Points of Views of Early Documentary Filmmakers - Research Paper Example

Points of Views of Early Documentary Filmmakers Introduction In the early years after the invention of motion pictures, some filmmakers realised the importance of a film as that which can be used in the passing on of a story and its ability to influence the people that view it. These early creators believed that they could create these films as long as they were truthful and real in manner. As time moved by, the viewers started questioning and analysing the truth and objectivity of documentary films as presented to the audiences. Some of the early documentary film creators include among others Robert Flaherty, Edward Curtis, Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack. These creators came up with documentary films that expressed their different points of views and perspectives that had different implications, especially on the audiences. Apart from Lumiere, the most well-known pioneer in the production of documentaries in the old days was Robert Flaherty who produced the groundbreaking film Nanook of the North (1922), which showed the normal lives of the Inuit who occupy Hudson Bay, but live the typical life of an Eskimo (Rothman, 1997, p. 2). This film was the first full-length anthropological documentary film and laid the ground for other creators of this genre. He actually produced these documentaries through his exploratory work in the north of Canada and produced the lives of the people he filmed through bringing out their true and real lives. A documentary film is a film, television or a radio programme designed with the purpose of giving facts, depiction or real people or events from a distinct perspective or point of view. Therefore, the main concern for a documentary is the giving of facts presented in a manner that can be understood by the audience. This calls for the selection and proper arranging of the facts into reality as captured by camera or any device used in the collection of the facts. Most of the early documentaries as made by the filmmakers are structured in a way that they resemble the non-fictional films. The arrangement and the selection of the facts as presented in the documentary shows and strengthen the point of view of the filmmaker or the person involved in its creation. It means the reconstructions and the re-enactments as shown in the documentary film are carried out in the view of the person who made the film and his recollection of the event. The implication of this is that the facts that come out in the documentary are a result of the narrative requirement of a documentary and the point of view of the person who came up with the documentary film. Documentary filmmaking also involves the gradual approach to a story and is structured starting from the time that the idea for it has been conceived to the production of the film. It is also important to note that a documentary film may be educative apart from being informative to the audience. The documentaries also aim at presenting facts to the audience and persuading a viewer of the truth of the matter through presentation of the facts in the real manner in which they occurred. This paper aims at showing how documentary films present their subjects from a distinct perspective and point of view as well as the identification of the points of views of the early documentary filmmakers. A further discussion will be made on the implications of the different points of views on other creators also involved in the creation of documentary films. The paper also reviews and analyzes through extensive readings and viewings of the early documentaries and the points of views of the creators. Through this, we will be able to unravel the various elements and styles including the points of views used by these creators in creating the informative and educative documentary films. There is discussion on the modes used to create the early documentary films such as the expository, observational, interactive and the reflective mode, which when used give the perspective of the filmmaker in what he has created. The paper also gives a discourse on some important facets of the making of documentaries such as the ethical dilemmas that the creators of the documentaries face, which affect their points of views as shown within the documentary. Most importantly, the paper will aim at having a debate on the points of views of early creators of documentary films and how they were portrayed in these non-fictional pieces. Documentary Filmmaking in the Early Years As already discussed at the introduction, the main factor that has been common in the creation of documentaries has been the need to document reality in one way or another. The making of documentaries identifies a practice for making documentaries that appear as the real or actual thing as enacted by the subjects to the audience or the viewers. Before the year 1900, the French had created the non-fiction films that had single-shot moments captured on films and were known as actuality films. After this, the creation of films moved beyond the mere creation of films showing scenes and among the pioneers became Curtis’s In the Land of the Head Hunters in1914 that enacted the lives of Native Americans. After 1920, what has been known as romanticism became the in-thing with the documentary filmmaking by Robert Flaherty, which filmed staged sets that showed how the subjects would have lived years earlier and not how they lived at that moment (Rony, 1996, p. 99). However, Grierson accuses Flaherty of not taking into consideration the reality of the situations in favour of romanticism, which to Flaherty possessed the real value of a documentary (Jacobs, 1978, p. 26). The history of documentary film making according to the definition of Grierson defines it as creative treatment of actuality and this started immediately after the First World War. The pioneer films during this time were Robert Flaherty's films namely ‘Nanook of the North’ in 1922 and ‘Moana’ in 1926. In the early history of documentary filmmaking, there was complains by scholars and creators in this field that there was massive failure on the part of the documentarians as they failed