BEYOND MICHAEL MOORE:

Different documentaries and critical

approaches to use in the classroom.

Introduction

and History

The documentary genre

has had a varied and

interesting history over

the last hundred years

or so. The first moving

images from the late

1800s were, in fact,

documentaries –

attempts to document

reality.

The genre has

developed a range of

styles such as cinema-

verité, documentary as

political weapon, the

rockumentary and

mockumentary.

Teaching

Documentaries

When teaching documentaries, often we focus on issues based texts that have a clear political purpose.

Of course, these are useful in the classroom as students can clearly see the intention of the filmmaker.

However, we would argue that we should not limit our study to these texts and should embrace a range of different documentary styles and consider new developments within the genre.

Our focus Studying a range of documentaries (or parts thereof) that work within and across different genres and styles.

This approach allows the freedom to consider other elements that are sometimes lost when we focus of the contentious social issue at hand. For instance:

• The changing role of the filmmaker

• Different sub-genres of documentary and their conventions

• Common tropes, ideas or representations offered by documentary films

Documentary genres

The “Mockumentary” and

the unreliable filmmaker

The “Rockumentary” and

the romantic artist

The „Mockumentary” and the unreliable

filmmaker

• We are familiar with the sub-genre of mockumentary and the attempt to borrow from the styles of documentary for comic effect, usually parody. Examples include Spinal Tap, District Nine etc… Of course, often these films are using this form to make serious comments about society.

• For the purpose of this presentation, however, we would like to broaden our study of this sub-genre to include filmmakers who self-consciously present themselves as unreliable and, in so doing, question the very ability of documentary to document reality at all.

• We will look at two documentaries where the filmmaker self-consciously establishes themselves as untrustworthy.

• In the next two examples the documentary filmmakers fail to resolve the questions raised in the film and even fail to acknowledge whether there is a question. In so doing, the audience is encouraged within the documentary itself to critically evaluate the documentary form.

Forbidden Lie$

Forbidden Lie$ is a film directed by Anna Broinowski (2007) that traces the story of alleged literary fraud, Norma Khouri.

Norma Khouri published a book, Forbidden Love in 2002, about the honour killing of her friend Dahlia in Jordan. After its publication, she was exposed as a fraud. She has always denied these allegations.

In the

beginning…

Early in the

documentary, the

filmmaker positions

the viewer to

believe Norma‟s

story about her

upbringing in

Jordan and the

honour killing of

her friend, Dahlia.

Repositioning

This is then

followed by a re-

positioning of the

audience as we

are presented

with the

alternative

narrative, that

Norma‟s story is,

in fact, a lie.

Distrust of subject, filmmaker and genre

• The documentary filmmaker mimics the sense of betrayal readers felt when they were told that Norma Khouri‟s book, Forbidden Love, was a fake.

• We distrust Norma and her story but we also distrust the filmmaker who has “set us up” in the establishing scenes of the film.

• The rest of the documentary alternates between Norma‟s story and the opposing argument offered by Rana Husseini and Australian journalist, Malcolm Knox.

• As the documentary progresses, the filmmaker assumes the role of detective and tries to discover the truth about Norma.

• At the conclusion of the documentary, she is unsuccessful – we are no closer to finding answers to the questions posed.

• The students, when studying this film, find it unsettling and unsatisfying. They feel initially “tricked” by Norma, and to some extent, the filmmaker and this distrust is heightened as the filmmaker fails in her mission to uncover the truth.

• This distrust allows students to see the documentary filmmaker and the documentary genre as inadequate and unreliable and this, in turn, allows students to reflect on their expectations when viewing documentary that a “truth” will be uncovered. This encourages a more critical approach to studying the genre.

Exit Through

The Gift Shop

Exit Through The Gift

Shop is a film directed

by Banksy, a world-

renowned street artist.

The documentary asks

the question “What is

authentic art and what

makes an authentic

artist”?

The film traces the

meteoric rise to fame

and fortune of film-

maker, turned graffiti

artist, Thierry Guetta.

Or does it?

Is the film just an

elaborate hoax?

All is not as it

seems ….

The opening

sequence of the

film endeavours to

establish the

authenticity of the

enigmatic figure of

Banksy and the

legitimacy of the

art form he

promotes.

Guetta‟s Quest

Thierry Guetta is an

amateur videographer.

When he crosses paths

with Banksy, he is led

into the intensely

subversive world of

street art which he

obsessively records with

his video camera.

Banksy eventually tasks

Guetta with creating a

film of his clandestine

activities to help lift the

profile of street art

beyond the tag of

common graffiti.

Is this the film we are

viewing?

Banksy‟s

Betrayal

Guetta‟s documentary Life

Remote Control is ridiculed

by Banksy.

Banksy himself takes on the

job of constructing the

documentary, readily

admitting he has no skills on

which to rely.

We realise that this is the

real film we are viewing.

We begin to question the

credibility of the film AND the

film-maker.

