I really enjoyed watching Stories We Tell. I think it’s extremely interesting to hear other families stories, some of the most interesting,weirdest and captivating stories i have ever heard are my family’s and my friends families stories. I feel like making a family story into a movie would be the hard part. I could not imagine what it must feel like to reveal your family’s stories and share it with the world. Personally i feel like the best stories are told from the outside looking in, and Sarah Polley does this with a twist. While the story is about who her father is, it’s focused on her mom and how she was conceived. Sarah Polley was able to tell her story without actually being apart of it. The people she interviewed had been apart of the story and perceived in various ways as shown through Harry. What Sarah Polley did was allow everyone to tell their experience and compiled it to give a transparent view of the whole situation. I feel like in no way was the movie’s truth bent as a result of Polley keeping her role minimal and choosing not to provide view of this, allowing the viewer to determine what to take away from this film. Overall i feel like Stories We Tell oddly might be one of the most transparent documentaries i have ever seen, which surprises me because the film is literally about her own family.   

Recently i watched a docuseries on Netflix named Five Came Back. The series focuses on five directors, Frank Capra, George Stevens, John Huston, William Wyler and John Ford, who enlist in the United States military during World War 2 to offer their skills. These directors made numerous documentaries throughout the war in order to document and draw support for the war effort. In the series i saw how Frank Capra directed Why We Fight and saw the issues that arose during production. Capra explained how he was very inspired by Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the will and tried to emulate an American version of that. I also go to hear the story of another director featured in the series, William Wyler, who flew with the bomber crew of the Memphis Belle and made the documentary Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress .William Wyler recounts the terror of flying in a bomber during the war and how if another bomber got shot down the crew would just watch and count how many were able to get out, he also explained how the bomber would be so loud you could barely hear yourself think. This series reminded me how dedicated filmmakers can be to complete their films. One of the cameramen on Wyler’s team died after the bomber he was in was shot down and Wyler himself was knocked unconscious during one of the missions. I highly recommend this series to anyone with an interest in World War 2 or history in general.The series gave me a behind the scenes look at the earliest war documentaries and the issues that arose during production. The series offers a number of interesting stories about these directors and their films. Netflix also has the documentaries they mention in the film for streaming so i was able to watch some of the films they focused on.

While looking up the movie that we recently watched in class named Harlan county USA, i learned some interesting facts about the anti-union sides view of Barbara Koppel being there. Apparently after filming had concluded a plot to assassinate Barbara was uncovered. Apparently during filming everyone in the film crew had to carry guns because of the direct threat of hired thugs. This made me wonder if Duke power had been directly behind the threats to silence Koppel and her crew and if they hired someone to murder her. We saw in the movie how a former union president had been murdered as well as video evidence of a mine operator firing shots at the picket line in a drive by. We also heard of corruption surrounding the murder of a miner and saw the county courts fail to seek justice.With all these people willing to do outrageous things to stop a peaceful strike, i wonder what their motive is and if they were hired by Duke power to do so. I can’t think of any other reason why a random individual would target a filmmaker and a union president other than to intimidate the rest of them. I really wish the documentary had been more investigative but it’s understandable why it wasn’t as the murder plot wasn’t uncovered until after the movie had finished filming and going into filming they probably weren’t aware of the level of corruption in the county.

Night and Fog was very grim. The documentary starts out showing the early stages of the holocaust, it shows Jewish people being rounded up and loaded into train cars like cattle, all branded with David’s star on their jackets to indicate they are Jewish. What was even more shocking was that was the best treatment of Jews that you saw the entire movie. Night and Fog highlights the horrors that took place in these concentration camps. Hundreds of gas chambers with scratches on the walls, hundreds of cremators used to burn the thousands that died each day, soundproof vents used to hide the screams of someone being tortured and evil hospitals used to perform test on prisoners. These were only some of the images night and fog showed used to explain the system that oppressed and terrorized millions of people. As the movie progressed the scenes got more and more graphic inciting my emotions, the director’s point was made through pathos. The images of dead bodies and the complete lack of respect for them was a really powerful tool to highlight the horrible things that those prisoners went through. Many times in the movie i thought to myself that i didn’t even know some of these things happened, for example the hospitals. In Night and Fog they talk about the horrors that went on in the hospitals, testing chemicals on patients, cutting off limbs, and skin transplants with their health as the least of their concerns. Another thing that stuck out to me was the amount of bodies shown. In most scenes there was a dead body, they were everywhere and hundreds of them stacked up like landfills, left to rot. One scene that stuck out to me was the scene a SS soldier bulldozing bodies, it’s unimaginable that someone could bulldoze bodies unphased by what he sees. This movie was very effective at exposing the horrors of the holocaust and showing the awful atrocities that happened to the Jewish people.

While watching Triumph of the Will i couldnt help but think of the Imperial army from Star Wars. I was able to tell instantly that George Lucas took some inspiration from Leni Riefenstahl. Triumph of the Will portrays the might of the Nazis through primarily imagery using 30,000 extras that are completely organized. Most scenes included Nazis marching in massive formations, which was surprisingly intimidating as a viewer. I think the extent of the organization portrayed in Triumph of the Will is the most intimidating. Everyone marches in unison, thousands of them, creating a powerful image of might. I can definitely see how this inspired George Lucas when determining how he would portray the empire in Star Wars. Marching scenes from Triumph of the Will invokes a feeling of fear that no other film captures. However i think that Star Wars recreation of these scenes capitalize off of history by using the famous Triumph of the Will formations and marches to which many associate with the evil Nazis to create a further hatred towards the imperials in Star wars franchise. I believe George Lucas fully intended that his audience would subconsciously/consciously associate these scenes with evil. Whether or not you have seen Triumph of the Will, the notorious scenes of the marching Nazis are used to represent the Nazis in many books and movies which George lucas capitalized off of to create the infamous Imperial March.

Last week in class we watched the very first documentary, Nanook of the North. When we watched the movie i was convinced by a lot of the shots, but after analyzing scenes during our post movie discussion i realized just how much of it was staged. While watching the scene with the seal that they caught i kept telling myself this cant be real, then i remembered that this wasnt raw footage and easily couldve been staged, which it was. After completing chapter 2 of Nichols book, i feel like i am alot more aware when it comes to understanding ethics surrounding documentaries and authenticity. I can see what role the fur company that sponsored the movie had and how Flaherty created a movie of the inuits of what they are in his eyes. One very important thing ill know to look for is the potential of a un-authentic representation of someone or something.