Incident at Oglala

   Incident at Oglala is a documentary recounting a shootout on a Lakota Indian reservation between FBI agents and Native American residents. The film begins by establishing that on June 26, 1975, two FBI agents were following suspects in connection with the stealing of a pair of cowboy boots. They perused the suspects onto a property were a shootout erupted, leaving the two agents dead. The film then leaves the specifics of the story and goes on to establish the aura of the situation and the tension that existed not only between whites and Indians, but between Indians and other Indians. It recounts recent violent conflicts between the government and Indians at Wounded Knee, and between differing ideologies concerning modernism and tradition that were tearing apart the Indian community.

By revealing the different individuals motivations and a history surrounding the event the film reveals to us that the case is not cut and dried as it may have seen at first and simulates the exhaustive process of investigation and questioning that is required to gain an understanding of both the event and the situation as a whole. The film relies on interviews from people representing both sides of the issue as well as reenactments that change depending on who is recounting the story, and that never get too specific. While it can be difficult reenacting a disputed event without being biased, the film does a good job of presenting both the interviews and reenactments in a way that allows the viewer to come to their own conclusion(or lack of conclusion) of the story, instead of being force feed a point of view.

The filmmaker is faced with a lot of challenges in making this film, not the least being the unfortunate history of conflict between the US government and the Native American population. Another challenge is that they are telling an unresolved story concerning a volatile situation and individuals who still wielded power at the time the film was made. This required a lot of examination and judgment in picking and choosing what to include in the film. It is also a challenge to create a sense of balance, as it is not a one-sided issue.

While they never come to a specific conclusion, the filmmakers present evidence of corruptions in our judicial and law enforcement systems, as well as biases that exist in our societal structure. It also points out that there was a violent and fearful situation on the reservation, and brings attention to the idea that any resident being followed by a mysterious car on the reservation might have reason to fear for their life and act in self defense. But the film was not made to convince its audience of a specific conclusion, but merely presents the situation and allows the viewer to thinks for themselves, which has probably increased the impact that the film will and has had.
   Joe Steigerwald

This Film is Not Yet Rated

This Film is not Yet Rated Is a documentary about the rating system run by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is not in the style of cinéma vérité but instead has an expressed purpose of attacking the system in place and exposing inconsistencies and biases that exist in the way films get rated in the US.

The film gives a brief history of cinema censorship and talks about how the film industry has chosen to “self regulate” itself to avoid government censorship. The filmmaker hires a private detective to infiltrate the MPAA and find out the identities of the film raters, which are kept secret (the process of which is chronicled in the film). The film contains various interviews with directors and their experiences with the rating system. It goes on to surmise the characters of the film raters and suggests that they discriminate against films with homosexual content and treat sexual content more strictly than violence. Also it uses animated figures to paraphrase the filmmaker’s interaction with the MPAA, instead of using actual transcript.

The film is has a clear bias and makes little attempt to represent both sides of the argument. The founder of the MPAA is made out to be a devious liar, and his words are also hand picked in a way to make him reflect poorly, as opposed to interviewees who agreed with the filmmaker who got ample screen time and opportunity to explain their views. It tries to make the case that the raters do not represent the ideologies of everyday Americans, even though the MPAA claims they do. It also claims that the MPAA and the studio system are in cahoots and act in mutual benefit of each other, but offers no explanation how or why they benefit from each other.

While the film does expose inconsistencies and lies of the MPAA, it does not offer any alternative idea or seem to value any form of rating system. It offers very little viewpoint from people who have benefited from or used the rating system and makes it seem that few people take the rating system seriously. Which if this was true, NC 17 movies would not average millions less in revenue, and filmmakers wouldn’t be getting upset over the power wielded by the MPAA. Overall the film suffers from a lack of clarity in its purpose, and a lack of balance in its viewpoints, which seems to reduce the impact of the film by diminishing its ability to facilitate open-minded thought. However it also carries with it many valid ideas regarding the way America thinks about and reacts to the content in our films, and can be a valuable tool in gaining a better understanding of the way films are created and distributed in America.