to make efforts to approach their subjects in a creative or dramatic point of view. They also failed to make a selection of images to be used in the documentary but instead preferred the use of plain description. These creators of documentaries also made no effort to give out an argument in a manner that will make the audience more involved or to meet special aims. The non-fictional films of the early years or the documentaries of the time may not have possessed qualities that could be appreciated at the time and in modern times, but their creation has helped in the understanding of what is the point of view of a creator when making such. This is because the archive documentary films laid the all-important groundwork for the creation of current documentary films, which may still adopt what was carried out in terms of the point of views of the creators during that particular period. Of more interest is the fact that the audience at the early stages of the creation of documentary films had concerns with how authentic the images in the documentary films were and whether they painted the actual or real picture of the subject. With the rekindling of the debate on the points of views of early creators of the creation of documentaries, there is need to have a fresh and unbiased evaluation of their perspectives in the creation of documentary films. This can be achieved by looking at the film archives of the early creators such as Robert Flaherty and Edward Curtis and re-examination of what transpired in terms of their work perspectives in the making of documentary films. Therefore, the early documentaries are worthy of attention in the field of anthropology and filmmaking, which show that they encompass much more than still and motion picture arts. This is because they give the films in a non-fiction format with creative points of views and represent important points for debate in the making of documentary films in the early years. Amongst the early documentary filmmaking, ventures were Edward Curtis’s films In the Land of the War Canoes, a narrative that dramatized a kind of life by using Kwakiutl actors and Robert Flaherty’s film Nanook of the North in 1922. Much debate is on the works of Robert Flaherty as he is considered the first creator of feature length documentaries that give the point of view of a creator of the film. In the Nanook of the North, Flaherty applies the points of views and perspectives that have been applied in even the current documentary and ethnographic filmmaking, which include the use of subjective tone and third-person narration. Flaherty also created other documentary films such as Moana in 1926, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas in 1931 and Man of Aran in1934 amongst other pioneer documentary films by him. His contemporaries also included Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack in the 1925 film Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life and Chang: A drama of the wilderness in 1927. The films by Flaherty showed that he had a point of view that happiness only exists when humans are left to be free and harmonious with nature, which may be antagonistic at times. In Nanook, he shows how the Inuit live in the freezing temperatures and amongst dangerous animals while in Moana and Man of Aran, he again gives how man is having his life amongst hostile weather and the rough seas. From the film Nanook, we can see that Flaherty was not an ethnographer per se, but a filmmaker who was keen to bring out a story through the real materials and subjects of life. He developed his work over a period and screened for the participants who played a part in the creation of the films so that they could make suggestions or corrections on the films that had been produced for improvement. Through collaboration with the subjects, this creator implies that the subjects enacting their own real lives had better tell the story. He also infuses actuality and the journey of the lives of the Inuit to reaffirm his view that documentaries should aim at documenting “reality” as in the field. In ‘Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film’ (1996:261), Barnouw states that there were different functions and approaches used by directors of the documentary films. These depended on the prevailing needs of the time and the adopted positions by the early documentarians. By being excited about the sounds and the images from reality, the early creators of documentaries came up with means of making interesting documentaries. The choices that the documentary filmmakers take in the making up of the documentary usually show an expression of their points of views, which may be recognizable, or not as well as conscious or not. For instance, Flaherty did not use grammar in the cinematography and did not have any considerations in the angles and the positioning of the camera in the creation of the documentaries. Instead, he used his naked eyes and techniques as well as parallel editing to create these early pieces of documentary work to give his views on life then. Chanan states that documentaries work in a manner that contributes much to the well-being of societies, which can start debate and give its opinion on the documentary (Chanan, 2007, p. 59). He states that politics play a key role in making of documentaries, especially in the old days as they directly affect the production, reception and the consumption of the documentary. In the early years of documentary filmmaking, the producers could produce films that could be transformed or changed in distinct techniques, for example, voice over and montage so that the audience is persuaded to be attached to the documentary. This shows that the production of documentary films in these early years had political considerations on the way the audience will be persuaded to respond or view the documentaries (Chanan, 2007, p. 75). This shows that the early creators of documentaries could also be swayed by political considerations in the final documentaries that they came with for their particular audiences. The first use of the term documentary was used to describe the works of Robert Flaherty as that having documentary value in the 1927 film ‘Moana: