The Essayistic Mode

The essayistic mode, like a stone thrown into water, starts with a point of insertion then spreads out concentrically, with splashes here and there starting new points of departure and exploration. Fox describes the essayistic mode similarly to how one might hear the form described in the writing tradition. It is the testing or proving of an idea. It begins with a curiosity and is developed across vast interconnections with varying degrees of solidity and personal relation.

The film, Something To Do With The Wall, exemplifies the testing of ideas. The film is concerned with a loose association of generally anything that is concerned with the once Check Point Charlie in Berlin. The film is not concerned with driving a point or argument, but rather simply investigates any sort of anecdotal element of the place. Many of the essayistic moments in the film come from the filmmakers making associations between the wall and themselves, family/parenting, and especially their own son. They explore ideas of 'place' in the anthropological sense, as something humanizing.

Perhaps more strongly an essayistic piece, is Chris Marker's Remembrance Of Things To Come. Marker explores a history of France through the associations between surrealist art, the first and second world wars, and the photography of Denise Bellon. Though these things are indeed connected in history, their connections become more profound through the filmmaker's loose associations. He makes assertions such as surrealist art having prophetic qualities, evident in Bellon's photography, foretelling the imminent second world war.

Marker's film employ a seemingly more flexible mode of exploring and montaging ideas as did McElwee and Levine. As a result, the Marker film's at times are fleeting and abstract, the associations and diversions being minuscule and irrelevant, or grandios and profound.

Autobiographical Mode

            Addressing perhaps one of the more frequently encountered moral or ethical dilemmas concerning the creation of documentary, the autobiographic mode attempts to navigate the problems of how to truthfully represent individuals and their experiences. It approaches this navigation by turning the camera around onto the producer, the filmmaker, bypassing the risks of representing others and their opinions as a third party. In so doing, Fox explains that the "distance between producer and subject is diminished", and the representation of the subject can be uniquely first-person.

This mode naturally positions the filmmaker as a central part of the film not just as creator but as a performer/social actor. The filmmaker becomes an authoritative insider to a historical reality. The filmmaker's existence is scrutinized and offers itself as a gateway for others to investigate larger social or historical questions.  This authority may come from a varying degrees of intimacy with the subject and like a memoir will be interested in doing as Emily Dickenson wrote, by “tell[ing] the whole truth, but tell[ing] it slant.”  An interesting example of this is found in Persepolis. The film’s stylized representation of historical reality presents ‘truth’ told ‘slant’ through the lens of the writer and narrator of the film. The film’s highly subjective voice is validly authoritative due to the inherent autobiographic elements. Or in other words, Marjane Satrapi is undoubtedly the authority on her own life, who has right to challenge a representation of her experiences? 

Another example of the Autobiographical mode can be found in Sadie Benning's A Place Called Lovely. The filmmaker provides specific images and stories from her own youth to express ideas and commentary on larger social issues. For instance, she acts as a sort of case study for many of the social problems she introduces, such as child bullying and homophobia. 

The Reflexive Mode - Doc Mode Activity 2

(Ben, I will email you the password to the video. It has been requested to be kept private.)

The reflexive mode of documentary offers a unique challenge to both filmmaker and audience. It allows  the filmmaker to address contrivance outright and perhaps give a more honest representation of reality. By this I mean that one who admits deceit is more honest than one who denies it or avoids the conversation entirely. The audience is then proffered with the task of discerning what is revealed illusion or simple contrivance due to the lack of illusion. In my film I chose a subject who wanted to create a film with me, one who agreed to play an active part in shaping it and agreeing to be filmed as the subject during the shaping process.

I discovered that making a film in this manner creates potential for great fidelity and simultaneous censorship, it is as Barnouw puts it, "a reckless notion". Though the filming process is rich with actuality, the editing process becomes the invisible  barrier of true and honest delivery of reality. It is therefore important, as Vertov exemplified in Man With A Movie Camera to address and present this portion of the filmmaking process. With the inclusion of this aspect of my film, the film becomes more about itself than anything else, in spite of the amount of self induced or otherwise needed censorship and revision. The result is as Barnouw states "a heightened awareness" by dissolving illusion.