Joe Steigerwald

 

…And The Pursuit of Happiness

Louis Malle’s film …And The Pursuit of Happiness, is justly titled, as Louis Malle, a French Ex-Patriot who after years of traveling the world for filmmaking, becomes an American citizen.  After filming endless amounts of disjointed footage as Malle traveled across America for 3 months, it seems that the film is a connected collection of American vignettes, narrated by an immigrant, instead of a natural born citizen.

A main point at the beginning of the film is by a man known for his hand in starting the American Dream, however, Louis Malle quotes Thomas Jefferson with his worry for the future of immigrants, that immigration will turn the colonies into a  ”hetergenous, incoherent, distracted mass.”  With this quote in mind, the rest of the film displays immigration on both sides of the fence, with one side showing the “melting pot” as an empowering force of combined strengths from numerous cultures, and the other side being a massive display of conformity overpowering individual freedoms.  This is best displayed by a Cuban woman who couldn’t bring her daughter from Cuba, but brings a dog who follows commands in English, and not Spanish.  In an interview, the Cuban woman criticizes her hometown, and praises America for the ability to have “whatever you want.”  However, when Malle films the Cuban district of Miama, which he says “is Cuba,” other immigrants are more thankful for their ability to come from Cuba and be a part of the development of Miami.  

On the other side of the fence, Malle shows a Vietmanese police officer speaking to Vietmanese immigrants.  Malle seems to want to display immigrants bringing their culture from the home’s and installing it into the American psyche.  A student interviewed by Malle shows how immigrant students have a high demand for education, as one student has a choice between Columbia University and Princeton for Medical School.  The same student works in a family owned grocery store when not studying for college entrance exams.

As the vignettes continue, similar stories bounce immigration like a volleyball over a net.  Malle does an excellent job showing numerous opionion’s on the topic, and his narration as an immigrant seems to show a certain criticism for America, that is overwhelmed by the massive opportunities that America held in the early 1980’s.  One of the final scenes shows an Indian family who have a beautiful home in San Jose, California, but converted the barbeque pit into a small Hindu altar.  The family explains how easy life is in America, as owners of a few hotels, and soon a small bank.  However, some cultural differences do not change, as the parents explain the Indian family culture of the younger generations caring for the older generations.  

Personally, as someone who knows a person of Indian descent who is a first – generation American, and whose parents would have made perfect candidates for Malle’s film in the early 1980’s, it is interesting to see how different one generation in American can change the culture in ways that are unexpected.  The final scene shows a man trying to convince Malle that 1/3 of immigrants return home because their dreams are destroyed, which of course is impossible, because returning to a country is almost more difficult than coming to America in the first place.  However, the seemingly brainwashed man talk about the future of relations with Mexico, in which he describes the current situation with Mexico as if he could see into the future.

Trekkies

After the intensity of Capturing the Friedman’s, I decided to take in a documentary that was on the lighter side. It’s also something that I find completely interesting, considering I am a huge fan of this TV show. I decided to watch the 1996 “Trekkies,” a film by Roger Nygard. It is about the phenomenon of Star Trek and more notably than that, the mass amount of loyal fans of the show. I find the film to be extremely fascinating because I have been called a trekkie by some of my friends over the years, and as soon as they actually watch the show, they stop calling me that. They stop calling me that because they see that there is a lot more to the show, and that is something that Nygard, as the film maker, is trying to show through this documentary. The idea of Star Trek is much more than ‘Beam me up Scotty,” it is a completely optimistic view of the future, where race, color or gender are no longer economic factors.            

