Week 8: Models (1999) by Ulrich Seidl

Hi Im sorry that I'm posting before Morgan has a chance to introduce some questions. I just wanted to blog my immediate reaction to the film. Was anyone else as upset with the documentary as I was? My first issue was that the title seemed to include multiple models and technically there were four but I thought it really only focused on one and for some reason that bothered me. Also, the involvement of the camera bothered me more than the previous films we've seen. It seemed manipulated but not with a poetic intent or some kind of genuine nature behind it. This was the first time in the class where I  really asked myself if this was right. I want to know if anything was scripted because at times it felt that way. Is there any way to get some info on that Morgan? That being said, I hope I don't upset anyone that really liked the film. I didn't even hate it I just felt like it was skewed somehow. I'm sure once I think more about the film I will be able to find its merits I just immediately feel like this documentary was made already knowing everything that would take place. If anyone disagrees please let me know why. I'm very curious about someone else's thoughts

Let's keep this conversation going!! I'd like to know more opinions on this controversy over the film. As for the script, I haven't been able to confirm that it was scripted, however, Seidl lists himself as a writer in the credits so that leads me to believe that parts may of been in fact scripted. 

Week 7: 66 Scenes from America and 8 1/2 x 11

66 Scenes from America (1982)
Jorgen Leth

8 1/2 x 11 (1977)

James Benning

Some questions to mull over:

Some things brought up in the debate: 

Is Leth's use of stereotypes and American 'tourist' towns problematic? 

Do Americans become a 'spectacle'? 

Does the narrative quality of Benning's film take away from it functioning as a documentary?

Simply, is his film boring?

Other questions:

How does Leth's NYC compare to Glawogger's?

How do we feel about Leth using Warhol's film?

We could move away from these films and discuss whether Warhol's film functions as a documentary on its own, and how it changes (if it does) when it is put in the context of another film. 

With Warhol and Benning we start to get into the discussion of the durational documentary. A whole conversation could be sparked around this genre. These filmmakers take the physical limits of film (the 3 minute roll, ext) and let that dictate the time structure within their film. What does it mean to do this as a documentary filmmaker? Is durational filmmaking somehow more of a document? Or less? 

As always feel free to discuss any other ideas or questions you may have. Or go off on a tangent! Let's just get the blood flowing somehow. 

Week 6: Los Angeles Plays Itself

Thom Anderson's video essay Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003) presented the duality between fiction and non-fiction. In the beginning of the film the narrator declares;

"If we can appreciate documentaries for their dramatic qualities, then we can view fiction for their documentary qualities."

This brings me to present to you for thought some of the questions he presented to us:

How do fiction movies shape our reality?

Do they then become our reality and thus become documentary?

What about when fiction works grow old and then become historical documents for a period in time?

Between the research-based nature of the film and the fact that it was almost 3 hours long, I think there are many avenues for discussion here. Feel free to ponder one of these questions, or explore this documentary in relation to the others we've seen, delve into thoughts about the city itself and how it is presented to us (tone, pov), discuss the 'white male' perspective that he delves into towards the end of the film, anything! Let's here some awesome discussion this week! Let's crash the site from all the traffic and enthusiasm!!!

Let's get rollin'!

Land without Bread (1933) Luis Buñuel

 Blood of the Beasts (1949) Georges Franju

 Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1998) Werner Herzog

Hello Everyone! 

I'd really love to get the blog rockin' and rollin' within the next few days since we most likely won't have time to discuss these three great films in class this week. Don't feel like you have to have done the readings first to post on the blog-- in fact I'd love to hear what people's face-value impressions are before reading deeper. 

Some topics I would love people to delve into:

Narration (What is problematic about the narrator in some of the films? What about when we are presented with multiple narrators? ext.)

Dramatization (Do we have a problem with Buñuel staged scenes such as the dead horse and the goat falling off the cliff? What about Herzog's approach to reenactment, as well as adding quirks to Dieter such as his compulsion to open and close doors?) 

Historical Context (How does viewing Blood of the Beasts and Land without Bread change in the context of now? Or does it? Is time and relevance a problem for documentarians?) 

