Documentary notes on Bill Nichols 1 Situations > strategies > conventions > constraints > genres > discourse in time: Factors which establish a commonality Same discursive formation within an historical moment Four dominant organizational patterns (a distinction made between direct and indirect address): 1. Expository Arose from the distracting entertainment qualities of fiction film Disembodied narrator (voice of god) commentary Poetic perspectives 2. Observational Arose from the availability of portable sync-sound equipment Questioning the moralizing quality of expository methodologies Limited the filmmaker to the present moment Recording people when they were not expressly addressing the camera 3. Interactive Arose from the availability of portable sync-sound equipment The filmmaker engages with the people in the film directly The filmmaker is in the film The present moment is one of engagement 4. Reflexive Arose from the desire to make the apparatus apparent Challenges the impression of reality in opposition to the other three modes Uses many documentary strategies but always makes the device of creating the film apparent and brings the viewer into the process What most often occurs is an interplay of these modes. This does not necessarily represent a chronological pattern. Modes are mixed, evolve individually (technologies change interactive is also online, e.g.), and filmmakers explore new possibilities for non-fiction film. Modes also evolve and change within the process of the same film. It s all about authority and control in terms of the film s (the film s statement) relationship to established hierarchies as mediated through the different modes. Ethics emerge as a guideline for the capturing and presentation of content.
Documentary notes on Bill Nichols 2 KEY ISSUES What works as a realistic representation in one historical moment is not a matter of finding the truth, or the final form of the truth, but represents struggles for power and authority within the historical arena itself. Filmic texts demonstrate compliance with the norms and conventions governing a particular mode and are protected culturally by the tradition and the authority of a socially established and legitimated voice. How can people be represented appropriately, responsibly STRATEGIES FOR FILMMAKERS generalization from highly specific to broadly socially relevant using a particular mode that carries with it a discursive authority narrative introduces moral, political, ideological perspective anchors representations to both everyday reality and subjective identification realism and viewer expectations EXPOSITORY Explains something. Reports on something. Connects directly with the viewer, is speaking to the viewer. Commentary directed towards the viewer. Raises ethical issues of voice. The text speaks persuasively or objectively, but on behalf of someone or something else, someone not the filmmaker, not the narrator. Mostly non-synchronous sound, a trope that developed early due to early film technologies. Non-synchronous sound meant things seen needed to be explained. The films are driven by the voice-over. Supports the impulse towards generalization, allows points to be made directly and succinctly. Dominant ideology of common sense A stockpile of common knowledge, addressed within an unquestionable frame of reference Juxtapositions and poetic expression can make the familiar strange, contesting the commonplace and shaking the viewer out of her complacency. Celebrates the beauty of the quotidian in terms of established social hierarchies. Takes for granted middle-class values and a humanistic-romantic sensibility. In other words, tries to make sense of things in terms that it is presumed the audience knows and lives by. Therefore represents a value system. One that relies on the logic of cause and effect. The voice of authority resides in the text.