            Now, Nygard does show some of these fans that take it a bit too far, however Nygard’s also has personal interviews with these fans and shows us the audience that these are real people, and if you actually listen to what they would have to say, they don’t seem as crazy. His use of the personal interview, makes this documentary. The interviews are telling this story of these people and Star Trek. There is very little use of archival footage or scenes from the television show, it’s all about talking to these people and understanding why they are so enthusiastic about this show. One example from the film that really comes to my mind, is Barbara Allen. She is a woman from Arkansas who was summoned for jury duty. Seeing as how she considers herself a commanding officer of the U.S.S. Artumus,  the Little Rock chapter of the Federation Alliance, she wore her Star Trek uniform to the trial. This is about a 10 minute sequence of the film that Nygard really shines as an excellent filmmaker. There is a clip from CNN news and Inside Edition I believe, about how the ‘Star Trek Juror’ is rocking the court system of Little Rock. Everyday as this woman goes into and out of the court, the media is there trying to get as many pictures and ask as many questions as to why she is doing this, and she walks right on by. Now just by seeing this, it’s shown that she is a little crazy and maybe she should be on this jury. However, through the interview that Nygard conducts with Allen, we see that she really has a pretty decent and true point when you think about it. She states, “You can put on a uniform for baseball, basketball, football, anything for the big game and it’s alright. But as soon as someone puts on a Star Trek uniform, people get a case of the giggles. The ideas of Star Trek are going to be the blueprint for the 21^st century. I really love the portrayal of the world that Gene(the creator of trek) created for us in the future.” I would never walk around in a trek uniform, but if you think about it, she’s right. Some people like to be different through basketball, others, Star Trek. The way Nygard portrays her in this film through her interview, makes her point seem not crazy and that she really has something extremely positive to say. And Nygard does that with everyone that he talks to in the film. There is a dentist who turned his office in to ‘Starbase Dental,” and he and his family all wear the uniforms on a regular basis. People may think that’s dumb and think this guy is a geek, but Nygard speaks to him and makes him seem like a  regular person. He states, “There’s always a connotation that the dentist is….not a fun place, all we’re trying to do is change that.” Without that interview, he would seem like a bit of a geek, but he’s just a dentist trying to keep his business alive.

            Nygard’s portrayal of these people through the interviews, is also really pleasing and enjoyable to see as a viewer. This is one of the only documentaries I’ve seen where someone isn’t being portrayed in a negative way.  He makes of these people look like anyone one else and not peculiar in anyway. Brent Spiner, who plays Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation said in the film, “People perceive the fans as these off beat, peculiar kinds of people. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who wasn’t peculiar in someone, Star Trek fan or not.” Nygard even show that the casts think that these people are smart and just like any one else. I have my own opinions on whether or not I think they are weird, but that’s not the point. Nygard’s filmmaking makes me think they maybe they aren’t, and that’s the mark of any good documentary, it makes you think about things more deeply. Nygard accomplishes that very well.  

Taxi to the Dark Side

Dilawar, an Afghani taxi driver, was a footnote to court hearings concerning at least a half-dozen American soldiers and officers dealing with the torture of detainees during war.  A footnote, in so many cases, is a fact or an aside excluded from the body of an argument, but can often change the impact of the argument.  As one of the interviewees in Taxi to the Dark Side states, this footnote can be the Devil in the details.  The entire documentary deals with footnotes, forgotten bits of information.  Just as Dilawar was a footnote to the court martial of American soldiers who were just following orders, those soldiers, who detail much of the movie’s main story arc, were footnotes to a war that wasn’t concerned their stories.

The movie begins with landscape shots, beautiful and serene, that survey the pastures and crop fields of Afghanistan.  This was the landscape in which Dilawar was raised.  He was, according to his brother, a hardworking youngman, he laid a rock wall that served as a fence for his family’s peanut farm.  When Dilawar was no longer able to work in the fields he volunteered to drive a taxi between their small village and the larger metropolitan areas.  Dilawar never returned from one of his trips as a taxi-driver.  Dilawar died at the hands of American soldiers under strict orders to retrieve information from detainees concerning terrorist actions, but with no specific guidelines as to what, exactly, they were supposed to do.

Each of the soldiers and officers interviewed who were sentenced in the torture trials, are lit in Taxi to the Dark Side, by strong key light on a near-90 degree plane to his profile.  This casts half of the face in extreme shadow.  The lit half of the face is not blown out, but all of the features are very clear.  In the beginning of the piece, this lighting is very disorienting and raises huge questions as to the filmmaker’s attitude toward these subjects.  As the piece continues and interviews with attorneys, journalists, and politicians are presented (mostly with very flattering light) it becomes clear that the soldiers have always been in a half-light.  Certainly, the piece concedes, these men were capable of very grave things, they have a dark side.  However, because of torture policies that came strait from Rumsfeld (who made light of some torturous activity by saying that he often stood for longer durations than these detained men), the soldiers, on the frontlines were kept, at least, half in the dark to take the fall if anyone should be held accountable.  But, finally, the story was kept half in the dark.  These men had jobs, lives that were ruined because the presidential administration had already acquitted themselves of all fault.  These soldiers had been pushed to footnotes at the bottom of the proverbial page of history.