In the case of this film, the subject became increasingly offended with the material being produced of us making the film. Though the film was initiated as making a film about making a film of the subject. With time the subject disliked the informal nature that the film took on as it grew increasingly reflexive. This in turn, through many revisions and layers of filming, and filming the reactions to what was filmed, created a highly sensored self-aware film. The film could no longer truly be about the subject, only the film itself. The film is far more self-aware than it would allow itself to be shown. A strange experience of reflexivity.

The Reflexive Mode

I can scarcely think about the reflexive mode without Vertov Coming to mind. Barnouw explains very clearly the impact that Dziga Vertov had on both documentarians and fiction filmmakers around the world. Perhaps most interestingly though, is the portion of the Barnouw reading that explains the creation of The Man With A Movie Camera. Vertov, who opposed contrivance, embraced it in a manner that seemed to embody the reflexivity available to filmmakers and their films. He makes clear that the audience is watching a film, but not just watching any film, the audience is watching the film that they are watching being made(great potential for confusion and complexity). They are reminded that they are an audience, seeing 'themselves' in proxy on the screen. They are shown that the film consists of still images, it is physically pieced together by an editor, and it consists of multiple times and places. This attention to creating an awareness of the film itself, to avoid entirely the 'opium for the masses' potential of film that Vertov reviled, resulted in a fascinating self reflexive documentary.

Similar to Land Without Bread, Vertov's film makes assumptions about what an audience expects from a film, particularly documentary. It uses these assumptions to direct the thoughts of the audience to their own roles in the process of filmmaking: the consumption and assimilation of the experience into their lives.

This Is Not A Film is an excellent example of the strengths of reflexive documentary. I feel the film is designed to ask the questions such as what is a film? What consists of making a film? Is footage from an afternoon spent talking about filmmaking with a friend a film? Aside from the tragic ideological struggles in the film that make a strong political commentary, the film functions as a great critique of institutional definitions of film and filmmaking. It constantly reminds us that what we are watching was not supposed to be made; it is a film. This lends great strength to the argument and viewpoint of the filmmakers. It gives the simple afternoon spent with Jafar an ironic and satirical insight, charging it with a political buzz. It is hard to pin down wether the film really was as serendipitous as it was presented, but regardless of the answer, we are well aware with each passing second, that we are witnessing a film being made.

The Participatory Mode

Embracing serendipity, this doc mode seems to treat the camera as an extension of the filmmaker. It is as though the device is some sort of strange growth, another eye perhaps, protruding from the shoulder. The filmmaker becomes a character, or a social actor, in the story. S/he becomes a 'participator'. Though this mode is quite similar in utilizing technology and shares a similar historical emergence to the observational mode, it differs greatly. The filmmaker is not a mute bystander, simply filming and assuming to be neutral, the filmmaker becomes the 'picaro'. The lovable(or not so much - Sickness Around the World), or at times simply charming, character that takes us through the story. We wander with them and experience the wake of their presence in the lives of those they engage.

The filmmaker as 'picaro' type participator was particularly evident in Michael Moore's Sicko. His persona in the film not only acted as a vehicle to tie all of the film's strands together, but caused many of the strands to come into existence. He openly acknowledges his presence in the film, employing somewhat of a screen persona.  He takes on the tone of innocent inquirer at times(mostly whilst visiting with his subjects), though it is obvious that if he wasn't aware of the discrepancies between our perception of U.S. health care and reality, the film would not have been produced. He clearly acts as a catalyst, as Nichols explains, and incites the events that the film documents. Events such as the voyage to Cuba, and the inciting thousands of people to email him with their experiences with health care. Michael Moore would indeed be considered a bit of an extreme example of a participatory documentary filmmaker, but nevertheless a very good example.