A romance of the South Seas’ as it recreated the life of a Polynesian boy. Through this film, Flaherty created his film by making his documentaries master their material and come out as if it was ordering it and must differentiate between drama and description (Jacobs, 1978, p. 25-26). They also emphasized ethics in the creation of the documentary, as they must come out in the way real life is lived in the normal way of life. Therefore, the early directors of documentary filmmaking filmed the documentaries without making any selections, which only come out in the documentary itself in the way it brings out the truth appropriately (Chanan, 2007, p. 60). The early documentary filmmakers such as Flaherty had careful choice of words to be used in the documentary films so that whatever they stated or narrated was concise to the point. This means that there was no need for the over explanation of things as portrayed within the documentary as shown in his chronology of the construction of the igloo by the Eskimo Nanook through the use of the word “one more thing” (Huhndorf, 2000, p. 122). The audience’s attention is thus captured by the exploratory nature of the documentary film, which makes them on a quest of discovery (Barnouw, 1993, p.40). Similarly, other creators such as Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack followed the exploratory nature of what Flaherty had started but it soon became obscure because of the social changes that the society was experiencing (Barnouw, 1993, p. 52). Ruby states that early documentary filmmakers such as Flaherty used a complex mixture of drama and actuality in the making of films. This could be achieved through the imposition of a narrative with an aim of telling dramatic and convincing stories to real people, which clearly shows that they perceived exploration of the daily events to come up with documentaries (Ruby, 2000, p. 71). However, the production of documentary films at this time had the commercial implications as shown by Flaherty’s desire to come up with an ethnographic film that could be seen by large audiences that would translate to more finances (Ruby, 2000, p. 83). These works by the early documentarians also showed the fact that they were important in the field of anthropology as they produced films that talked and educated people about the culture of particular places or people. It is important to note that early creators of documentary filmmakers also showed and believed that films could be used as means of communicating ethnography. For instance, Flaherty states that it was very possible to record the life of primitive people in an actual manner so that there is a preservation of accuracy, which will create drama that attracts the audience and makes them glued to whatever they are watching (Ruby, 2000, pp. 86-87). This shows that what is important to him was to give out a documentary that would start a debate about the ideas that have been articulated. In the production of Nanook, the main motive of Flaherty was to show the Inuit as they are and not from the point of view of the civilized world, which made him create the documentary in a distinct way. Therefore, the focus is to bring out the point of view of the native, their relationship to their lives and the realization of their views about what takes place in the world (Ruby, 2000, p. 87). This shows that the early documentary filmmakers emphasized the need for the participation of the subjects that are to come out in the documentary film. Such is evident in the performance of the Inuit in the documentary Nanook, and their subsequent review of their performance through suggestions and acting in the scenes in the documentary film. This shows that Flaherty merely wanted to tell his stories in a compelling and dramatic manner that would make the audience could be seen as part of the image that the subjects also had about themselves. Grimshaw also states that early anthropological work, especially in the creation of documentary films emphasized on the innocence, which relied on the innocent eye of the ethnographer (Grimshaw, 2001, p. 45). He states that Flaherty created documentaries from richly textured ethnographies that had humanist assumptions that laid bare the misconceptions between knowledge and actual practice. The documentary films created by such early documentarians had the human impulse in them in that it found ways of making a person see the film in his own ways and interpretation. The human eye, which is exemplified in the audience and had seen everything, had to be made to look innocent again in the documentaries that were created during these olden days (Grimshaw, 2001, p. 47). The early makers of the documentaries also created documentaries by rejecting the technique of montage and instead preserving what is known as the ‘spatial unity of an event’ which ensured that the work is created in manner that portrays everything as they are and not in smaller ingredients (Grimshaw, 2001, p. 50). Early documentary filmmakers used different modes in the way that they presented their documentary films to their audiences. This could be through the exploratory or expository mode, the observational mode, the interactive mode and the reflexive mode amongst other modes.The exploratory mode presents a film through addressing of the audience by a narrator who construes what the audience visualize, which means that it tells them what they should reflect of what they see or hear from the film. The narration tends to know everything about the audience, explores on facts, and presents them to the audience in an all-knowing manner. For instance, the 1922 documentary film by Robert Flaherty titled ‘Nanook of the North’ in which he explores the lifestyle of Eskimos shows how the creator has utilized the exploratory mode as a mode of early point of view of the early documentary filmmakers (Barsam, 1988, p. 37). In Robert Flaherty’s 1931 documentary, film ‘Man of Aran’, his main concern is the story rather than the documentation as he exposes the hard lives of the Aran found in the islands of Ireland. Russell states that the early documentaries such as the ones created by Curtis showed the reliance on the narration as