The movie spends most of its time on footnotes.  Presenting many facts in the center of a black frame preceded by an asterisk as a a B-roll cutaway.  Even as the movie employs famous footage of press-conferences, presidential speeches, and journalistic footage it will cut to a footnote describing the subtext of Colin Powell’s UN adress pushing for an invasion of Iraq.

The main story arc begins with Dilawar’s death in Bagram Air base in Afghanistan.  This story takes a back seat as those soldiers who had beaten him, interogated him, eventually, killed Dilawar, tell of how they had been ordered, non-specifically to brutalize this inmate. Their story goes to Abu Graib, Gauntanamo, the White House.  The taxi to which the title refers is a figurative ride that beigns at a minor footnote among thousands of pages and ends as a social and artistic indictment of a presidency, a war, an era.

Upon watching this piece I sat silent in the dark as the credits rolled past.  I had been familiar with much of the press on Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay, but still could not digest the experience of seeing this movie.  The insistence upon examing the minutae of facts and stories that had heretofore been overlooked, the presentation of soldiers as both perpetrators and victims and the insistence upon the guilt of a President that I personally did not like but still felt some civil duty to respect had been all but too much. I wanted a cleaner answer.  But, the movie told me that there wasn’t any.  I, personally, had to accept fault for the fate of Dilawar and so many others because of my apathy, my ignorance as to what my government was doing.  Certainly, I am not completely at fault, I was, after all, half in the dark.

Comedian

“Comedian” is the Jerry Seinfeld driven documentary that portrays the life of a stand-up comedian and what he/she has to go through in this field.  Its basic format is a duality of the up-and-coming rookie comedian (Orny Adams), versus the established veteran (Jerry Seinfeld) trying to re-invent or re-establish his career that originally put him on the map.  This duality prompted me to one of the more relevant stories in Wisconsin sports this past year, the quarterback situation in Green Bay.  The way the camera portrays Seinfeld, who basically came out of stand-up comedy retirement, is much like Brett Favre coming back to football and having to prove himself all over again.  Seinfeld comes onstage and thundering cheers are amongst the crowd even before he begins his material.  This contrasts to Orny Adams who is trying to make it big in stand-up comedy and follow in Seinfeld’s footsteps, much like Aaron Rodgers to Favre’s footsteps.  This comparison just goes to show how the filmmaker’s use of editing (cuts from the rookie trying to make it and veteran trying to re-invent) to form this duality giving a great emphasis on how there is sort of an apprenticeship and appreciation of former and current comedic artists.  (This is also aided by numerous cameos by other comedians) It’s not easy either way, starting off or getting back into the swing of things.

The main technical part that jumped out at me was that 90% of the film was short on location and at night. There is one great quote, “Comedy isn’t a daytime thing,” that added to idea of nighttime footage and why daytime was hardly used.  To put it simply, people are more willing to have a good time and laugh in the  dark.  The night footage was often grainy at times though, due to the pure fact that they were shooting predominately in a cramped comedy or nightclub with little light available. This lack of lighting may have given the film a “nitty, gritty” behind-the-scenes feel so I can understand the logic behind it, but I feel it hurt the film because it was visually boring, hard to watch, and somewhat depressing.  It was hard for me to find any real images of beauty.  This was probably done intentionally because it leaves the viewer to find the beauty in the joke telling or material preformed verbally however.  Although, I wonder if this was done purely because the venues are at dark nightclubs? Maybe it was the only practical way to give the audience a sense of realism without coming off as too manufactured or fake.  Most of the interviews have an ad-hoc or impromptu type feel, as the subject mater is talking to the camera while eating in between sets or backstage before a bit.  This reinforces the essence of realism and truth apparent throughout the entire film.  While it may be boring, it has a structured theme and doesn’t sway from it.

