Chapter Two

Question 2: Why Are Ethical Issues Central to Documentary Filmmaking?

            Within this chapter Nichols discusses how documentaries represent the world, the ethics of representing others, the overall purpose of ethics, and the filmmakers, people and audience. He starts with the 3 ways documentary engages with the world by representing it.

1    1. Documentaries offer us a likeness or depiction of the world that bears a recognizable familiarity.

This is based on the belief that “we see what was there before the camera it must be real (it really existed or happened)” (Nichols 42). Also the ability of the photographic image to reproduce the image before it, its indexical, makes us believe that it is reality itself represented in front of us, while the story or proposal presents a distinct way of regarding this reality.

2    2. Documentaries also stand for or represent the interests of others.

Documentary filmmakers often provide the role of the public representatives.

3    3. Documentaries may represent the world in the same way a lawyer may represent a client’s interests. They make a case fore a particular interpretation of the evidence before us.

They don’t not simply stand for other or represent them in ways they cannot represent themselves. However, they actively make a case or propose an interpretation to win consent or influence opinion. Nichols gives The Selling of the Pentagon as an example, which “represents the case that the U.S. military aggressively fuels the perception of its own indispensability and its enormous need for continued, preferably increased funding” (Nichols 44).

When it comes to ethics of representing others in non-fiction or documentary the “people” are treated as social actors rather than professional actors. A social actor is basically someone who lives their life more or less as they would normally with cameras. Their value to the filmmaker consists not in what a contractual relationship requires but in that their own lives embody. Nichols says, “Their value resides not in the ways in which they disguise or transform their everyday behavior and personality but in the ways in which their everyday behavior and personality serve the needs of the filmmaker” (Nichols 46). Of course like for all films, you must obtain a release form for anyone filmed.

The importance of ethics especially comes in to question when you are filming someone’s real life. With questions like should we disrupt someone’s life to tell he/she that they’re making a huge mistake? Or that the film could be used as legal evidence against him/her? Nichols gives a common litmus test for answer many of these ethics issues, which is the principle of “informed consent” (Nichols 46). In other words, the participants should be informed of the possible consequences of their participation.

Relating filmmakers, people, and of course the audience is very important when it comes to documentary films. Nichols gives us the most common formulation of this three-way relationship.

•      I speak about them to you. Basically the filmmaker takes on a personal persona, either directly or through someone else (59).
•     It speaks about them (or it) to us. This one has a sense of separation between the speaker and the audience. The film or video appears to arrive, addressed to the audience, from a source that lack “individuality” (63).  
•     I (or we) speak about us to you. This one puts the filmmaker into a position of separation from those he or she represents to a position of commonality with them (65). 

Chapter One

Question One: How Can We Define Documentary Film?

            To answer this question Nichols uses seven different sections. The first one is called, “Enter the Golden Age”. In this section he discusses the current Golden Age of documentaries, which began in the 1980s and continues today. “Documentary has become the flagship for a cinema of social engagement and distinctive vision,” says Nicholas (2). He then discusses the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and their acknowledgement of many bold and Oscar winning documentaries of the Golden Age, including The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and Down and Out in America (1986). In the next section, “The Search for Common Ground: Defining Documentary Film” Nichols repeats the idea that “documentaries are a distinct form of cinema but perhaps not as completely distinct as we at first imagine” (Nichols 6). Nichols then gives us John Grierson’s definition of documentary, “creative treatment of actuality” (Nichols 6). This definition balances the creative with respect to the historical world. However, commonsense ideas about documentary prove a useful point. Three commonsense assumptions about documentary are:

•     Documentaries are about reality; they’re not about something that actually happened.
•       Documentaries are about real people.
•    Documentaries tell stories about what happens in the real world.

        Giving us a definition something like this, “Documentary film speaks about situations and events involving real people (social actors) who present themselves to us as themselves in stories that convey a plausible proposal about, or perspective on, the lives, situations, and events portrayed. The distinct point of view of the filmmaker shapes this story into a way of seeing the historical would directly rather than into a fictional allegory” (Nichols 14). In “Fuzzy Concepts & the Process of Change,” Nichols talks about how documentaries cluster into different types or modes. He also reminds us that definitions of documentaries are always playing catch-up and adapting to changes in what counts as a documentary and why. The reason for most change occurs because of what goes on in one or more of the following four arenas:

1.    Institutions that support documentary production and reception

2.   The creative efforts of filmmakers

3.   The lasting influence of specific films

4.   The expectations of audiences

        The next three sections contain extended discussion of these four factors, institutions, filmmakers, films, and audiences. Lastly, in one of these sections, “A Corpus of Texts: Conventions, Periods, Movements, and Modes” Nichols discusses the six principal modes of documentary filmmaking. They are:

•       Poetic Mode—emphasizes visual associations, tonal or rhythmic qualities, descriptive passages, and formal organization.
•        Expository Mode—emphasizes verbal commentary and an argumentative logic.
•        Observational Mode—emphasizes a direct engagement with everyday life of subjects as observed by an unobtrusive camera.
•        Participatory Mode—emphasizes the interaction between filmmaker and subject.
•        Reflective Mode—calls attention to the assumptions and convention that govern documentary filmmaking.
•        Performative Mode—emphasizes the subjective or expressive aspect of the filmmaker’s own involvement with a subject; it strives to heighten the audience’s responsiveness to this involvement.   

“In a time when the major media recycle the same stories on the same subjects over and over, when they risk little in formal innovation, when they remain beholden to powerful sponsors with their own political agendas and restrictive demands, it is the independent documentary film that has brought a fresh eye to the events of the world and told stories, with verve and imagination, that broaden limited horizons and awaken new possibilities.”

                                                 --Bill Nichols 

Introduction

            In the intro to Introduction to Documentary by Bill Nichols, Nichols introduces the lay out of the book. The book is organized into chapters by a series of questions involving issues of definition, ethics, content, form, modes, and politics. The introduction discusses the differences between documentary and fiction saying, “documentaries address the world in which we live rather than a world imagined by the filmmaker, they from the various genre of fiction in significant ways” (Nichols xi). A few of those significant ways are different assumptions about purpose, different quality of relationship between filmmaker and subject, and prompt different sorts of expectations from audiences. However, these differences guarantee no absolute separation between fiction and documentary. The notions of what is distinct to documentaries and what is not has changed over time. According to Nichols, the documentary tradition relies heavily on being able to convey an impression of authenticity. The introduction continues with summaries of each chapter and the questions asked by each. Nichols ends the chapter with his hope that the strong link between production and study will remain vital.

“We feel as distant fascination when we witness the lives of other who seem to belong to the same historical world that we do.”

--Bill Nichols