Posts filed under 'Second Entry'
Bowling for Columbine
Bowling for Columbine
For those who haven’t seen it yet (myself until today), Bowling for Columbine is an account of the tragic, school shootings at Columbine High School (home on the rebels) and then a detailed investigation of why there are so many shootings in America, as opposed to other countries around the world.
The documentary is ‘Produced, Directed and Written’ by Michael Moore. This stood out to me because it says its ‘written’ and typically when I watch a documentary I assume it is unwritten. Thinking further though, I suppose in many cases there aren’t any ethical questions raised, for narration, or for archival purposes. Our book (a Very Short Introduction) even mentions ‘reenactments’ as part of documentary. So on second thought, writing a narration may be a really useful tool for certain documentaries, namely those who need to explain a situation, or are reporting a historical event.
The interviews in the film were prompted such that they lent themselves well to the film’s mission and agenda. For instance, Michael Moore goes to the home of Charlton Heston to for an interview. The film had already established that Charlton Heston was the president and spokesman National Rifle Association (NRA) and had made an appearance at a pro-gun rally in the hometown of Columbine High School only a short time after the shootings. Later in the film, we see that he travels to Flint, MI, again, just a short time after the after another school shooting, this time a six-year-old girl. During the interview at the Heston estate, Michael Moore brings out a picture of the six-year-old victim. Now, I don’t mean in any way to defend CH, but this was a set-up. I mean what was he going to do at that point? walk away? A dramatic addition to the agenda of the film – - not such a great addition to CH’s reputation…(Though he is an insensitive, ignorant, egocentric, bigot).
Having that said, the interviews always had Michael Moore’s voice in the cut; so it was like you’d hear the question, and then you’d see/and/or/hear the interviewee’s response. Would this be vereté? This seemed to be an effective way to hold an interview, it made the conversation comprehensible for the audience and (seemingly) transparent.
There was a lot of archival footage in the film. They used it well, by pairing the image with the word that was being spoken. For instance, they were talking about war, and air planes, which prompted an archival image of a WW2 fighter plane to appear simultaneously on the screen. This was very effective visually while also making the historical aspect easier to follow. This would be an easy enough tool for us to use in our films; pairing word and image simultaneously to cue the audience both visually and auditorially (is that a word?)
Like Ryan talked about on the first day of class, many shots in the film were composed in such a way that it would include things like signs, or stickers. That is actually how I knew that Columbine High School is ‘Home of the Rebels.” Shots were also set up to get signs like ‘Union Yes’ and such. This is another ‘easy enough’ way for us to get information across, especially considering our time constraints.
Ok, the last thing I’ll write about is in the K-Mart scene. The scene is important to the film; two surviving victims of the Columbine shooting are taken to a K-Mart event to hold a conversation with some of the K-Mart personelle about their ‘17 cent ammunition.’ The scene begins really, really overexposed. The kind of overexposed that you can’t really even figure out what is on the screen. The camera follows the two victims from outside (sun and brightness) to inside (darker, inside lighting). I pose a question: Do you think that the camera crew went inside to white balance the camera before coming back outside to following the victims outside to inside, so that once they were inside, the camera was already white balanced and ready to go?
Add comment October 3, 2008
Sicko, 2007
More importantly how does he tell this story and what types of film techniques does he use in this documentary? In this film Michael Moore uses found news footage of presidential news broadcasts, found footage of health care officials from insurance companies, on the spot and formally set interviews with people who have been screwed over by insurance companies, documentation given to him by these people which displays how insurance companies will do anything to avoid a pay out.
During the film Michael Moore shows B-roll of a government hearing where a doctor who was the head of a medical department and also a liaison to a major insurance company made a confession in this hearing saying that the insurance corporation would pay her and the doctors under her bonuses, the more they would sign off on to reject care for patients the higher the bonus. This is one of the many bits of footage Michael Moore uses in his film to show the American Health Care system is in very bad shape. In the beginning of the film you get to meet a married couple in their late 50’s from Denver, Colorado. This couple went bankrupt after their insurance wouldn’t pay for all their medication, they had to sell their home and move into a spare room at their daughter’s house. When Michael Moore shows then events of the move in him and his crew seem to be in the background and only observing the some what tens situation of the move in and later on when the couples son is helping then move in he tells his parents how much of a pain they are being. Michael Moore doesn’t interject any comments or pull away from the tension he lets this guy act the way he will and later on sit the couple down and talk to them about it.
