Documentaries have always been fascinated witht he death penalty and those who sit on death row. There is something truly unique about waiting to die. There are few other circumstances where a usually healthy person sits still, waiting for that day. Often, they know the exact day.
One example of our fascination is the infamous last meal. Last meals are known for being the very last thing the inmate eats before being executed. The inmate gets to choose whatever they want to eat, within reason.
A photo collection went viral late last spring called "No Seconds" by Henry Hargeaves. He gathered information on infamous inmates last meals. He then recreated what they would look like then photographed each one. The photos are ominous.
This may hint at why there are so many death row films. Errol Morris made the Thin Blue Line. Werner Herzog made Into The Abyss. And do not forget fiction films like Dead Man Walking. It is a powerful subject matter.
Scene recreations are a common form of documentary technique that is often used when there is a lack of archival footage or the archival footage is not adequate quality. There are many issues that arise with the use of reenactment. Some people consider it to be untruthful, but others argue that if the truth is already known, re-enactments can deliver it cinematically.
In 1988, documentary filmmaker, Errol Morris released a documentary that proved the innocence of a death row inmate and resulted in his release. The New York Film Critics Circle named A Thin Blue Line the best documentary feature of that year. On top of that it received numerous awards and recognition. Despite this film’s praise when the Oscar nominations of the year came around, this film was nowhere to be found. Roger Ebert, a top film critic, was outraged. He called it “the worst non-nomination of the year,” and blamed it on the academy’s “inability of academy voters to appreciate innovative filmmaking.”
This film was made in 1988 about a crime that took place in 1976. Morris’ signature style of filmmaking is his use of dramatic reenactments. A Thin Blue Line was one of his earlier films, but today he is known for these reenactments. Morris attributes this technique as to why A Thin Blue Line was overlooked, “Critics don’t like re-enactments in documentary films – perhaps because they think that documentary images should come from the present, that the director should be hands-off.” Although the crime occurred in the past, Morris was not given a pass for his use of reenactments. He even had one confused Dallas Morning News reporter ask him, “So, how is it that you managed to be on the roadway (the crime scene) that night?”
Morris disagrees with the academy’s decision to not acknowledge his film as a true documentary because of the techniques chosen. Re-enactments, like any other type of film, photography, or communication, can be used to search for the truth or subvert it. It is not the use of re-enactments itself that is wrong, but how they are used. Morris and the Texas Court of Appeals believe they were used to uncover the truth.
Morris disagrees with the academy’s decision to not acknowledge his film as a true documentary because of the techniques chosen. Re-enactments, like any other type of film, photography, or communication, can be used to search for the truth or subvert it. It is not the use of re-enactments itself that is wrong, but how they are used.
The documentary takes many forms. Some talk about the past to make commentary on the here and now. Others digest contemporary events, aiming to prevent the unsavory future these events suggest. Some docs, like those of Morgan Spurlock or Michael Moore, center around the filmmaker's personality as they interact with subjects on camera and make each investigation a personal matter. Alternatively, others, like Our Nixon or The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, consist almost entirely of vintage video clips, making what's generally relegated to dusty history books fresh again, while the filmmaker and the present day recede in importance. From the complex, interview-driven stories documented by Errol Morris to the poetic meditations of Werner Herzog, the documentary sports a wide variety of approaches to the medium and they all have the capacity to be done well.
Personally, I feel the most interesting of these is the avant-garde or experimental documentary. Often featuring little to no dialogue, these films rely on imagery and montage to create visual tapestries of a place/environment, a culture or an experience. In my eyes, this represents the documentary in its purest form. Uncensored observation meets expressive organization. Of course, these films don't always hit the mark (Take General Orders No. 9, for instance. While a nice idea, the film was a misjudged, overly-prosaic exercise in navel-gazing, in my opinion). However, when they do find the right balance, something transcendent can be achieved and I'd like to take this opportunity to highlight three of my favorite examples.
MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA
Dziga Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera was one of my earliest encounters with experimental film. Just as the title suggests, the picture follows a man with a movie camera as he travels throughout a city, documenting the many events that take place there over the course of a day. Inside, outside, on busy street corners or at the beach, there is nowhere his camera cannot go. More than just a spectacular extended montage capturing the rhythms of urban life in late-1920's Russia (the Soviet Union, then) it was a grand demonstration of what film can do...what it can see and where can it go. This wasn't the first film to bring the medium's power to the spotlight, but it was a startling accomplishment nonetheless. Widely known and written about over the 85 years since its release, there's isn't much of anything new I can add to the discussion, but in closing, it's worth noting that it set the stage for another comprehensive masterwork...
KOYAANISQATSI
It's fitting that Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi should follow Man with the Movie Camera in my discussion, because it is basically Vertov's film, circa 1982 (or maybe 1975, because that's when production started). This is a gross simplification, though, because it definitely distinguishes itself and there's a lot going on, philosophically in Reggio's film. It's less than 90 minutes, and yet, it feels gargantuan in scope. It's morbid and apocalyptic, but also vibrant and full of energy. It takes a bird's eye view of the cities and the deserts, but routinely returns to ground level to observe the people in their varied uniforms and social statuses. In the Hopi language, the title means "Life Out of Balance" and the film explores this concept. Beginning in the natural environment, it soon transitions into the urban world, where the cacophony and rapid pace of modern life is on display. The film thrives on visual juxtapositions. City layouts and highway strips resemble circuit boards and massive housing projects, once shown as formidable and impressive are demolished one by one. Technology is on the rise and artificial constructs are taking over and this neglect of the natural world, this rapid secession from our roots has led to a deceptively normalized chaos and disorder that has already begun to alter who we are. Koyaanisqatsi is stunning and a one of a kind experience.