The main message brought across through the use of this truthfulness (by camerawork, editing, and sound) is that while the jokes are funny, the amount of work put into these jokes are not.  Once the audience gets a feel for the comedian backstage the movie will give a sample of the performance for a quick laugh.  After a quick laugh, it’s back to the serious side of stand-up and all the frustration that comes with it.  Hand-held and on the fly recording is the best way to do this and makes complete sense why the filmmakers would choose this method.

Most of the film was of behind the scenes interviews that used b-roll of traveling to segway from one scene to the next.  This is a pretty common method I’ve seen in numerous documentaries and I wish the filmmakers could’ve thought of a more creative way to transfer the viewer from one scene to the next.  It would’ve been nice to end a shot on a microphone stand and then match cut it to a different mic stand from a different act of a different comedian instead of just going to traffic lights or an airplane.  Most of the film is dark and uninspiring to look at so at least use some sort of transition to add some fervor so that the audience can better see the “light at the end of the tunnel” message of stand-up comedy and that while its hard work it can still pay off in the end.  Otherwise the audience is left with this hopelessness that stand-up comedy is a dead end.  The film uses the story or Orny Adams and his rising success to get across this message but it isn’t used or reinforced through the filmmaker’s techniques enough.  At the end of the film I still felt uninspired and a tad depressed when I believe the film was trying to accomplish the opposite.  Yes, it made me appreciate and see how much work is put into stand-up, but it took away from the real reason anyone goes to see stand-up, and that’s to laugh.

-Lydell Peterson

American Movie – The Making of Northwestern” (1999) by Chris Smith & Mark Borchardt.

This documentary features three point lighting and sit down lighting to film Mark Borchardt, his family, and friends who helped him create his feature film, “Northwestern”, his short horror film, “Coven”. “American Movie” uses “in the moment” shooting of Mark Borchardt working. The audience sees him working at his numerous tasks throughout the three years that the film covers and has him working on both of those films. The camera shows the audience, Mark Borchardt shooting his film, and traveling to the locations he wants in his movie. This movie displays an intermingling of Mark Borchardt’s family life and his dream of making movies. The audience also gets a look at the financial hardships and the tragic loss of his children only pushes him harder to make his film.

After not being able to procure funds for his feature length film, “Northwestern”, Mark Borchardt goes back to his short horror film, “Coven”, a film he hadn’t touched in two years. Now that Mark Borchardt decides to change plans and finish his short horror film he still needs funding. With the help of his uncle Bill Borchardt and his uncle’s money, Mark is able to borrow three thousand dollars to finish his short film. In, “American Movie”, the audience follows Mark Borchardt’s journey in making his film. Along the way the viewers see Mark Borchardt’s private life, his moment’s depression, small successes and, his ability to rally all the help he can get to make his film, “Coven”. Throughout the film the camera appears as this floating thing among the action and at other times it is directly involved with the action. In,” American Movie”, there are also points were Mark Borchardt is alone just talking to the camera about what’s currently going on in his life and the film. During,” American Movie”, the viewers get to see clips from the movies Mark Borchardt made in his childhood. Ultimately this documentary ,” American Movie”, is about how badly does Mark Borchardt want to make it and what will he do and sacrifice to get his film, “Coven”, made?

As the camera follows Mark Borchardt the audience gets to see well composed and framed shots that are white balanced and lit well to insure the audience won’t miss anything. Overall,” American Movie”, is well made, esthetically pleasing and is a movie all filmmakers should see at least once. Mark Borchardt’s plight is engaging and touching to the viewer. Near the end of the film you see and feel the rush and tension of trying to get the final copy of,” Coven”, made and premiered. The audience goes to the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee’s own Mitchell Hall in the film department with Mark Borchardt were we see the post production process of, “Coven”, the camera acts as a fly on the wall as we observe the editing process and the tension to get the final copy of the film made. At the end of ,”American Movie”, the audience gets to see the big turn out of Mark Borchardt’s short film,” Coven”, a massive line of people waiting to see Mark Borchardt’s film. Afterwards Mark Borchardt is talking to his uncle Bill Borchardt about funding for his feature film, “Northwestern”, following that is a title card saying Bill Borchardt had passed away, and he left Mark Borchardt fifty thousand dollars to make the film.