There are points in the film were Michael Moore narrates to what is happening in the situation, but for the most part he simply shows who he is interviewing and lets them talk about their side of the story. Occasionally you will see him in frame interacting with the people he is talking to and you will see him actively engaged in conversation. This way seems to put the people at easy and keep their attention away from the camera. In one specific occasion in the film Michael Moore goes to Paris, France and is talking to people there about the National Health Care system. In this specific instance he is talking to Americans citizens who have moved to French and become French citizens. He is sitting at a large table at a nice restaurant and having what looks like a fun dinner with old friends and he isn’t grilling them about the system noir is he interviewing them he is just talking to them; actually it’s more like they are talking to him about it and he only get to ask some questions and look amazed as he hears their answers. And the film continues on about how much better the Health Care is over seas and isn’t as good in America. But this is when you really start to wonder what was left out during the editing process. As I watched this movie and got to this mid point in the film I really started to wonder what wasn’t Michael Moore covering or what wasn’t he telling in this documentary. It came across my mind that France, Great Brittan, and Canada’s Health Care System couldn’t be all good just like the American Health Care system couldn’t be all bad. There are issues that need to be addressed and guilty parties in violation of the law that need to be brought to justice. Would it really be so bad is America Nationalized it’s Health Care System? I don’t think so. But it also comes to mind when watching this film that these are the kinds of questions we need to think about and try and find an answer to.
During the course of the film the audience gets to meet a completely diverse group of people all of whom are being screwed over by the American Health Care industry. This group consists of everyone from the couple in Colorado to rescue workers from 911 suffering sever health problems. Near the end Michael Moore decides to help this group of people by organizing a charter boats to take them to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Michael Moore pretty much asks the question if terrorists that are being held there get better medical attention then some US citizens why can’t he take the citizens to the base to get medical treatment. The way he filmed this made it feel almost like a major motion picture narrative. He had cameras in helicopters following the boats, action sequences of the boats heading for the naval base, and also heroic shots of these people looking towards possible help as they head toward Cuba. When the group finally get to the naval base all the cameras stay close to the boats and don’t cross into the militaries turf without the permission. There are a few shots where there is a medium shot of Michael Moore standing next to a few of the people he brought to help talking into a bull horn trying to get admittance in to the base. It is crossed cut with master shots of the entire naval base from a distance, needless to say no one answers.
The film ends on a happier note when Michael Moore takes everyone to Cuba, to seek the medical care they need and get the same medicine they would get in the US for way cheaper prices. The way he films this is he gets permission from the doctors to be in the examination rooms of each of the people he brought with and stays back and observes. Later on in the editing room he adds his narration of how everyone got helped and taken care of, but for the most part he captures the patient’s reactions to be helped and hearing those words the doctors say, “We can get you taken care of and healthy again”, “We are going to heal you, you will be alright!” It concludes the film on a happy note. I thought that Michael Moore filmed this documentary with just the right balance of narration, cinematic film making techniques, on the spot interviews and formal interviews, found footage, and just sitting back and letting the people this effected the most tell the story. This was a very good film and an interesting piece to examine.
Matt Gonia.
Film 203 Introduction to Documentary Production
Add comment October 3, 2008
Into Great Silence
Upon watching Philip Groning’s “Into Great Silence” I was overcome with the feeling that this was not a documentary that I was watching. This was even though I had already heard the back story about the director shooting the film completely by himself in a solitary monastery in the French alps, but still it felt like something I had never seen in a documentary before. So as the movie progressed I mulled over this question in the back of my mind, trying to figure out just what it was, and as I did this one name kept coming to mind, Robert Bresson.