LEVIATHAN
Released only last year, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel's Leviathan proudlycontinues the tradition of the non-verbal experimental documentary, incorporating several nuanced touches in the process. Simply put, it is one of the most unique audiovisual experiences out there. Set on a fishing trawler in the North Atlantic, somewhere off the coast of Massachusetts, the film is as immersive as it gets, placing fisheye cameras along the side of the boat, in the water with the net and on the main deck with the fishermen, as well as their eviscerated catch. There is a complete lack of talking-head interviews or voice over commentary. The images speak for themselves...and they speak volumes. Non-distinct soundscapes and inky, unnerving visuals cause the film to take on a surreal quality (that absence of voices to give the viewer a sense of comfort adds to this as well). The boat gradually becomes like a living being (perhaps the sea monster "Leviathan" of the title), a shuddering, groaning behemoth with the fisherman acting as its silent, downtrodden servants, endlessly repeating a series of routine motions and mundane tasks.
I would describe the entire experience of watching the film as: riding a mechanical monster through the sinister waters of an alien planet on which no dry land exists. No part of the film is fantasy, but that odd sense of mythologizing and the notion of creating a surreal narrative out of real life footage works its way into every aspect of Leviathan, from the otherworldly glow of the debris in the underwater sequences, to the way the nets look and sound when lowered into the waters at night (like a lengthy, metallic tongue) to the way the birds are shot (an intense low-angle shot bobbing up and down in the sea, as the creatures glide along just above and occasionally dive violently into the water, hunting for what treasures the trawler has excreted). The sea takes a toll on the people, the ship takes a toll on the beings of the sea and the aesthetics of the film emphasize this mutual harshness. Many will find it tedious, but as far as I'm concerned, it's one of the most impressive documentaries of the last decade.
If it's not already obvious from the write-ups, all three of these films come highly recommended from me. Experimental documentaries have the unique opportunity to engage with audiences on both a visceral and intellectual level and they must be celebrated for this reason. It's important to note that they do not necessarily stand above all others, though (as my use of "pure" maybe alluded to earlier). Hoop Dreams is ambitious and heartbreaking, Grizzly Man is a fascinating character study and Grey Gardens is compellingly voyeuristic. All of these films are brilliant, but none of them stayed with me quite like Man with the Movie Camera, Koyaanisqatsi and Leviathan have...
...and I think there's something to be said about that.
Reenactments and
documentaries have gone hand in hand since the inception of the genre.
Reenactments, although often unappreciated, take the viewer a step further than
just hearing the story being told; they place the audience into the story.
This, when done well, results in an unbelievable viewing experience that can
beautifully blend the lines between documentary and narrative film
making.
In my opinion, When
talking about reenactments in documentaries you can really only start with one
film, Errol Morris’ 1988 film Thin Blue
Line. The Documentary is an investigation of the murder of a Dallas Police
officer, Robert Wood, in 1976.David
Harris testified that Randall Adams, who was with Harris the night of the
killing, was person guilty of shooting the officer in cold blood. The film
progresses to show the series of events, like poor timing, misinformation,
ulterior motives, and downright lies, that lead to a wrongful conviction. The
story behind the documentary is fascinating in and of its self and should be
viewed just for that, however for me the true gems of the film are the multiple reenactments of the murder. The
each reenactment is shown from a different witnesses’ point of view, and
changes slightly with each of their interpretations of the crime. This was done
so successfully that it allowed the audience to better understand the case,
separate facts from fiction for themselves, and come to their own conclusion
about who was actually guilty.
The
reenactments in Thin Blue Line are
vastly different from the reenactments of most film and television
documentaries. Having them shot in very low key lighting, and having characters
in question silhouetted gave the documentary’s cinematography an almost
Film-Noir feeling. These techniques are effectively used for a number of
reasons. First, and perhaps most obviously, it helps set the over all mood of
the film; uncertainty in regards to the case. The low-key lighting also adds a
stark contrast between the interviews and the reenactments; while the
silhouetted framing of the suspects reinforces the idea the viewer has limited
information about what actually happened. Ironically Thin Blue Line was not considered for Best Documentary, because
according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences the reenactments
made the movie “a fiction film,” not a documentary, I however strongly
disagree.
Another
documentary with reenactments worthy of mentioning is, my personal favorite
documentary, The Stories We Tell directed
by the talented actress, and arguably more talented writer and directorSarah Polley. The movie is multidimensional
and has many twists, turns, and subplots, but is for the most part about the
life of Sarah’s mother, Diane and an affair that she may or may not have had
which may or may not have produced Sarah. The movie also deals with her
family’s different interpretations and memories of the story and the past,
dealing with the main theme of the film, the faultiness and unreliability of
memory. The story of Sarah’s mother’s life is complexly beautiful, sorrowful
and somehow simultaneously joyful, and was portrayed excellently in the
reenactments.
However,
the fascinating thing about the reenactments in this film are the fact that
most people don’t even realize that they are reenactments; they look exactly
like old home movies. Sarah shot the reenactments on a Super 8 camera,
mimicking, almost exactly, the way her brother shot the real home footage as a
child (some of which is also in the film). The painstaking efforts to find
actors and actress who look almost identical to the actual family members also
didn’t help the viewer realize they were not watching real home movies form
Sarah’s child hood. Sarah at first indented for the reenactments to be “hokey”
and obviously not real, but she soon changed her mind. This decision was a
brilliant one because it really adds thetheme that memories are not always all them seem, or as reliable as we
think they are.
Of cores, crappy reenactments can be just as
entertaining…
