The chronology of a documentary is something that is altered extensively. The final film will only show a small percentage of all the footage shot, shuffling the order of scenes and dialogue is often done for the sake of clarity. An example of this is Michael Moore’s, Roger and Me (1989). It is about Moore showing the negative economic impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith’s summary action of closing several auto plants in Flint, Michigan, costing 80,000 people their jobs and economically devastating the city.
Throughout the documentary, a number of events happened, such as Ronald Reagan visiting the city; a television evangelist holding a mass rally, and the launching of new building campaigns to entice tourists to Flint. There was controversy over the events because of the order they were shown. Critics stated the events were not responses to the plant closing like Moore had shown since they happened before the plant closed. ‘Moore falsified the actual chronology, critics charged, to make the government look foolish.’ (Bordwell and Thompson 1997 p.44) The slightest edit in a documentary, the smallest change in the timeline makes it impartial with added subjectivity. Moore placed the events together as he saw fit in order to persuade the audience to see the issue the way he does. This is adding a huge amount of subjectivity to the documentary and eliminates impartialness.
It is not just the film footage that can lead to impartialness in documentaries. Many documentaries use photographs as ‘evidence’ in their endeavour to convince the audience of the story they are telling. “Still photography had long relied on narrative frameworks to guide viewers’ interpretations of the images on display” (Hearne 2006 p.312) The fact that they try to ‘guide’ the way that the audience interprets the images that are being shown shows that they are trying to lead the viewers to the same viewpoint to that of the director. This is creating subjectivity in the documentary as it is someone’s opinion on a subject that is being put across, and thus renders the said documentary impartial. Due to the polysemic nature of images, it is easy for a director to impose a meaning on the audience by anchoring the connotations with documentary conventions such as a voice-over or text. These entice the audience to find a particular meaning to what they are being shown which relieves the image of any objectivity that it may have had. Michael Moore is a director who uses this endlessly to his advantage.
Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’, (2004) is a documentary about George W Bush and his effect on America. It has generated a lot of controversy by taking a critical look at Bush, his presidency and the War on Terrorism. He also looks at the American Corporate media and the war in Iraq, claiming they did not provide an accurate and objective analysis of what led to the Iraq invasion. Critics claim the documentary is unreliable and Moore uses his personal opinion throughout the film. The way in which Moore uses the polysemic disposition of images to his advantage in this documentary is though a voice-over. In one instance, Moore shows us, as the audience, footage of some people voting for the elections. Moore then goes on to tell us that Bush set up the elections by not allowing certain groups of people to vote. However, in the footage, we were shown nothing but people voting but because he tells us of this ‘conspiracy’ it alters the meaning of the footage that we are being shown. This is almost forcing people to believe what Moore considers to be true and does not allow them to come to their own conclusions. Even so, Bordwell and Thompson (1997:44) maintain: ‘An unreliable documentary is still a documentary. Just as there are inaccurate and misleading news stories, there are inaccurate and misleading documentaries.’
Apparently not only inaccuracy and misleading the audience in a documentary is enough, but the concept of re-enactments is allowing directors to reach a new level of deception. Accepted, the use of re-enactments can allow a more interesting documentary to emerge that in turn could be more informative, but only when used in the right way. Edward Curtis, a filmmaker and photographer made famous by ‘The North American Indian’ (1907) A series of documents of 20 volumes with 1,500 photographs) and went on to make ‘In the Land of the War Canoes’ (1914). Both of these documentaries were scrutinised by critics saying that “Curtis regularly cropped and retouched photographic images to obscure the posed nature of the shots. He supplied wigs and costumes, and removes wrist watches, umbrellas, suspenders and signs of written language in order to eliminate evidence of acculturation, hybridity and modernity” (Hearne 2006 p.311) Curtis actually altered the truth by doing this and convinced the audience that his recreated reality was actuality. By doing this, he reduced ‘The North American Indian’ into impartialness and subjectivity. In Curtis’ ‘In the Land of the War Canoes’, “Curtis made up a story to justify the display of costumes, artefacts and dances and to show as many ceremonial activities as possible” (Hearne 2006 p.311) It would seem that Curtis was bordering on making a film rather than a documentary with his insistence in what was shown. To even get close to being an impartial documentary, one must film life as it happens, not make events happen in life and then film them.
Robert Flaherty followed along similar footsteps to Curtis put perhaps his didn’t sink so deep. In Flaherty’s ‘Nanook of the North’, (1922) Flaherty records the life of an Inuit called Nanook. However, in actuality, the protagonist was called Allakariallak and his wife in the documentary was not his wife. Flaherty has been criticised for setting up much of the scenes in order for his documentary to be more effective. Flaherty, much like Curtis, wanted to rid the Inuits of acculturation and so went on to film them hunting with spears, even though they regularly used guns. This kind of alteration of the truth makes the documentary unnecessarily impartial. John Grierson spoke of Nanook of the North, saying it “took the theme of hunger and the fight for food and built its drama from the actual event.” Grierson 1966 p.203) If by ‘actual event’ Grierson means the created event that Flaherty threw together to suit his needs, then it created drama indeed.
It is not just the way in which directors mould and manoeuvre the truth to suit them than can be the problem with a documentary being impartial. The interviewees, that are present in the majority of documentaries, can do this also. In documentaries that require a recollection of some sort by the interviewee is riddling the documentary with subjectivity and inadvertent lies. There are complexities of disentangling ones memories and one can confuse memories from direct experience to something that could have mediated from years of popular media. In documentaries especially, the recollections of the interviewees can be altered by choice of location for the interview and filming and editing of the interview. The interviewee’s memories are “especially nuanced by television documentary’s use of commentary and editing practices, most especially when these interleave memories with archive footage”. (Macdonald 2006 p.292) What Macdonald is saying here is that the idea that the interviewee is trying to get across can be altered by the footage or images that they compile with the interview while editing. Using these interviewees, documentary can crate a trust with the audience that they can exploit with adding subjective views, eradicating impartialness.
“Realism builds upon a presentation of things as they appear to the eye and the ear in everyday life. The camera and sound recorder are well suited to such a task since – with proper lighting, distance, angle, lens, and placement – an image (or recorded sound) can be made to appear highly similar to the way in which a typical observer might have noted the same occurrence” (Nichols 1991 p.166) Even with the seemingly perfect equipment to capture and redistribute ‘everyday life’, directors seem to insist upon creating a false reality in their documentary films. Clearly there is the exception and even these cannot create a completely impartial documentary as such a thing is impossible. As soon as the camera is aimed to take a shot, subjectivity has chosen that precise spot in order to tell the story that they intend to tell. The documentary has a blessing and that is owning the codes and conventions that gain trust with the audience. However, it seems that directors, who strive to create a ground breaking film, lose sight of documentaries most important aspect, presenting the truth and real life.
