So documentaries are supposed to be as real as possible?

[emjen]

I'm getting a bit tired of this ever ongoing debate.

The director changed a couple of things! He intervened! This intervention shall not pass! The result is blashpemous and non ethical because, you, as a documentary director, MAY NOT INTERVENE!

Bollocks! Who ever said documentaries should film life as truthfully as possible?

If you watch a cowboy film and there is no duel at the end I know you'll feel cheated but do you go around screaming curses and throwing unholy water on the film?

I know you feel cheated when you've watched a documentary, thinking it's real, and you find out that some of the scenes were (partly) staged. I know I would. Heck, I felt cheated with the Usual Suspects because every fucking scene was staged.

But les us consider both fiction and documentary films to be one genre; a storytelling one. The difference being fiction uses a made up narrative to tell a story and documentary uses real life to tell a story.

Documentary is not 'real'. Documentary uses 'real' to tell a story.

Thoughts?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ September 19, 2007 04:53 PM: Message edited by: emjen ]</font>

[Nigel]

Speaking broadly.

Americans don't like reenactments whilst Euros seem to be more tolerant of them.

That said.

Errol Morris has used staged scenes for quite sometime and he was taking a lot of flak for it too.

In the end you are right. Who cares as long as it is a good movie??

Good Luck

[miker]

All media is about framing and presenting things from a certain point of view. Even reality TV is edited/directed for dramatic/narrative effect.

The best documentary I have ever seen is that one by the two French guys covering 9/11 -- but even that frames the event. I don't think it's possible to be 100% objective or not manipulate or frame the subject matter. Staging things is just another part of the formula which more obviously over-steps the mark of what may be considered "the truth".

[Nigel]

All very good points.

It gets down to if you want to talk about how well the movie illustrates a situation or event VS. the truth.

If we start talking about what is true or not we are going to head down a road to no where since truth doesn't exist.

As long as a social-documentary makes a decent go at showing the complexity of an issue from at least two sides that is good enough for me.

Natural history movies just need to show cools shots of the animals.

Good Luck

[Patriarch]

Intervention and staging has been part of documentaries ever since the first.

What's relevant is what you lead your audience to beleive. If you in the movie claim (directy, or through convention) that things are unstaged, then they better be.

[Nigel]

I don't think things need to be "real" at all.

Lets say you are making a film about crocodiles.

Should you go to Australia to attempt to get a shot and wait weeks and weeks or go to a captive croc??

Does that make the movie less true/real??

I've worked on shows for the Discovery Channel that used wrangled Cougars in place of wild ones. The show wasn't any less accurate or somehow didn't show realistic behavior. What people don't know won't hurt them.

Good Luck

[somedeadguy]

Funny thing, we started making a "loosely scripted" documentary, because we thought that we needed to spice up the funny a bit. It turned out that in the course of attempting to make actors hit marks and say lines, the "reality" of the whole process took over, and we ended up with a film 10x funnier.

I don't know what that says about the subject, but I thought it might make some sense.

As for Americans minding lack of truth more than Europeans, being American I cannot disagree. The lowest common denominator of the American audience seems to think that they are entitled to be fed the absolute truth, yet are disappointed when reality doesn't follow a three act plot.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ September 21, 2007 09:57 PM: Message edited by: The New and Improved Sean Moss ]</font>