I thought this was a good ending for, “American Movie”, because now Mark Borchardt could make his feature length film. This documentary was an excellent film to watch. Cinematically the approach of a meshed story about Mar Borchardt’s personal life, family life, life on the set, seeing parts of the film ,”Coven’, along the way, the pitfalls and the possibilities for Mark Borchardts journey during, “American Movie”, were all excellent to see. This documentary was filmed perfectly and the amount of work that went into was most defiantly staggering to make a great film like this. I see why this film was awarded The Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance film Festival. It is well deserved.

Matt Gonia.

Film 203 Introduction to Documentary Production

Born Into Brothels

Zana Briski’s film Born Into Brothels seems to be divided into many separate parts and roles.  The first part evokes the normal introduction to the film’s concept, that the lives of children whose mothers are prostitutes can be changed for the better.  The director of the film sees photography classes as a way to expose the lives of prostitutes without intruding as an American filmmaker often can.  The children each seem to have a voice and a certain aptitude for exposing their normally hidden lives.  The first part of the film also has the characteristic low-budget documentary feel, as we see only hidden camera video footage of the Sonagachi Red Light district, and only a few interviews with the children, followed by the still images the children take with disposable film cameras.

Once the film escalates to more urgent situations, where female children are preparing to “join the line” and male children seem to spiral towards a path of poverty and eternal slum-life, the film transforms into a more message driven film: that the lives of the prositute’s children must be changed, by being accepted into a boarding school or otherwise escaping their future lives.  The first part of film has a simple role, to introduce the topic, but this escalation offers a new role for the film, to instill a sense of despair for the viewer, that the children may never escape their life as the child of a Calcutta prostitute.  This despair however, has raised numerous criticisms for the film, mainly that of all things to give to these children, photography classes may be more sensationalist than life-altering.  Only one student was allowed to travel abroad to a photography conference in Amsterdam, and according to some updates, that student never really escaped his inevitable life as a lower-class slum citizen of Calcutta.  Overall, the photography collection raised an estimated $100000, which is a substantial amount of money when converted to the Indian Rupee, so some children were able to afford boarding school and other forms of education.  But the film seems to use the children’s photography more for its own benefit, whereas English and Math classes might have been a better choice for a long-term plan to influence the lives of red light district children.  

On a personal level, as a student who has visited parts of India, and lived with residents of Thane, a suburb of Mumbai, photography is somehow symbolic of India’s need to let the rest of the world what India is like, and what the rest of the world’s involvement is with India.  However, when one actually encounter’s an Indian child begging for spare rupee’s while waiting for a street light to change to green, the first reaction usually isn’t to hand over a camera.  Of course, the documentary filmmaker’s developed a sense of trust and ultimately a family-like bond with the children, but one wonder’s what would have happened to the children if they could have been educated in more academic topics, and entered boarding schools with an education.  The children’s lack of any education was one of the main obstacles for getting the children into a school, as well as their family ties with Red Light District workers.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005) by Robert Greenwald

This is a documentary about the company Wal-Mart and the people this company affects. The filmmaker starts off the movie with found footage of a highly pixilated scene from what could be a video taken off You Tube.com or some other internet source of a news networks publicized celebration event of a Wal-Mart convention. The CEO and President of Wal-Mart Lee Scott comes on stage around hundreds of people who are cheering and he starts talking about how great the company is. Robert Greenwald takes the viewers all around the United States to small towns and county’s that have had the most trouble with the Wal-Mart company. He provides both on the spot and sit-down interviews of people whose small town family business has had to shut down do to Wal-Marts stores. In this documentary Robert Greenwald even takes the audience to China to have people talk about what it is like to work for the Wal-Mart company in there country. He shows the poor living conditions and people talking about the low wage they are paid and the long hours they must work knowing that if they cause any trouble they easily can be replaced.