Documentary notes on Bill Nichols 3 Authority and authorship presented in terms of common knowledge and a common system of values, i.e. not questioned but taken for granted. The subject does not speak, but the narration replaces their voice and has the authority to do so. Causation tends to be direct and linear, readily identifiable, and subject to modification by planned intervention. This sounds like violence. Expository documentaries are about problems and solutions. To sum up: Establishes a value system Draws us together socially and culturally Argues a point The subject represents the filmmaker The film takes shape around the solution to a problem OBSERVATIONAL Direct cinema. Non-intervention by the filmmaker. Editing to give the impression of real time. Ethical considerations the filmmaker must have the ability to be unobtrusive, to stay out of a situation, to not become a part of the scene or action. Questions Informed consent of the subjects/participants/social actors? Will the filmmaking cause harm? How will the social actors be represented? If one of the social actors is in danger, does the filmmaker have the responsibility to stop filming? How do the filmmaker s own perspectives enter into the process and into the image itself? Specifc properties, which anchor speech and images of observation to a specific moment in an historical place; i.e. real, here and now Indirect address speech is overheard rather than heard Sync sound and long takes are common Dead or empty time allows the rhythms of life to settle into that space Addresses contemporary experience rather than history The camera is a participant but the filmmaker does not enter into the film as a social actor The camera on the scene is a testimony to the actuality of the events The presence of the filmmaker/camera is functional to establish the believability of truth of the material recorded Present-tense representation (this is) Juxtapositions occur in terms of revelation Conveys a sense of unmediated access to the world because the filmmaker does not engage with the social actors
Documentary notes on Bill Nichols 4 Organization Not organized around a problem or puzzle Nothing to be illustrated or explained; no argument is presented Editing maintains continuity of space and time rather than advancing an argument Avoids summarizing a process (this is montage) Focus on interaction Include moments of lived time rather than time propelled by cause and effect logic Repetition or recurrent themes, tropes, motifs establish personal identity and connection to place (pizza parlor, e.g.) Frame of Reference People/social actors become performers in the framework of the filmmaking process and also in the film, in terms of how they represent themselves to others Viewers interpret the social actors narratively Encourages belief, so the performance becomes real life once again Viewers identify with the social actors and come to feel that they know them The filmmaker s presence as absence The audience replaces the filmmaker the audience provide presence INTERACTIVE The veil of illusory absence is shorn away. An ethical approach. To put yourself in the film, to show that the film is a construction and to reveal the process as an interaction. Emphasis is on involvement within the moment, i.e. now Showing rather than stating; authority shifts to the subjects A situation of power and desire a flow between subject and filmmaker Discourse vs. history; emphasis on discourse The viewer expects to be a witness to the historical world as presented by subjects who inhabit it The viewer expects conditional information and local/situated knowledge Editing maintains continuity without the voice-over commentary Conversational exchange between filmmakers and social actors Spatial leaps, text and subtitles, shorter takes all possible The authority of the interview is put into question specifically Juxtapositions contest a smooth flow of thought and introduce insight and surprise Questions How far can participation go? The filmmaker may have motives and needs that are different from or even in opposition to the social actor
Documentary notes on Bill Nichols 5 Can you continue even to the detriment of the subject, especially if you are doing something that exposes them? May change the situation of the subject when the filmmaker becomes involved in the film as a participant within the construct of the events of the film Asking people to talk about what they might rather not discuss (Shoah) The goals and desires of the filmmaker are not the same as those of the subjects What are the ethical standards that guide the social exchange? Should the subjects have a say in what is included and what is omitted in the editing process? Framework The unfolding of events An argument may be made, or the filmmaker presents a bias or set of beliefs or value system Oral histories may be inaccurate Direct encounters of subjects with the filmmaker Meaning becomes rooted in the moment of interaction/encounter The Interview Format The interview process: relationship between the past and the present stressing the influence of the past on the present Or, reconstruction of the present in archival imagery combined with an interview The organizing presence of the filmmaker evidence is selected and arranged, evidence provided by witnesses The argument that arises in the interactive film is a product of the interaction of the filmmaker and subject, rather than an initial premise, as in expository film The filmmaker is overtly seen and heard and becomes a point of contact between the interviewee and the viewer Emphasis is on the process of gathering and interpreting, which may alter the lives of all involved Emphasis is on the precariousness of the moment The dynamic of the exchanges during interviews become fundamental to the film The pattern of interaction makes clear the filmmakers allegiances and situates her as a metaparticipant rather than a reporter or observer A power relationship in which institutional hierarchy and regulation pertain to speech itself. Has a regulatory function Therapy, confession, institutional regime of discipline and regulation, the maintenance of hierarchy, the linkage of knowledge and power Conversation The filmmaker engages in a free exchange The filmmaker is the primary center of attention for the subject Conversation is at the boundary of social control, contrasted with discourse inside an institutional frame (Lyotard) The Masked Interview
