Can We Define Documentary through Mockumentary - Literature review Example

Can We Define Documentary through Mockumentary? 2010 Introduction Mockumentary is a form of film and television genre that presents fictional events in the form of non-fiction or documentary format. This category of films replicates the techniques of the documentary films but explicitly ridicule the latter genre. Ostensibly, this diverges from the documentary genre in that it is not simply a representation of reality, as the latter is usually held up to be. However, in actuality, documentaries have rarely been simply photographic images of the reality except perhaps the earliest forms of motion pictures when the term ‘documentary’ had not yet arrived. If the claim on realism is discounted, the separation of the documentary and the mockumentary breaks down to a great extent and both can be considered to be part of the same generic group. This paper will first discuss the principles of documentary films and their typology that makes the differentiation between fiction and not fiction films hazy, followed by the auteur theory that makes the work more of the directors rather than that of the actors or producers, validity of the term mockumentary in the context of cinematic codes of some such films. Principles of documentary films Early cinema, after its invention by the Lumier Brothers in 1890, was essentially a means to document reality – single shots of natural scenes, news or daily events. Documentary films as a distinct genre of film making emerged only in the 1920s and the first major such film was Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) that documented the lives of the Eskimos in northern Canada. However, even this film, the director changed the name of the protagonist and used social actors hence cannot be strictly be called a representation of reality. In fact, some of the shots in the film are exaggerations employed to prove a point. Platinga (1997) notes “the profilmic event in Flaherty is usually arranged and/or staged for the camera. In Nanook of the North (1922), for example, Flaherty had the Eskimos engage in a Walrus hunt with harpoons, a practice they had abandoned when the white men introduced the rifles”. What Flaherty aimed to achieve was truth rather than reality. Different genres of documentary films have grown across the world over the last 50 years, beginning from the journalistic approach in documentary films by John Grierson during the 1920s and 1930s to the direct cinema and cinema verite in the 1950s and 1960s that introduced the concept of shooting outdoors without staged actors. The Griersonian form of documentary films aimed to play a part in social engineering through communication with the viewers. Although this genre later became a tool for official propaganda, Grierson’s main purpose was social activism through the medium of film-making. Cinema Verite (cinema truth in French) in France and Direct Cinema in North America grew in the 1950s and 1960s out of the sociological practical changes of film making at the time. Both aimed to shoot in the real world as opposed to designed sets. Film makers attempted to remain as unobtrusive as possible, using small cameras and natural lighting and avoiding voice-overs, screen titles and special effects. Very often, the same techniques that were used by the neo-realist film makers like Francois Truffaut, Jean luc Goddard and John Cassavetes, to shoot feature films with non-actors were also used for direct films. Particularly in North America, Direct Cinema reflected the radical ideological mood of the 1960s. While film makers like Robert Drew, D A Pennebaker and Frederick Wiseman documented the presidential campaigns in the United States and the Woodstock revelers, Wiseman also shot ‘reality fictions’ (Saunders, 2007). Direct cinema as well as cinema verite was criticized for making the subjects more important than the issue or the process of filmmaking. The two genres were similar in using real characters in the real setting. The genres were often called “fly on the wall”, in their attempt to be unobtrusive. Direct Cinema did not have a political agenda. Robert Drew in fact said, “The film maker’s personality is in no way directly involved in directing the action.” Instead, they emphasized on the imperative to “reduce intervention and thereby improve observation” (quoted in Winston, 1993). However, such impersonal observation could never be possible since after all it was the film maker’s decision to decide on the direction of the camera, the shots to take or the extent of the editing. Although documentaries are often thought to be truthful, like perhaps newsreels are, truth itself is never static in a changing society and the interpretation of the truth may be widely variant. Hence, dramatization of actual events is the essence of the documentary film genre. It represents an attitude of the mind in the sense that propaganda documentaries are persuasive while other forms of documentaries might take resort to dramatization for the purpose of “bringing alive” the issues or events at hand on screen (Rotha, 1972). Nichols (1997) categorizes the representation of reality, which he defines as to include “reporting, engage in dialogues with investigating, observing, interpreting, and reflecting on” (page 143, quoted in Mpofu, 2009) issues and events through documentary films as expository (which are commentaries), observational (where the filmmaker’s presence is reduced to the minimum), interactive (when the filmmaker and the social actors are in a conversation) and reflexive (where the filmmaker draws the attention of the viewers to the act of filmmaking). The definition of documentary, itself, may vary when seen from the perspective of the text, the filmmaker or the viewer. On the other had, there have been film theorists