Robert Greenwald presents throughout the film this pixilated convention of the CEO & President Lee Scott talking about how great the Wal-Mart Company is, how fair it is, what the company does to help the environment, and the equal pay opportunities it gives it’s employees. Throughout the film Robert Greenwald breaks apart and places segments of this entire spectacle after each issue that the CEO Lee Scott talks about and reveals from interviews and documents of just how far off Lee Scott is. An example is Lee Scott will be talking about how far the Wal-Mart Corporation will go to protect the environment, then Robert Greenwald will fade to an image of a map of the United States, zoom in on a state and a check mark will appear and list the name of a small town or county were the Wal-Mart Corporation has violated either state or federal law when in comes to laws that protect the environment. In this film Robert Greenwald will occasionally fade an image to black and white and place red text over the image that will usually display facts from legal documents, telephone calls, and interviews about what Wal-Mart really did in one of these instances. This is an excellent scare tactic the filmmaker uses to get peoples attention. Considering this is what the whole film is about creating awareness and getting people’s attention to focus on the wrongs that the Wal-Mart Corporation has done in the past.

This film was an interesting piece to watch because you got to see an investigative look at the Wal-Mart Corporation. The audience never hears Robert Greenwald’s voice when he is interviewing a person about Wal-Mart. He presents a movie that all though may be biased to the anti-Wal-Mart side he still makes an attempt to present facts and let the audience decide what to think of the Wal-Mart company. During the movie you never really hear any instances of the good things the Wal-Mart company has done from anyone except the CEO and President Lee Scott. You only see the counter points to those statements from the filmmaker Robert Greenwald’s interviewees, video clips, documents, and phone calls. So the viewer is stuck in this jumble of facts and presumptions about the bad things the Wal-Mart Corporation has done without any latitude for the viewers to relax and weigh the facts and what the filmmaker is not bring to light. Overall this Documentary was a good film to watch, however this student would strongly advise the viewers to be careful when watching the film because one can get the feeling that Robert Greenwald is bringing on these strong scare tactics and anti-Wal-Mart message to get across his point but there doesn’t seem to be a place for the viewers to sit back, absorb what they have taken in from the film and find out for themselves what they think of the Wal-Mart Corporation. One should realize the audience must do this with every Documentary they see and always ask what is not being said by the filmmaker and what could I find out on my own about the Wal-Mart Corporation? The filmmaker present strong evidence that the Wal-Mart Corporation is not a perfect company, but he does use interviews, on location shooting, video clips, to bring across his message for his film.

Matt Gonia

Film 203 Introduction to Documentary Production

Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride (2006)

Right off the bat I would like to say that this documentary was not picked off of our list. I was planning on doing another documentary, but I was in the Hunter S. Thompson mood. If you want more info on this documentary you can find it here.

This documentary is devoted to the life of Hunter S. Thompson and more specifically, the legend of the man. The film opens up with home footage of Thompson doing, well… Hunter S. Thompson sort of things; like shooting a home-made flame thrower and swimming with a Reagan mask on. The credits are spliced in between the home footage and a live drawing of the title on canvas.

The credits roll right into interviews with Thompson’s friends, family, and some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. An interesting view of the interviews; they are only on half of the screen, as the other half is taken up by more footage of Thompson. The first interview you see on the screen is with Gary Busey, and it plays out as though Thompson himself wrote it. For those of you who do not know who Gary Busey is, he is a wildly entertaining (read that as crazy) actor. He refuses to do the interview the way Tom Thurman wants, but rather tries to script the way they begin the conversation, hilarity ensues.

After a slew of interviews with people who worked with Thompson, such as Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro, there is a narrator who talks of the background on Thompson. Facts like where he lived, where he grew up, and who his family was were given in detail. All of this is done with a voice-over and pictures of Thompson, his family, and anything related to him.

The whole documentary is shot in the “floating head” technique; interviews spliced with b-roll shots. With entertaining celebrity interviews, as well as close friends giving valuable insight on Thompson, this is a documentary for anyone, as well as anyone who knows a little about Hunter S. Thompson.

- Tanner Johnson