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?
It was interesting to place his work in the context of a "Non-fiction" class. He seemed surprised by our need to defend the truth of his film, and I think even asserted a one point that in a contemporary film school, that kind of thing isn't even really an issue anymore. I thought that was interesting--especially because authenticity is something that he WAS concerned with, regarding everything, from the self-aware placement of the awkward scene between actor an non-actor, to the awarness that he is a very privileged young Mexican filmmaker making a film about hardship--always problematic.
ReplyDeleteAlso here's some Doris Salcedo that I feel intersects nicely with the film:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.art21.org/files/images/salcedo-photo-001.jpg
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/doris-salcedo
ReplyDeleteHaving Nico actually come in and talk was so exciting and informative, it really made me want to watch the film again to better pick up on all the little moments and stories we talked about with him.
I think his concern about authenticity comes across in the film, even if much of it is fictional.
since I no longer trust that we will actually watch “real” documentaries in this class (exemplified by nico's assertion that he is a fiction filmmaker), I did not assume that it was nonfiction. But the use of interview and other methods characteristic of nonfiction film made it hard not to believe him, and that way of gaining trust from the viewer is i think far more effective than calling your work a documentary is.
Acknowledging the medium and reminding viewers that they are watching a film and not real life is something that I think really connects the viewers to the film and its subjects. This was obviously done in the interviews, but also very strongly in the scene where the girl pretends to rip up a letter, with the same scene shown again after that. That honesty coupled with unusual aesthetic choices like the long out of focus shots (making you feel very separated from the subjects) gives the film a lot of truth that other “real” documentaries lack. It really gives the sense that the director is trying to be honest with you and let you see what he is doing and how he feels about his subjects. This is really special, and I feel like this approach, which allows for much more artistic decision-making, actually comes across as more honest than the approach taken in more straight-forward documentaries, which always seem to have more of a hidden agenda.
Shoot!! I just typed out a whole response and it got erased.
ReplyDeleteTo cut to the chase-
What is your opinion on viewing the Summer of Goliath through the nonfiction lens? Does it hinder our experience of the film as viewers? Do we find ourselves dissecting it for 'truth' and 'validity' that we desire in the nonfiction genre?
Also, Abbey and Fani had some interesting things to say in Nico's defense-- does it really matter what category it fits into? Is his story more pogniant and honest because it contains more artistic discision making?
The question of whether or not the “authenticity” of the characters/story matters, reminds me of a relevant discussion I had in a previous class on the relationship of History and Memory. We read a war memoir, which the author claimed was “true” and “from memory,” yet the events in the book were clearly told in a literary and embellished way. Within the accounts, though, the author addressed the reader about his imaginative-elaboration on the actual events. He made the point that it is sometimes necessary to tell stories with embellishment—or through a more interpretive, expressive frame—in order to be able to more closely convey, and do justice to, the actual emotions and trials that the characters went through.
ReplyDelete“No Lies” and “Summer of Goliath” have both brought up this question of whether or not it matters if the characters actually have the experiences shown in the film or not. In “No Lies,” we talked about the fact that, although it is totally constructed, scripted and performed, it shows an instance of a sadly common experience, making the film’s message still valid, although not factual. And, in its deception of how it is made (false-candid/home video) it also reveals to us the truth about subject-camera-audience interactions. Even though the characters and events were staged, the audience is very receptive to the messages of the film, because of how the filmmaking methods emotionally engage the audience. It conveyed the “truth of experience” through a fictitious scenario.“Summer of Goliath,” was equally as performative and emotionally effective, but through more artistic, and visually “poetic” means. The abstraction from the blurry sequences set the tone of the stories instead of just presenting them. Instead of “empirical” or entirely fictitious material, he combined them to make a more expressive, embellished representation of the reality of such peoples’ lives’. The long shots, the amount of silence, and the more surreal emotional scenes (such as the final mud-crawl shot) acted as visual metaphors to conveying the emotions of the characters without dialogue. The fact that he personally knows his actors, and based some interviews and scenes off of snippets from their real lives, yet he never fully ties together the connections between the different characters and stories, makes the audience work to interpret the meanings and emotions from their own personal, subjective lens. Whereas in “No Lies” the performace/style gave strong messages about societal and cinematic issues, “Goliath” left me with muddled feelings, unclear about the meanings and plot, if any, yet still emotionally affected by the viewing experience. So, to me, what matters is not whether the story and characters were actually "authentic," but that the filmmaker was able to, through semi-fictional means, evoke the feelings of being in the reality of such situations.
I really like what you said Jeff!---"ambiguity can work productively in a film to allow the viewer to operate in a more open space within the film"
ReplyDeletereminds me of painting.
Through heightened focus, ambiguity of plot (leaving the viewer in somewhat of a black hole), and by playing with the authenticity of film as non-fiction (having times that the film feels like documentary as well as very staged shots where it's obvious to the viewer that they have been staged) all open the space within the film for the viewer. Nico give us, as the viewer, so much room to breath and flow through the film. I think this is why I said that it only felt like I had been watching the film for 30-45 min.
It doesn't bother me that "Summer of Goliath" is actually a non-fiction film, but is actually refreshing to have a non-fiction film that feels very honest. I think it this feeling comes more from Nico (as filmmaker) than the plot or characters of the film. It becomes just as much, if not more about seeing and how the visual conveys emotion than about the plot and dialogue. The film let me swim and not be boxed in.