like Robert Drew and Richard Leacock who considered documentary films to portray reality to the extent that filmmakers should “never ask someone to repeat an action, never add music or special effects” (quoted in Platunga, 1997, p 35). Auteur theory In the auteur theory, a term coined by Sarris (1962, p 662), on the other hand, filmmaking, whether fiction or non-fiction, both represent reality with a subjective vision but in a documentary film, there are governing rules of truthfulness that makes it more regimented than a fictional film. In this theory, as noted by Hayward (1997), the “author of the script and the filmmaker as one and the same” (p 20). Typically, this theory applies not to an individual film but to a body of works by a filmmaker who displays his signature style and recurrent themes and ideas through techniques of filmmaking. As Kochberg (2002) argued, “many makers of documentary… have a recognizable aesthetic voice in their work, where truths are mediated through their artistic obsessions in film after film” (p 48-9, quoted in Mpofu, 2009). Michael Moore can be considered to be a typical case of representing the auteur theory as he is the star in most of his films. He projects a personal point of view, explicitly political in most situations. In the film “Capitalism: A Love Story” (2009), the title of the film itself portrays a definite bias that has been a recurring theme from his earlier films like Fahrenheit 9/11, Roger and Me and so on. The latest film is a tragicomedy that portrays greed on the Wall Street is an indictment on big businesses (Observer, 2009). The auteur theory was applied mainly to the fiction film but can equally be applied to documentary films as the element of subjectivity is even more profound even while bounded by the realms of truthfulness. Subjectivity in representing reality includes bias and emotional attitude of the filmmaker who may choose a particular subject on the basis of experience or choice or treat a particular subject in a definite approach. In relation the auteur theory, therefore, it is possible to question the subject itself leading to variations in subjectivity, multiplicity and contradictions to truth since the camera cannot capture the historical truth except from a certain angle (Nichols, 1997). As a result, Nichols (1997) argues, “Far too many contemporary filmmakers have lost their voice. Politically, they forfeit their own voice for that of others (usually characters recruited to the film and interviewed)…the world and its truth exist, they need not only to be dusted off and reported… very few… admit that filmmaking is a form of discourse fabricating its effects, impressions and point of view” (p 50, quoted on Mpofu, 2009). Validity of mockumentary films and their cinematic codes Although the documentary genre has traditionally claimed to depict reality objectively, there has always been a subjective element in such films. This is why Nichols (1997) has noted that the constructive narratives are found in fiction as well as non-fiction films, which make the mockumentary films as valid as documentary films. The cinematic codes of mockumentary are essentially in the rhetoric – by rejecting the separation of language and ideology – authorial disguise – by emphasizing ridicule, parody and imitation – subjectivity in which every word that is used in the film has a context and reflexivity in which the standing of the documentary genre itself is mocked (Roscoe and Hight, 2001, p5). In this approach, the film is a continuous art form in which the internal cohesion of all shots together, rather than individual shots or the truth and falsity of each, is the critical factor. Yet, the documentary film is held in a pedestal in the society as it is thought to be a historical projection of reality and the viewers are encouraged to accept all the truth claims embedded in it unproblematically. For example, the mockumentary, Forgotten Silver (1995) was projected as a serious documentary on New Zealand filmmaker Colin McKenzie, claiming him to be the first great innovator of modern cinema who invented various cinematic techniques. The film, directed and presented by Peter Jackson, went about in a serious note, mocking the documentary style, with shots of McKenzie’s films that were claimed to have been recovered in a shed. In reality, McKenzie was a fictional character and the entire film was a spoof on both early cinema as well as the documentary genre. Although there was not an iota of truth about the character of McKenzie, the mockumentary did throw up elements of the early cinema in a more attractive manner than a serious-toned documentary could. Hence, the filmmaker here adopts an authorial disguise to ridicule the traditional concept of documentary filmmaking to present the idea in a more attractive manner. While the cinema verite or the Direct Cinema were classic examples of observational documentary films, by more or less capturing the reality as objectively as possible, without engaging stage actors or using voice overs, thus limiting the influence of the filmmakers’ subjectivity, who ‘shows’ rather than ‘tells’, films like Cannibal Tours (1988) by Dennis O’Rourke is in the interactive mode. Besides, it also projects a subjective element by presenting a subjective ideology. It interviews natives and tourists to understand and portray the relationship between the natives and tourists from an ex-colonizing country. In a location where cannibalism has been replaced by commerce, the natives display the tribal culture for sale to the white man. Roland Barthes (1977, p47, quoted in Hutcheon, 2002), in the postructural world view, proposes the notion of “doxa” as public opinion and the consensus of the “Voice of Nature” in order to “de-doxify” the cultural representations and accept Foucault’s notion that “power is not something