a means of bringing out the documentary film to the audience. In the film War Canoes, for instance, is created and narrated in such a way that it comes out as a story-telling venture rather than what the modern documentaries, which are merely cinema attractions (Russell, 1999, p. 100). Further, these creators could at times combine fiction and documentary as shown in the War Canoes so that the viewer can give his own several meanings and readings of the documentary. The viewer derives more control from the fictional aspect of the documentary, which makes the ethnographic film style more open to the viewers. We can therefore see that the two films War Canoes and Nanook have exceptional moments as they give the culture of a specific group of people in their actual sense (Russell, 1999, p. 113). Observational mode was also used by the early documentary filmmakers to have extended footages of people as they carry out their activities. Through such mode, the early creators had views that they could be used to have a preview of the events, opinions or behaviours of people. The early creators also used the interactive modes through interacting with people through interview, which is believed to give the point of view of person being interviewed rather than the views of the documentary creator that may be biased. The reflexive mode may also be used to show the subject as well as how the film is presented to the audience. This particular mode is unique in the sense that it shows the views of the filmmaker in an open and direct manner, which discourages spectators from having a rigid view of what the truth about a particular matter may be. The early documentary filmmakers also used archival materials especially motion and still photographic materials and these must be represented in a truthful manner. Through these modes of the creation of documentary films, an evaluation can be made on the potential points of views of early documentary filmmakers and their implicationsmight on the representation of others. It is important that the person creating the documentary have a passion for what he does especially with regard to the images and sounds used in the documentary (Barnouw). This is because the arrangement of the findings shows the expressions of the non-fiction film creator and this must be brought out in a manner that meets the standards for telling a good story. The making of a documentary involves the making of choices by the person that is communicating, which means that this becomes subjective in its presentation. The documentary filmmaker should therefore apply guidelines for journalism so that the film retains relevance. This requires that the argument presented in the documentary film is well grounded to hide any form of misgivings about the neutrality of the creator. Early creators of documentary films made them in such a way that they tell a story not necessarily in a chronological order or sequence. Therefore, the story in the documentary film is presented in any manner as long as the underlying chronology is retained as the events occurred. The documentaries were made in a manner that they can start in the middle, go back to the beginning or subsequently move to any other end within the story line. The documentaries in the early years were also presented in a manner that they come out when it best serves the story. Points of Views of Early Documentary Filmmakers As already discussed, a documentary film obtains its contents from actual events, places and people as the social subjects. The early creators of documentaries use these to come up with films with structures that are well organized and can easily be understood which is only achievable when there is a balance in the information provided and the entertainment value of the documentary film. The early creators therefore emphasized the main concern for a documentary as the need to search for the truth that can be believed. This means that a documentary can only be a powerful tool if the events, places and people in it are authentic. Through this, the viewer trusts what he sees in the film based on his willingness to believe in the integrity of the person who created the documentary film. The early filmmakers achieved the above through strategies that area aimed at retaining the audience. In the past, audiences of documentaries expected congruence between the documentary film and events that had taken place in the real world making them only act on the notion that they can only believe what they see. The later creators for a number of reasons credit Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North created in 1922 as the first documentary and a great piece. It showed early documentary makers as bold and adventurous who went about creating films despite difficulties and other obstacles. Flaherty’s work also shows that the early creators of documentaries believed that they could come up with better documentaries through the power and the structure of the documentaries as shown by the images. This is achieved through the establishment of a dramatic structure and then directing characters to perform for the camera. Their perspective was that they could also sustain the interest of the viewer by letting them make their own discoveries and views. For instance, Flaherty’s films exhibited some form of naturalism as all of his films showed a missing part of the real world. This was relevant as this documentary film creator had realized that the audience only value documentaries that are realistic, lifelike and spontaneous. The early creators of documentaries ensured that they maintained a humane working relationship with the people that a story is being told about as well as the securing the faith of the viewer in the accuracy and integrity of the work. They had principles that bellied the fact that the documentary should do no harm to the subjects and the provision of a truthfully narrated story. The early documentary filmmakers also emphasized ethical behavior in the making of their films, which required the balancing of their responsibilities to their subjects, viewers and artistic vision as well as the exigencies that concern production. Such responsibilities that