “that is everyone is shooting” one gang member gets shot, your helping the gangster = phoning an ambulance, stopping the bleeding does not suggest you are taking sides. Will I stop filming to help in this emergency… absolutely, my personal feelings toward the gangster are irrelevant, once I have done all I am capable of I will carry on filming.

Your humanity is what will capture the true nature and the unsaid issues on film.

When you discard your humanity what you will have is not a documentary but propaganda. Just look at CNN and the mainstream media it’s disgusting this is not news but contemptible propaganda.
Grazie wrote on 3/11/2013, 5:47 AM
Roars, we are on the same sheet here. Did you read my post above?

I spent 5 years in SA, and if a day went by without my questioning of my humanity, then that was a very rare day indeed. But that was back in the last half of the '70s and things were kinda different then(?). However, SA is suffering with another type of apartheid: Those that are educated and those that aren't, which is a segregation that is blind to the colour of a person's skin.

SA? A most beautiful place. Ironic? Yes . . . . .

G

Rory Cooper wrote on 3/11/2013, 6:38 AM
Yes Absolutely Grazie very sad always money for guns and bullets but no money for education but you gotta love “uMunthu”

Over here if we don’t find horse meat in our chicken pie we feel cheated, 50% horse meat in every batch grantee 1 horse 1 chicken.

You walk into pie shop and order a meat pie.
One pie please
What flavor horse meat pie would you like sir
Chicken please
Sorry sir we are fresh out and we only have donkey pies in stock
What flavor do you have?
Horse meat flavor sir.
Grazie wrote on 3/11/2013, 7:24 AM
Lol!!!

G
craftech wrote on 3/13/2013, 9:11 AM
The question posed in the original post was how can a documentarian remain objective and NOT get involved. The people that produced this film in fact DID get involved as did the directors, and the film encourages the people watching it to get involved as well.

Participant Media, the producers of this film and Food, Inc. established a website that they hope will serve as a hub for hunger related advocates such as Bread for the World, Feeding America, and the Food Research and Action Center among others. Plum Organics is donating a Super Smoothie to a baby or tot in need if you see the movie, buy the book, or text to get involved.

Much of the film's premise is that the food is calorie rich and nutrient poor and that many of the poor don't know how to access the programs that will provide much needed food for them. They also go on to demonstrate that the problems are solvable if the public is aware of what is actually going on. Much of the problem has to do with our media (as Rory Cooper so aptly pointed out above) and our recently found "austerity is our future" mentality that teaches Americans to spit on the poor because they somehow caused their own misfortune and we need to cut such programs to "help" the economy grow. Some of the posts in this thread demonstrate how well that propaganda has worked.

Watch this interview with the film's directors Kristi Jacobson, Lori Silverbush, and her husband executive producer and famous chef Tom Colicchio and others. It will give you a good idea about the project.

So in this particular case, the documentarians are 100 percent involved. That is the purpose of the project.

John