We are forced to reassess

our prior expectations of the

documentary genre.

Distrust of subject, filmmaker and genre

• It is with shock that the cameras are reversed when Banksy rejects Guetta‟s documentary and takes on the challenge of filming it himself.

• We start to question the reliability of the film and we struggle to define what is „truth‟ and what is „fiction‟.

• By nature of its construction the film becomes a parody of the genre to which it belongs.

• By the end of the film the viewer has no concrete answers to the problems raised in the documentary. We distrust Banksy as we still really have no idea about who he is or what he was trying to achieve. We distrust Guetta as most of the film has set out to discredit and lampoon him to be the unwitting representation of the superficiality that is pervading modern art.

• Focusing on the notion of the “hoax” provides an interesting analytical perspective from which to approach this film.

The

“Rockumentary”

and the romantic

artist

The first

mainstream

rockumentary,

Don’t Look Back

directed by

Pennebaker, was

released in 1967. It

is shot in the style

of cinema-verité,

documenting the

young Bob Dylan

on tour in the UK.

It establishes the

musician as a

rebel icon.

The origins of the romantic artist trope

It may be argued that this sub-genre of documentary is working with an old idea – one that privileges the artist as a romantic figure – a Wordsworthian or Byronic hero. It may be seen that the rockumentary is the contemporary manifestation of this trope.

Searching for

Sugarman

Searching for

Sugarman is a

documentary

directed by Makil

Benjelloul in 2012.

It follows the

search for

enigmatic and

forgotten folk artist,

Rodriguez, and his

eventual

recognition in

South Africa.

Rodriguez as

romantic artist

It is possible to see the presentation of Rodriguez as linked to the romantic tradition of the artist. He is presented as living apart from mainstream society and more connected to the natural world. This separation allows the artist the ability to see the injustices of society and give voice to the disenfranchised.

Rodriguez is also presented as mysterious and enigmatic – further encouraging us to see him as separate from mainstream society.

The corporate

world and

consumerism

In contrast, the music industry is seen in opposition to the romantic artist – the celebrity driven, corporate monolith that limits and controls the work of the artist. In this documentary this faceless, exploitative world is personified by Clarence Avant, director of Sussex Records.

In this interview with Rodriguez when we eventually meet him, 60 minutes into the film, we are encouraged to see him as above the grubby world of money and fame.

The Filth and

The Fury

The Filth and The

Fury is directed by

Julien Temple.

It presents the rise

and fall of the 1970s

band The Sex

Pistols, told from their

own perspective, and

it serves as a

counter-documentary

to Temple‟s earlier

film The Great Rock

n Roll Swindle that

presented their

manager‟s take on

their success.

It is quite confronting.

The Filth …

The Filth and The

Fury continues the

tradition of

representing the

artist as a rebel icon;

this premise is

established from the

outset.

The documentary

makes the claim that

The Sex Pistols were

the voice of the

disenfranchised,

putting the angst and

the anger of the

lower classes into

their music.

The Fury …

However, the

reality of The Sex

Pistols‟ image

contradicts any

romantic

representation of

“the artist” with

which they hope to

align.

This is revealed in

the infamous “Bill

Grundy Interview”.

The artist as a romantic figure

• The band‟s rapid rise to popularity and their subsequent fall from grace took a mere 18 months.

• Their creation was at the hands of Malcolm McLaren, a high society fashion store owner who considered the band his “little artful dodgers”, a social experiment.

• They drank, swore, took drugs, destroyed property, were deliberately provocative and obnoxious and, ironically, ultimately became the mainstream fashion icon they set out to destroy.

• The documentary aims to retrospectively redefine the perception of the band by challenging the role of McLaren and emphasising the social context the band members were trying to overcome.

• It endeavours to reinstate the trope of the romantic artist and, in doing so, cleans up history. In the hands of Julien Temple, Sid Vicious is no longer an offensive heroin addict who, in a drug-fuelled rage murders his groupie girlfriend then dies by overdose before being brought to justice. He is the tragic hero, vulnerable and misunderstood, manipulated by McLaren and exploited by Nancy Spungen.

• The challenge for students writing on this text is to refer to the text The Filth and The Fury not the band The Sex Pistols. It is a great discriminator.

Using these texts in a response

Is a documentary without an issues focus of

any use in a WACE examination?

The Writing Section

Q4. “Many people are still up for stories that don‟t have

easy answers, that don‟t have completely likeable

characters, but that do represent things that go on in life.”

Viewing Section

Q9. “The construction of a visual text can reinforce or

critique dominant representations of identity.”

Q10. “Explain how an audience‟s attitudes or ideologies

may be altered by the way a visual text is constructed.”

Email and contacts

• Maggie McPhee: Maggie.mcphee@pc.wa.edu.au

• Shannon Allen: shannon.allen@pc.wa.edu.au

We can email your our resource packages for these

documentaries and we will also make our presentation

available on the ETA website.

Thank you!