touch on the ethical behavior include not harming the subjects, protecting the vulnerable and honoring the trust of the viewer. They could therefore manipulate the individual facts and order of the occurrences of events as long as it gave out the story in a manner that is effective and aided viewers in the grasping of the storyline. The documentaries produced around this time though maintained an ethical creation of the actual events, people and places as they happened in real world. However, they felt an inadequacy on the lack of clarity and standards in ethical practice as these times were that documentary films started being created. The arguments over the ethics in filmmaking show that the early filmmakers had knowledge of the moral dimension in the creation of documentary films and how they affect the society. Despite these challenges, the early documentary filmmakers produced cheaper documentaries that met the expectations of the subjects. The documentaries had verified facts that were presented in an ethical manner meeting the key obligations of the filmmaker. The upshot of the above argument is that it lays bare the challenges that early documentary filmmakers encountered when executing their responsibilities of creating documentary films. They told their stories whereby they believed that the subjects possessed some form of power and the audience dependent on what they create through narrative presentation of the documentary. This emphasizes the notion that has even been carried out to the present world as even modern documentaries have emphasized the importance of the audience in what they create. From the above argument, we can state that Flaherty had the point of view that he could create his documentaries through planned recording and the capturing of shots at the scene of action. Through this, he was able to get detailed and nice shots of the subjects that would provide well-shot documentaries for his subjects. Conclusion The early creators of documentary filmmaking as a form of non-fictional creative acts had different and engaging points of views on what their art entailed. At the beginning, there were single shots or raw footage with little or no editing but later, there was creation of what is now known as documentary films by the likes of Lumiere and Robert Flaherty. The documentary films that were created now had real subjects that were performing for the audience as can be seen in the film. Starting from the 1920s, the documentary films that were created were basically in the narrative format such as “Nanook of the North” (1922) which had distinct approaches and styles in the way that it was created. When this occurred, there was a problem as to how to make use of the raw footage in order to give out the story that could be seen as real. Through Nanook, we can see that the audience will believe what is shown in a documentary if it is broadcast in a manner that seems to be true in terms of the performance of the documentary. There are different points of views of early makers of documentaries, which made most of their work to be objective in one way or another. From what is shown on the screen, we could see their minds in an unmediated way and real life, which reemphasized the issue of objectivity in the ethnographic arts. The documentaries also created a debate about the human element of perception of impartiality especially on what the creator of the documentary wanted to capture or narrate to the audience. As already shown, early documentarians like Flaherty used different techniques to bring the viewer into contact with the subject so that it documents them in a real aspect. This approach as shown in the film Nanook requires that there is presentation of compelling evidence that may be gathered from the field during the production of the documentary. This can only be achieved through the observation and the understanding of events as they are and capturing them in their raw format to generate a point of view or perspective of a particular documentary film. In conclusion, we can state that the early documentaries and even those produced at the present world rely on the subjects who appear in them. It is from their perspective that the truth and the actual events can be brought to the understanding of the audience who watch the documentary. Therefore, the making and creation of documentaries still relied on the fact that they had to produce stories without distilling or recreating them in order to give the viewers the raw truth as it was captured in the field. This stems from the fact that the early creators of documentaries had to be accountable and fair to the subjects that are within the documentary film. It also requires that the truth and reality is relayed without compromising on the ethics of film production as well as drawing on the wider perspective to tell a story that represents the world. In line with this, most early creators of documentary films such as Flaherty and Curtis emphasized the creation of the real picture of events as they occurred in order that the audience can see their points of perspectives when they made the documentaries. Reference List Barnouw, E. (1993). Documentary: a history of the non-fiction film. New York, Oxford University Press. Barsam, R. M. (1988). The vision of Robert Flaherty: the artist as myth and filmmaker. Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Chanan, M. (2007). The politics of documentary. London, BFI. Grimshaw, A. (2001). The ethnographer's eye: ways of seeing in anthropology. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press. Huhndorf, S. M. (2000). Nanook and His Contemporaries: Imagining Eskimos in American Culture, 1897-1922. Critical Inquiry. 27, 122. Jacobs, L. (1979). The documentary tradition. New York, W.W. Norton. Rony, F. T. (1996). The third eye: race, cinema, and ethnographic spectacle. Durham, NC, Duke University Press. Rothman, W. (1997). Documentary film classics. Cambridge, Eng, Cambridge University Press. Ruby, J. (2000). Picturing culture: explorations of film & anthropology. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Russell , C. (1999). Experimental ethnography. Durham, NC, Duke University Pres Read More