After the movie was over I still couldn’t shake these feelings so I went back to Bresson’s book on some of his film theories “Notes on the Cinematographer.” After reading through this again I think I can better explain, with his help, just what I found so unique about “Into Great Silence.”
In Bresson’s book he lays out what he feels is the ideal and pure way of film making which he calls “cinematography” which is not to confused with the standard usage of that word as someone in charge of lighting a film. Bresson says “Cinematographer’s film where expressing is obtained by relations of images and of sound, and not by the mimicry done with gestures and intonations of voice (whether actors’ or non-actors’). One that does not analyze or explain. That recomposes.” (pg. 9)
First the idea of using “relations of images and sound.” In the movie the monks have sworn to silence so a good portion of it is without dialog. These scenes are handled in one of two ways. Some are done straight forward with a shot or series of shots shown that all relate and have sync sound or close too it. The more interesting scenes use a very subdued collage effect. Often the sound will remain constant while the camera shows us different details of the monk’s world. sometimes these shots are all from the area of the sound and sometimes they work in a contrasting way. This separation of sound and image cause you to pay more attention to the small details that make up most of life for the monks.
Even more interesting is how some of the scenes with some form of verbal communication are handled. Often the peson talking is never seen, or their mouths are obscured. The first time we hear them is when they all gather to sing a song. We see them enter the chamber and prepare to sing, but when the song starts we see a series of shots, some of the lyrics of the song they are singing, and some of different things around the room, but never of them actually singing. This seperation of sound and image, of body and voice, really seems key to what this movie did to me. This lack of cohesion doesn’t merely reflect the monks ways of life.
By not allowing us a straight forward rendering of these lives and their surroundings Groning seems to want to show us something instead of tell us something. This is why I think the film did not feel like a documentary to me. Almost all documentaries are centered on telling you something, wether their goal is to educate you or to get some kind of political idea across. Even “High School”, the film I watched last time, had a clear agenda underneath its removed exterior. This film felt as if it had none of this. It simply wanted to show us the world of the monks and maybe even more so our world.
While I understand that this might all seem pretty subjective and a bit too emotional, it is all I can offer up at this moment. While I have some ideas forming about how exactly this movie worked on me I still have been haunted with scenes of it as I replay it in my mind wondering what exactly i just witnessed. All I know for sure is that, at least for me, it had a power that I have never before felt in a documentary film and I would really like to figure out what it is. I do think Bresson and his writings are very relevant, not only the bit I quoted, but also many other things that I don’t have the time to go into. At the very least i think it would be interesting to try and use some of Bresson’s theories in the documentary field, which i think this movie did even if it wasn’t a conscious inspiration.
-John Olsen
Add comment October 3, 2008
Bus 174
Bus 174 documents the cause and happening of a city bus highjacking on July 12, 2000 in Rio de Janeiro. From chronicling the rough street life of the perpetrator, Sandro do Nascimento, the film worked to show us the large population of such individuals striving to live in Brazil, what they must put themselves through in order to survive every day, and how the Brazilian government works to “correct” them which the film leads us to believe is what caused the rather mild-mannered boy – his character testified by several interviewees including his aunt – to commit such a serious felony.