Food (This is something I would love to write about and will if I have time, but food plays a central role in all three films-- Buñuel uses bread as a token for a privileged and healthy society, Franju shows us behind the scenes of what happens (used to happen?) to our meat before it hits our table (in a very neutral way?), and Herzog shows how food can offer comfort for anxiety and I way to deal with the past (in hoarding), its necessity  and the polarity of abundance and scarcity.)

Feel free to use one of these topics as a jumping off point, or choose many of the other points available to discuss. This is just scratching the surface! 

Week 5: Land with out Bread, Blood of the Beast & Little Dieter Needs to Fly

Lot's to talk about from this weeks screenings.  I've emailed you all the 3 readings but I'm pressed for time so I'm not able to write more now, but I recommend getting started as soon as you can on the readings and make some comments, impressions, etc about the works.  I'll try to chime in more soon! - Jeff

Week 4: Nicolas Pereda & "Summer of Goliath"

It was fascinating to listen to Nico talk about his work last week.  I am really curious to read your responses to "Summer of Goliath" and his comments to you all.

Remember that the forum is meant to be an additive discussion that continues throughout the semester and builds upon itself.  You don’t have to stick only to comments about “Goliath”.  You should feel free 9and are encouraged) to integrate ideas from any films watched, articles read, and discussions had throughout the semester..

With that, here are a few things to think about and elaborate on.

THE QUESTION OF HONESTY

The problem of authenticity and honesty seems to lie at the heart of this new non-fiction conundrum.  The great editor and theorist Dai Vaughn states aptly in his essay called The Space in Between, “For those who bewail its absence, honesty is a moral problem.  For those who try to achieve it, it is a technical one.”

What do you think about that in regards to the films we’ve looked at this semester?

CONTEXT & THE CONTINGENCY OF THE VIEWER

The question of the context of the screening in a non-fiction class came up last week and how that impacts the reading of the film as documentary or fiction.  This is an interesting question to me and one that I think should be extended beyond the classroom to look at the subjectivity of the viewer and their role in the construction of meaning.  I’m interested in how ambiguity can work productively in a film to allow the viewer to operate in a more open space within the film.

Again I quote Dai Vaughan who writes “The space opened up by the mismatch between record and signification is precisely the space in which the viewer’s choice operates.  Every hunter reads the spoor in his own way.  The danger of documentary lies in anything which restricts the film within a set of institutionalized norms and erodes that power which the image takes from the viewer’s sense of its contingency.

So what are your thoughts on context and contingency?

THE PERFORMATIVE DOCUMENTARY

Bill Nichols defined the Performative Documentary in the article I gave you last week.  He contends that works in the performative mode deflect the documentary from what has been its main purpose, which is the creation of a persuasive argument about the historical world.  

“Performative documentary marks a shift in emphasis from the referential as the dominant feature…This shift blurs yet more dramatically the already imperfect boundary between documentary and fiction.  It also makes the viewer rather than the historical world a primary referent. The performative documentary engages the spectator with an aesthetic that de-emphasizes reference to an empirical reality. It creates subjectivity in the spectator that connects an abstract aesthetic to an ontology rooted in the abstract. As such, its ontology is an experiential truth rather than an empirical one. The expository qualities of the performative documentary seem, not so much to reject the empirical as to engage that world in a felt, experiential, poetic movement.”

An additional quote from Robert Carl Craig who further explains Nichols’ ideas.  “The Performative documentary… gives the viewer an ‘empowered eye’ allowing the spectator to indulge in association and memories of their own.  These are possibly individual, conceivably collective, or perhaps constructed within a space between filmmaker and viewer.  We can understand this as a temporal space of possible shared knowledge or private thoughts.  It is a privileged space of ambiguity, not the obscurity of psychological motivation, but the abstruseness of movement across space and time.  It is the ambiguity of opening possibilities of what could be rather than what might be. It is a world of possibilities in which the act of spectatorship becomes activated.”

So does “Summer of Goliath” work for you as a Performative Documentary?  Any other films we’ve watched thus far?