Shaelene G. Moler
Prof. Richard Simpson
History and Theory of Documentary Film
28 October 2020
Comparing Apples and Oranges
As one of the class leader’s this week, I really delved deep into what the critical arguments of these films, and their makers are. Wiseman, was a man who believed that the camera interfered with the authenticity of documentary film, and filmed his movie High School using the Direct Cinema method. Whereas, Roche believed that the camera drawn out more authentic responses from his subjects, and filmed his movie Chronicle of a Summer with the Catalyst Cinema method, largely inspired by Vertov.
Although I enjoyed both poems, I found myself drawn to each of them for vastly different reasons. With High School, I was drawn to the movies structure, and political commentary (or lack thereof), and with Chronicle of a Summer, I found myself drawn to the individual characters because of the depths in which they were explored, and how their reflections (including the filmmakers) at the end added to the final product. Overall, I feel like both of these men’s positions bring value to the documentary film genre, and it does not feel right to pit their ideas against one another, simply because of the fact that they offer different types of authenticity.
Direct Cinema, at least from what we saw this week, displays people in their natural world, without the director/ ethnographer/ filmmaker interfering or interacting. It allows the viewer to see things as they are, and even allows the subject to see themselves in that state, although this is also true of Catalyst Cinema. Catalyst Cinema, on the other hand, occurs when both the camera and the filmmaker are directly involved with the subject, and it typically involves interviews. Catalyst Cinema is well known for drawing out people’s deeper emotions, and presenting them in a raw format, fully acknowledged by the subject. In many instances, it is almost like a form of therapy.
That being said, I would have to say I have an appreciation for both forms of documentary film, and I don’t believe that they should be compared on the same level.
Shaelene, Excellent point here that each of these forms of documentary have merit in their own right. They are often compared simply because they emerge within the same decade in different parts of the world which is an interesting development within the genre.
ReplyDeleteRemember that all films are political. Even the quiet, seemingly non-invasive observing camera of Wiseman. It would be interesting to compare the thesis of Editing as a Four way Conversation, Eisenstein's On Editing on the one hand and Rouch's The Camera and the Man and Vertov's Kino-Eye on the other.