This may be a little off track but... Iv'e also been thinking about authenticity in regards to art in general. Like artist Richard Long who can never truly bring his work into the gallery in an authentic form. These living breathing sculptures that are made during his walks become more static or secondary in a gallery setting. This has also led me to think about the gallery system and the authenticity of that system. I don't know how I feel about this yet.
What about the authenticity of a movie theater? Your comment on authenticity reminds me of how one is transported somewhere else when watching a film in theaters, but then this experience is broken as soon as the lights are turned back on. The viewer knows this is not real but believes it for just two hours or however long the film might be.I think this dynamic is interesting in regards to more performative films like No Lies or Summer of Goliath because the suspension of disbelief is broken. In No Lies, there is a confrontation with the viewer because the film is set up as an interview, and at some points it feels as though the rape victim is actually yelling at you. This takes me out of my passivity as a viewer and starts to make me aware of the camera. I also feel as though I am a creepy voyeur into this woman's life.
ReplyDeleteThe summer of Goliath is less confrontational, but it does make me question the construction of a film, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. Fani brought up the scene of the girl ripping up the note earlier, and I think this is a good example of this. My immediate reaction to this scene was confusion because before that point I approached the film the way I would normally watch any film. That scene made me aware of the filming process because it was a rehearsal of a scene. This just makes me wonder if a documentary always has to be seen with an awareness of who or what.
Laura, I really enjoyed reading your post. To further comment on the authenticity of documentary, can't it be said that all films are documentary? Since people are acting like they would in reality, but acting appropriately in terms of the director's narrative. Even conventional, fiction cinema is realistic in that is a pushed and amplified form of real life. Then how can we even flatten Summer of Goliath or any film into a particular genre? I thought this quote from "Getting to the Story: Unwriteable Discourse and Interpretive Practice in American Journalism" fits perfectly in explaining the inner-workings of truth telling. The writer describes the process of news media and the different levels a journalist has to go through in order to create an article,
ReplyDelete“To understand what a journalist writes, it is necessary to understand his or her place in the journalistic field – the status of the newspaper for which the journalist writes, the journalist’s specific competence in the writing technologies privileged within the field, the position of the journalist within the sets of roles within the newspaper, and the history of the journalist’s prior relations with the social actors he or she is constituting as sources.”
It was great to hear Nico discuss his relationship to the film's setting, the actors, and each person's intimate story. I am still questioning my thoughts on this, but after knowing this information, his background and the process of making this film, I can now more easily place it into the documentary category. The organic, stiff acting quality, the personal closeness to each character's situation, which is then connected to Nico's memories and his choice to use people he knows and shares history with, seems to make this a personal and performative documentary with the help of poetic and aesthetically beautiful, perfectly shot scenes.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Nico’s mention on Brecht and how for him (Nico) there are many ways of creating alienation. Or concrete hurdles of access that are already there, but maybe making them more intentional or visible, to underline one’s own awareness. Even the interaction between professional actors and non-actors that live in the environment in which he is shooting highlights this. Constantly creating several layers through which we can filter meaning and our own belief/disbelief. He suggested in making fiction the way one makes documentaries, or at least that he feels he works in this way. I’m excited that we are having this discussion about what demarcates truth because it’s a hard one. And in this way it all relates back to memory and how even memory is constructed. Sometimes as Laura mentioned in her story of the memoir shes been reading in class, it takes revision to return to a memory or a thought and make clarity of it and be able to express more clearly to others besides yourself what it is, or what happened.
ReplyDeleteTo keep talking about fiction/nonfiction, I wanted to include this work by Yoshua Okon, he is a Mexican artist who is making exciting things and I met this summer. One of his projects is called “New Décor,” here is the text about it from his website:
For New Decor, Okón asked permission to use a furniture store in Los Angeles as the stage for an improvisational soap-opera. Three cameras were set up so as to reveal the whole artifice and the process behind the production. The "actors" were recruited from costumers visiting the store during the four-hour period in which the piece was shot. The volunteers had to improvise on "the love scene", "the jealous girlfriend scene", "the painful breakup scene", etcetera. The possibilities were endless and the outcome of this artifice as unpredictable as life. The final result is a video installation with three adjacent rear-projections onto self-standing screens as well as a photo series. Each projection gives a different angle of the same action with out-of-sync audio tracks echoing each other.
And the video: http://yoshuaokon.com/ing/works/newdecor/video.html
It might be just me, but just because something imitates life, doesn't make it a documentary. True Lies specifically I don't see as a documentary so much as an experimental film drawing attention to the permeability of the truth and the trust the viewer gives the filmmaker almost automatically, just shot in the style of a documentary. That being said, in the case of Summer of Goliath, I found myself periodically wondering while watching it if it was a documentary or if anything was staged. To me, I don't know if I would call it documentary or fiction, but I also asked myself if it mattered to how I feel about the final product as an experience. To me personally, I say no. Summer of Goliath stands regally in the middle of the genres. I say so, because though the final product is mostly fiction, it's almost a chronicling of the filmmaker himself, his place(status, familiarity, etc.) in the world in which he films and the ties he has to it. It's magnificent. I find this grey area really exciting and inspiring. The way Nico chose his cast, some professional actors, some not at all, was also really interesting and in of itself ambiguous, adding layer upon layer to the story/stories.
ReplyDelete