Jeff Holley
ENGL 342
Prof. Richard Simpson
November 17, 2020
Believing is Seeing
There is little doubt that documentary filmmaking tells a story, and that story may or may not be biased and subject to compacted, highly edited slant that intends to sway the audience one way or the other. Filmmaker Wiseman states, “I think my films are fair—[and] accurate accounts of the experiences I had when making the film rather than an imposition of a preconceived point of view.” Similarly, in Roger and Me, filmmaker Michael Moore has a story already panned out since the beginning of his filming process. His small guy performance against the giant GM chairman who is all-powerful takes this journalistic symbolism style to another level, mostly fabrication. However, the point is that it is significant because “he is fashioning a highly personal document, not a dispassionate academic treatment of a complex subject” in such a way as to make the filmmaker likable and the chairman “Roger” the villain. Moore’s treatment of journalism is undoubtedly unconventional.
In The Thin Blue Line documentary, the non-fictional story tells a tale of real convicts, interrogations, and how the police in Dallas exact revenge by charging “the wrong guy” for the murder of a police officer. According to the film and how it portrays the fateful night events, Adams said he was asleep in a hotel room and couldn’t have been the one to kill the officer. Subsequently, his death sentence and subsequent interviews take place at the prison. At times the scene transitions to the electric chair, while Adams steadfastly continues to declare his innocence.
Morris effectively portrays how the events differed from the narrative that convicted and sentenced to death Adams. His construction of “intersubjectivity in the footsteps scene—a reenactment depicting the final steps of the murdered officer, shows a different point of view that leaves considerable doubt that Randall Adams was innocent of the brutal officer slaying.
The “inconvenient truth” defies telling a story that sometimes the information we want to hear isn’t the story that should be heard. Nobody likes a cop killer, but what if Adams didn’t kill the officer that night? Would the system be content with justice if justice wasn’t served? And how a justice be served if the “truth” isn’t the truth after all?
Works Cited
Richard Bernstein, “Roger and Me: Documentary? Satire? Or Both?” (1990)
Harlan Jacobson, “Michael and Me” (1990)
Renee R. Curry, “Errol Morris’ Construction of Innocence in The Thin Blue Line” (1995)
The Thin Blue Line, Errol Morris (1988) Roger and Me, Michael Moore (1989)
Jeff, The reenactment sequence you mention in Thin Blue Line is an important one, and the theme of intersubjectivity, the multiplicity of possibilities and perspectives becomes a focal point for the film. Morris returns documentary to its roots in detective work/analysis, but this time the subject is the police and authority--the regime of visuality--itself. We come full circle on the documentary this week. Michael Moore is also at work as detective but this time in front of the camera. Both films engage the legacy of critique, analysis, and activism within documentary and their use of the "interview" as a mode of documentation is worth our attention to form. We can draw connections not only to Flaherty but also cinema verite. As you think about your own films, in what way will use the interview as a kind of tool to document? As noted in mouth of these films, interviews are more than just their subject matter, they can also be used in different ways. Just like we discussed with reenactment.
ReplyDelete