I thought representations of the dominant ideology were really interesting in this week's documentaries. Starting with "The Thin Blue Line", Morris' main issue is the automatic assumption that a sixteen year old couldn't possibly kill a police officer and thereby leading to the wrongful imprisonment of Randall Adams. He very succinctly summed up the dynamics of the town where the shooting happened as well as the preconceived notions that assured Harris' innocence. This made the whole film (for me anyway) kind of a nail biter. I didn't know what to believe with all the conflicting circumstantial evidence until close to the end. Of course then there was what was essentially a confession that sealed the fate of each of the social agents this story follows in my mind.
Similarly, I had no reason to disbelieve Michael Moore's experience of his hometown until I read critiques that point out how much of the history he either glosses over or completely shapes by juxtaposing certain shots in his sequence. This was eye opening to me as I still have this belief that documentarians should try to convey a sequence of events accurately. Of course he probably wouldn't have done as well at the box office if the film showed more of the nuances within the dismantling of all of these factories. Of course, there is no one truth and there's a level of subjectivity involved, but I wonder about the ethics of that particular representation.
Morris' focus on the environment/geography of the events that take place in Thin Blue Line is really fascinating. Not only does he incorporate the voices and people of the town, but also the close reading of the "map" of the crime scene.
ReplyDeleteThe nail-biting part of the film is built into it. The film was advertised as a murder mystery, which brings it back to our Gunning essay on the detective impulse that overlaps with the documentarian one, but is also fascinating in that we have a critique of that impulse here in some ways as well. It is a very "postmodern" film for these reasons.
Moore also takes us through a geographic analysis, this time of his hometown. There is poetic license here and many discredit the argument for its misleading use of some scenes. In that regard, it is interesting to compare to the personal essay films we watched last week where "memory" was grasped less as a dismissive subjective perspective, but rather as a way into the truth. It might be valuable to try to identify the line/difference between the use of the personal and memory in the reenactments of Tongues Untied and the misuse of footage in Roger and Me.