unitary that exists outside us” (Hutcheon, 2002, p 3). Nitzche had already rejected the idea of language as a medium of communication by saying, “The various languages, juxtaposed, show that words are never concerned with truth, never with adequate expression...” (Nitzche, 1873, p248, quoted in Purdue, n.d). By denying language the ability to communicate truth, Nitzche denounced the concept of truth itself in an essay “On Truth and Lies”: “What is truth? …truths are an illusion about which it has been forgotten that they are illusions...” (p 250, quoted in Purdue, n.d). Foucault expanded on the idea by saying that 'truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power' (Foucault 1980, p 131). This explanation implied that the creation of 'truth' could never be totally detached from machineries of power (Foucault 1980, p 151). This idea of power and truth is projected in Cannibal Tours in a very subtle manner. Peter Wintonick, in Cinema Verite: Defining the Moment (1999), claims that the genre revolutionized documentary filmmaking by looking at reality from a completely different perspective. This film is a reflexive mode of documentary filmmaking as it goes behind the making of films. For example, the film interviews two producers from The Blair Witch Project, a pseudo-horror film, in the Halifax graveyard. Although the film is projected to be a biographical report of the makers of cinema verite films, with some of the makers of such films being interviewed, it goes beyond the script to describe the background of the genre. The film about the film genre is a celebration of the hipster culture of the 1970s. The enthusiasm of the director about the genre is palpable through the film making it more than a realistic depiction of events and characters (Alioff, 1999). Salaam Cinema (1995), the documentary film by the Iranian director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, is another film that is reflexive in nature. This film describes characters who apply for casts when the director gives an open newspaper advertisement for selection of casting. Over the next part of the film, the director follows the screen tests of the cast crew, their inhibitions and obsessions. However, the film is not simply a recording of all the screen tests, since as many as 5,000 people apply for these. Instead, it is a selection of some screen tests that reflect the social and cultural parameters. Conclusion Mockumentary films, which are the representation of fictional characters and events in the non-fiction form, is considered to be in direct contrast to documentary films. The viewers of mockumentaries have to be aware of the fictional nature of the depiction to acknowledge the genre. Besides, this genre breaks down the socio-political context assumed by documentaries. However, over the years, documentary films have gone much beyond the reportage format and no longer are expected to be loyal to the reality. Most documentary films, in fact, use stage actors and techniques to portray a viewpoint. It is never possible even in a purely reporting-format documentary to be entirely objective. Hence, documentaries, too, are mostly subjective in nature. Hence, mockumentaries, by their very nature of being subjective, may be considered to be form of documentaries. Especially in the context of the poststructural, or postmodern view, when projection of reality itself is subjective, mockumentaries, or the auterist theory sufficiently characterizes the modern documentary filmmaking genre. Mockumentaries are more participatory interaction between the director and the viewer as it is assumed that the latter would appreciate the dissociation between fiction and non-fiction to project a truth rather than being passive recipient of an idea. By parodying popular culture, viewers are encouraged to question the basic parameters of the narration. Works Cited Alioff, Maurie, Camera eye: Peter Wintonick's Cinema verite: defining the moment, Take-One, December-February, 1999, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JSF/is_26/ai_30086852/ Foucault, Michel, Power and Knowledge, UK: Harvester, 1980 Hutcheon, Linda, The Politics of Postmodernism, 2nd Edition, London and New York: Routledge, 2002 Hayward, S, Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, New York: Routledge, 1997 Korchberg, S, “Narrativity and Intent in Documentary Production”, in Korchberg, S (ed.) Introduction to Documentary Production, London: Willfower Press, 2002 Mpofu, Shephard, Auteurism in Documentary Film Making: The Making of Gagus: The Nigerian Kitchen, M.A. thesis in Film and Television, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2009 Platinga, C, Rhetoric and Representation in Non-Fiction Film, Indiana: Cambridge University Press, 1997 Purdue, Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction, Postmodernism (1966-present), http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/08/ Nichols, Bill, Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary, Indiana University Press, 1999 The Observer, Michael Moore's anti-capitalist crusade, The Guardia, October 11, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/11/michael-moore-catholic-capitalism Roscoe, J and Craig Hight, Faking It: Mock documentary and the subversion of factuality, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001 Rotha, Paul, Some Principles of Documentary, in Daniel Talbot (ed.), Film: An Anthology, University of California Press, 1972 Sarris, A, “The Auteur Theory in 1962”, in Film Theory and Criticism, Oxford: Oxford University Press Saunders, Dave, Direct Cinema: Observational Documentary and the Politics of the Sixties, Wallflower Press, 2007 Winston, Brian “The Documentary Film as Scientific Inscription” in “Theorizing Documentary” edited by Michael Renov. 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