For this week’s blogging, please choose one of the below quotations from Nichols’s Intro to Documentary to explain and discuss. Click on Comment below this post, copy and past the quote or part of the quote you choose, and then write your response. You may find it helpful to discuss one or more of the films we’ve watched in your response. Completing this will constitutes the blogging for this coming Tuesday. Some of you are still rather behind on blogging, so if that’s the case,feel free to comment more and/or write your own post on something else.

• “Observational documentary de-emphasizes persuasion to give us a sense of what it is like to be in a given situation but without a sense of what it is like for the filmmaker to be there, too. Participatory documentary gives us a sense of what it is like for the filmmaker to be in a given situation and how that situation alters as a result.” (181)
• “How do filmmaker and social actor respond to each other? Does a sense of respect, despite disagreement, emerge, or is there a feeling of deception, manipulation, distortion at work? How do they negotiate control and shared responsibility? How much can the filmmaker insist on testimony when it is painful to provide it? What responsibility does the filmmaker have for the emotional aftermath of putting others on-camera? What goals join filmmaker and subject and what needs divide them?” (182)
• “The interview stands as one of the most common forms of encounter between filmmaker and subject in participatory documentary. Interviews are a distinct form of social encounter. They differ from ordinary conversation and the more coercive process of interrogation … these forms all involve regulated forms of exchange, with an uneven distribution of power” (189-190)
• “Reflexive documentaries also tackle issues posed by realism as a style. Realism seems to provide unproblematic access to the world; it takes form as psychological, and emotional realism through techniques of evidentiary or continuity editing, characters development, and narrative structure. Reflexive documentaries challenge these techniques and conventions.” (195)

Today in classed we watched a French Documentary about gleaners. By definition a gleaner is someone who picks up grain left behind by harvesters. However this filmed showed that it’s not only about people out in the fields picking up leftover or left behind crops and vegetables. There are also people who search through trash or pick up things on the street that others left behind. What I found most interesting about the film was the way everything was portrayed by the filmmaker. It was interesting to see the first hand accounts of these gleaners. Hearing their personal experiences and the reasons for their actions made me feel sympathetic. This is the way that some people have to live. Their only source of food is what they are able to find for free. The film did jump all over the place but in the end I think it portrayed an important message. I would love to learn more about gleaning in the United States due to the large amount of waste that we produce. Many people in New York live in poverty or are homeless. It would be interesting to learn how New Yorkers specifically take part in “gleaning” or something like it. I know from personal experience that people often take trash from the streets, such as furniture to either use it or re-purpose it. The idea is similar to recycling however it almost cuts out the middle-man. The garbage is never picked up to be recycled in a factory, instead it is recycled immediately. I enjoyed the film and the filmmaker involvement in the film. I especially enjoyed the music that was used. The music was also all over the place because it ranged from rap/hip-hop to jazz/blues. The style of the film was unlike any other we have seen so far in class. It involved a large amount of filmmaker involvement. She even talked about making a film in her film.

While reading Sheila petty essay I learned a different perspective on how someone interpreted our assigned film for last week Tougues Untied. She focused a lot on the structure overall of the film.Overall as your watching a film you want to come up with one solid feeling or the one solid voice that you heard consistently throughout the  film because unless you take pauses throughout a film your required to take everything in and process it and keep repeating the same process while taking in all these images. My approach was thinking more about what images I previously seen and how it effected the next scene. For example when showing people mouths, the words being said can be directly leading to personal testimonies giving by people in the film. I noticed a lot of cause and effect. or bigger to smaller. As Marlon Riggs was trying to abstractly portray that is must all begin with an individual to help the community. I agree with Sheila when she says Riggs is crossing cultural barriers. Even though Marlon Riggs is specifically speaking on a specific group of people , people in general all effect each other and their emotions, we are all social human beings. So I applaud Marlon Riggs for mentioning Joseph Beams quote .

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.

Democracy and Difference in the US

 

Here is another very moving response in an interview Marlon Riggs participated in. He speaks about how we all have to come together on a term of self acceptance and until we do we will have struggles. Self love is an underlying meaning in many aspects of Riggs life and I appreciate that. Not many care about others or the people revolting against them. He never had to. He puts things out there that he is passionate about whether other people like it or not. Riggs started his own revolution by expressing his own feelings and thoughts. This meant a lot to many people that never got to stand up for them selves or have that voice. Especially when it comes to diversity or change.

 

I found this old interview clip with Marlon Riggs on love, self-value, and profound change. The way he speaks is so inspirational and gives you such a different out look on who we are as people. He speaks about how we can not love someone else until we come to terms with ourselves. We need to learn how to love ourselves before we try to love someone else, learn who you are before learning who someone else is and so on. Everyone starts to pick themselves apart from a very young age and its hard to move on and feel content in life until you are comfortable in your own skin. That is the ultimate goal he is speaking on in this video.

I watched tonight on HBO this short (40 min) documentary about Lanzmann and the making of Shoah. It’s fascinating! Lanzmann describes some of the processes of finding his subjects, getting them to talk, working with assistants, and editing the film. He talks about coming close to a near death experience while editing the film – after he’d shot some 100+ hours of footage. This happened in the ocean when he was going for a swim, and found himself unable to swim through a strong current between him and land. He was eventually rescued by someone who was swimming nearby and noticed him in need of help. Lanzmann says he was not happy to be rescued – hearing all of the testimony related to the holocaust for so many years and then faced with editing the footage into a film – had affected him so powerfully that he would have preferred to die – in that moment at least. If you can watch it on HBO in the next couple of days I recommend it.