This mode appears to be well suited for the Brechtian intentions of a filmmaker. We are reminded of our role as viewers and therefor participators. We are encouraged to self-reflect. This may effect may be due in part to the unmasking of the filmmaker as a real individual with opinions and values. The filmmaker does not need to represent any sort of ideal, and becomes truly a fellow social actor amongst the crowd.

The Poetic Mode - Doc Mode Activity 1

Bill Nichols explains in his description of the poetic mode that it "has many facets, but they all emphasize the ways in which the filmmaker's voice gives fragments of the historical world a formal, aesthetic integrity peculiar to the film itself." The poetic mode does indeed have many facets such as an emphasis on rhythm, texture, the disregard of spatial and temporal realities, and the desire to explore the world with a new perspective. But perhaps of all these facets, the potential for historical reality to be used for subjective repurposing caught my interest the strongest. Though other modes use historical fragments of the world to make arguments or drive home messages, the poetic mode is uninterested in delivering a single interpretation of the historical data. It is interested in exploring new perspectives and embracing ambiguity that comes with encountering fresh information.

This short piece is designed around the idea that fragments of the historical world can be manipulated and rearranged for the purpose of expressing ideas and emotions. Similar to words in a poem, images may be used like syllables, creating rhythms and evoking the senses. My film intends to promote a charitable consideration of a wasp, the unexpected guest. Informed by Stan Brakhage's Moth Light, I present the viewer with a new perspective in which to view the world. This perspective includes my own lens, as well as that of the yellow jacket, though perhaps very mildly.  The perspective is a hybrid, one born out of fighting the impulse to kill the small intruder and to simply experience the occurrence.

Moth Light beautifully affords the viewer a completely open ended experience. Likewise, my film hopes to present a subjective interpretation of a historical reality. It focusses on movement and stillness, textures and light.

Observatory Mode

Similar to most change and experimentation in filmmaking, the birth of observational documentary came out of technological advances. By this I am mostly referring to the advent  of lighter and more portable cameras. Nichols references the innovation of inexpensive 16mm film coupled with much lighter/portable audio equipment contributing greatly to the rise of observational film. It wouldn't be too much of a risk to say that before the ability to have a micro crew of one - two people, the observational mode would simply not be successful let alone possible. I'd imagine that any sort of larger crew would greatly hinder the comfort that the social actors would need to feel in order to give any sort of  genuine performance. Additionally, the difficulty alone of physically keeping up with the movements and actions of any sort of event/ unscripted encounter with a social actor would probably have discouraged filmmakers from even experimenting in such a way.

Very fittingly, Barnouw calls the first instance of observational films a 'Free Cinema'. This title suggests and highlights the potential that the new technologies afforded the filmmakers. In Primary, the filmmakers were given an unprecedented amount of free movement, often cutting their way through crowds trailing the senators. This mobility undoubtably allowed them to shift around and document the scene as though 'flies on a wall'. I recall Ross McElwee describing how the ability to film and record audio by himself(or be 'autonomous'), led him to experiment with forms of producing films as a one man crew. This undoubtably was the genesis to his distinct voice in documentary.

Interestingly, in contemporary times, we are afforded an incredible amount of mobility and virtually untethered potential with our recording devices. They are small, light, and inexpensive. I find it interesting that the majority of our society(including film students) seems to be unsure of how to utilize these powerful tools. We seem to be stumbling our way through film history, starting with the trick gimmick films, or spectacle cinema, and moving towards more evolved(sophisticated) and thoughtful forms of media. I'm not discounting the incredible ways that the general populace is utilizing technology to produce raw footage -- often with journalistic import -- because truly we live in a period of democratized journalism. I simply have to wonder how much easier this mode of documentary has become thanks to technological innovations. Is it still evolving as it did in its earliest reciprocation to tech developments?