The first difference that comes to mind from the previous documentary I watched, “Salesman”, is the raw tone and firm stance of the film. Rather than objectively following the lives of four bible salesmen Bus 174 seemed to be on a deliberate pursuit to uncover flaws in the Brazilian government, particularly its correctional institutions, from the beginning of the film’s production phase. It starts by targeting the police in charge of the hostage situation that neglected to properly manage the crowds of spectators on the streets as well as the dense presence of media coverage. Some police officers that were interviewed concealed their identity which must cause people to wonder how the Brazilian government handled the police situation when viewing the film. Establishing the event, along with police testimonials, are interviews from the actual hostages. Their presence in the film draws a rather erie parallel between them and the incident as their interviews are shown in conjunction with footage from the actual highjacking often times with Sandro pointing a gun to their head. The film then begins following the life of Sandro. We are told early on that his mother was killed before his eyes at a very young age which led him to the streets. From there he began stealing food and money to live but also quickly became involved with drug use. He eventually was sent to prison for several years in a correctional facility of which the sub-human living conditions are revealed to us through footage taken of the very prison Sandro was committed to. The film then takes us back to the highjacking when Sandro has decided to exit the bus with a hostage. The situation ends tragically when a SWAT member takes it upon himself to rapidly approach Sandro carrying the female hostage by her neck and shoot him at point blank range in the head. The terrible miscalculation on part of the SWAT member causes him to miss Sandro and hit the woman resulting in the only fatality of the entire ordeal. This final upset brought chaos and sadness to the conclusion of this highly comprehensive film. Bus 174 seems to humanize the vast number of Rio’s street children forced into committing crimes like stealing in order to survive and incriminate the Brazilian government in effect to properly managing their correctional system to ethically reconnect them with society.
Documentaries like these, so prone to controversy, have been the trend lately in journalistic cinema. Depending on one’s view of this type of filmmaking this is not necessarily a bad thing but it certainly deviated from the original goal of documentary filmmaking which was to inform. These types of films seem to be more about uncovering flaws or poor ethics in people or institutions in society and less about simply informing the audience about new information with no bias motives. We are all familiar with these types of films and they exemplify the kind of subjectivity I want to avoid when I make a documentary. Bus 174 was a very well made documentary but it does fit that modern category.
Technical/Production notes:
The film’s introduction was quite effective. The first shot is an arial view of Rio taken from a helicopter and presents us with an establishing voiceover as the camera sweeps over the well kept parts of the city, over a ridge, and revealing the tucked away lower-class community. This opening really got my attention and sets up the scale of the issue the film presents.
An interesting decision on part of the filmmakers came when the film took us on a tour of the prison the high-jacker attended. I don’t know what the technical name for this effect is but the footage was modified to look like a negative off a film strip. This change gave the footage much distinction as the camera takes you up close and personal with the almost unlivable conditions of the crowded cells and their inmates which yell and protest into the camera. I am not sure if this manipulation was used for security reasons or effect but it certainly makes you remember it.
When watching the film’s extra features I was able to learn about some other unique techniques that were used in the production of this film and think about how I could apply them to my work. An interesting production concept was practiced when the hostages were interviewed. Before the interviews were recorded the filmmakers had the interviewees watch footage of the actual event in order for them to recollect isolated events during the highjacking more clearly to give a more detailed interview. Another concept used in production was to have the film editor piece together the film separately from the directors rather then them being avidly involved with the process. The director, Jose Padilha, believes that in doing so you allow more ideas into the production and that it is the directors job to select which ideas belong and which don not. This is a production philosophy I have given much thought since I viewed the film and will have to test the theory on a project of mine some day.
A considerable portion of the film was made from stock footage of the event and, as I understand from director comments in the special features, was difficult to acquire since apparently the institution in Brazil that handles the media flow is not designed for that type of distribution. I can’t even begin to imagine as an aspiring filmmaker how they were able to acquire the media coverage to be used in the film.
A vast number of diverse interviews were taken from people such as friends and family of Sandro, police involved in the hostage situation, the hostages themselves, a qualified sociologist, as well as people who tend to the benefit and are familiar with street kids and their way of life. I thought how painstaking and tedious it must be to arrange interviews with all these people but also their importance to the film. One interview was of a gang member who knew Sandro quite well during his years on the street and was totally covered to hide his identity due to having killed police officers through his involvement in a street gang. The interview was said by the director to have been very uneasy since the he would often stop and start the interview as he wished and frequently told them to erase the tape and start over. Again, it is hard for me to imagine what it must have been like to film such an interview but the filmmakers must believe that such experiences are necessary to the whole of the film. I have gathered from this documentary, as well as the films shown in class, that it is ideal, if not essential, to acquire interviews from a variety of sources in order to build a comprehensive, realistic, and cohesive documentary.
-Quinn Hester
Add comment September 30, 2008