Here below is the trailer, and it’s only streaming on HBO for a few more days.

In class on Tuesday we watch Tongues Untied by Marlon Riggs. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting and motivational this film was. The style of the film was very different than anything we have watched together in class previously and I found it refreshing. The style was very enticing in the sense that Riggs used a variety of resources such as music and poetry to keep the viewers engaged. The way that he put together spoken interviews with chanting/poetry in the background and overlapping really caught my attention. It made the speech more powerful and intriguing to listen to. I think the film was great for its time because at the time it was filmed I’m sure that it must have caused a lot of controversy.  There was still a large amount of racism in this time and being gay wasn’t acceptable like it is today. Already Riggs and his film have two strikes against it. However I found it inspiring how Riggs was able to successfully have his film aired on PBS. I’m sure that at the time it was a huge help to people suffering identity issues whether it be due to race or sexuality. Riggs put it out there in the open that it was okay to be who you are. In my opinion I think that this movie could have helped a lot of people and I’m glad that despite the profanity and openness of the film it was still publicized on television. Riggs made great relatable points and gave specific examples from his life and his friends lives. It was motivational and moving to watch and I’m glad that Riggs didn’t get tongue tied and truly spoke from his heart.

This film was significant because Riggs gave the black gay community a voice. When this documentary started, it started off by the men chanting “brother to brother,” this was important because it revealed that they were just human beings loving each other. It was portrayed as a sin to be gay in that community at the approximate time period. I felt as if the edits were very intense and powerful, every-time the film maker would zoom into the men’s faces I felt as if it represented them being trapped, isolated and felt a great burden.  I was a little unconformable with the white men being accepted by society even with them being gay, but the black brothers, were humiliated or taunted because of it.  I felt as if the community was very controversial and it was more of a race card rather than a gender card. However, I did not enjoy the scenes of where the two men were very intimate with each other. Not that I am against gay people, I just rather respect it from a far, those scenes were to vivid for me. In addition, I do feel as if it was put their to make their audience uncomfortable in their aim to confront homophobia.

Harlan County, USA published in 1976, is a 104 minutes documentary film. It is about the 1974 strike of miners who worked at the Brookside mine in Kentucky. There were many miners, their wives, and children in this film. The miners and supporters wanted to join a union called the, United Mining Workers (UMW). The miners and their families were not being respected, and treated fairly. A lot of the miner’s health went down, they got the Black Lung Disease, and they weren’t being paid well for the amount of work they do, and the dangers to their well-being. Miners, their families, and supporters went on strikes, also known as the Picket Line. A lot of them got injured, and died as a result. In this film some of the things I saw were, how the mining system worked, a miner eating a snack underground, a daughter talking about how most of the conversations at the dinner table were about joining the union, and how she had to watch her father die from the Black Lung Disease. The songs in this film had a lot of meaning to them; most of them were about the miners, the union, and the disease. The women in this film not only were they taking care of the children, their family and chores, they were also taking actions in supporting the union and strikes. The women were interested in what their husbands were doing; they were willing to participate, and their concerns for their safety. There were a lot of strong, brave, women leading union conferences, and planning out strikes. It is really messed up how the miners were basically told to keep working until there is something wrong with their health. I remember in this film they showed from an autopsy a lung that suffered the disease, and when he rubbed it, it turned into paper flakes.

Here are sections from your group responses from last night. Please feel free to add to what your group said in the comments and /or respond to what other groups have said. This would count for your blogging for next week!

Group 1 dealing with the portrayal of the miners wrote this: “The movie was more about social issues than personal issues between the men. Koppel is showing the miners’ determination to change the future.”

Group 2 dealing with the portrayal of women wrote this: “Some of the women were strong willed and brave. They pushed the men to keep striking when it seemed like they had given up. They pumped energy back into the men.”

Group 3 dealing with the film’s Rhetoric (logos, ethos, pathos) wrote this: Pathos: The folk music, the shooting scene, the funeral scene and the explosion. Logos: The doctor about black lung. Ethos: the mine workers themselves. The film used pathos more than the others.

Group 5 dealing with the film’s ethics wrote this: The director is letting the people speak for themselves; she isn’t speaking for them. She had informed consent and filmed them in their natural state. The funeral scene seemed questionable because of the emotional states.

Group 6 dealing with the role of the filmmaker wrote this: “She’s more of a participant than Frederick Wiseman but overall she’s more of an observer-participant”

 

Here are the two options we informally narrowed down to for the screening we’ll see on Saturday November 11th. Take a look at the links / previews and indicate in the comments to this post which one you prefer. Both look really good to me. The first is local about Queens (which I think would make it a bit easier to review given that we’re coming from Queens), and the second is an adaptation of the Truman Capote book, In Cold Blood. Note – these may sell out quickly – especially Cold Blooded since the filmmaker is pretty well known and will be at the screening. If I see soon that BOTH sell out, and it looks like a lot are selling out, I’ll simply purchase tickets to one not sold out and within our 4-7pm ish time frame.

1. Iron Triangle – IFC Center 4:30pm
2. Cold Blooded – Cinepolis Chelsea 6:45pm