Documentary notes on Bill Nichols 6 The subject is asked to speak about something specific, pre-arranged The topic is introduced by the filmmaker but is presented as a conversation between 2 or more social actors, not between the filmmaker and the subject The viewer notices that something is not natural in their speech and looks within the film or within the speaker for the reason why A further manipulation of audience and subject The filmmaker s agenda comes into play for any reason, even if she s trying to connect two pieces of the film Not a frontal view of the speaker, as in normal interview situation, but the speaker is seen within another space Authority, authorship and persuasive strategies come into play Narrative development is about the acquisition of knowledge Oral History The social actor is witness Monologues/pseudo-monologues Appearance of delivering thoughts and musing, impressions, feeling and memories directly to the viewer The viewer becomes the subject of the address REFLEXIVE Define: Serves to make familiar experience strange, to draw attention to the terms and conditions of viewing, including the subjective position made available to the viewer The newest, latest, and most naïve of the documentary modes. Possibly not yet finished, but as of the writing of the article, 1991, the rise of Identity-based cinema, in which the subject herself/himself takes on the challenge of a self-determined language of representation. Looking rather than being looked at, in a way. Addresses the question of how we talk about the historical world. The problem is how to represent: 1. An issue itself, and 2. The subjects, people, as signifiers and functions of the text 3. All of this is the material of the text From the Interactive mode, where history is created in the process of social exchanges and representation, to the Reflexive mode, where the representation of the historical world is itself the topic. All aspects of the production being defined as the text of the film. The text is read in the construction of the image; the process of this construction is revealed for the viewer.
Documentary notes on Bill Nichols 7 The idea of how what happened is revealed rather than the idea itself of what happened. The idea of natural or realistic expression is blocked. The filmic possibilities are expanded in this form it s not necessary to present a truth as much as it is necessary to provide access to knowing. Belief systems become repositioned. They shift. Subjects become performers. This is an ethical issue. Are people/subjects being used? Knowledge is put forth for examination. The structure and function of language, and of film language, the difficulties of verification, and ultimately the status of empirical knowledge. p.61 The filmmaker retains authorship over all aspects, including over the way subjects are used as signifiers. The filmmaker positions him/herself within the text as the occupier of historical discursive space. The filmmaker questions his/her relationship to the subject. This doesn t mean that the content cannot be contested. Rather it opens up areas for the contestation of lived reality. The relationship is to the viewer directly. The filmmaker manipulates the viewer. The encounter is between the filmmaker and the viewer rather than between the filmmaker and the subject. The viewer is prompted to a heightened consciousness of his or her relation to the text and of the text s problematic relationship to that which is being represented. p. 60 Editing works to increase awareness rather than move the story along. Long takes. Duration enters the film and has the function of giving the viewer a reason to wonder what the filmmaker is doing rather than what the film is saying, or what will happen next. Feminist films fall into this category. Stories and storytelling life stories, events, feelings, subjectively held experiences the telling of stories has the function of raising consciousness. This is the process of politicization. The subject is politicized and the viewer is also politicized. Representation functions to enact change. Personal story is generalized and politicized and becomes a call to action. Concepts, events, ideas, beliefs are all examined retrospectively. The past becomes the present. The films present now. The basic idea is that there is a true self that can be revealed, a self that has been suppressed and not permitted to even know itself Familiar forms of female representation are rendered strange in the realization that they don t represent actual women but represent a position that women are given within the social hierarchy, women as a class.
Documentary notes on Bill Nichols 8 Strategy is to present alternatives Materialism and it s two filmic formats: Avant-garde, which challenges seeing, logic, rationality, beauty: changes the way we see and changes what we see, what we value in what we see. Political, which has the goal to change how we live. Film form, therefore, leads to personal awakening and social practice. Is this utopian, or is it utilitarian? The basic line is everyday life. The litmus test: What provides the litmus test for political reflexivity is the specific form of the representation, the extent to which it does not reinforce existing categories of consciousness, structures of feeling, ways of seeing; the degree to which it rejects a narrative sense of closure and completeness. It unrealizes the real. p. 68