notes on documentaries

In contemporary documentary, it is fashionable to obscure the presence of the filmmaker. Interviews are edited so that the subject appears to speak extemporaneously; we neither hear the question nor see the person who asks it. I think this is done to distinguish documentary film from journalism, and is particularly attractive in an era in which we revere filmmakers and shake our heads at journalists. The two documentarians I can think of who tend to appear on camera are Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock; they are also the two documentarians I have heard refer to themselves as journalists, Spurlock one of the gonzo school. Ken Burns would never call himself a journalist, and probably not a historian, although for different reasons.

This inclination to remove the interviewer often rewards the audience with a greater sense of intimacy, and avoids some of the ego-driven showboating that can appear when a filmmaker gets caught up in performing (as with Kenneth Brannagh, a filmmaker though not to my knowledge a documentarian). However, it can also get in the way by limiting narrative structure, and it can force considerable distortions of the truth. I am less removed from the moment by noticing the interviewer than I am by noticing the efforts by which the interviewer is obscured.

One has only to look at The Last Waltz, which could have filled its time (and then some) with concert footage and raves from the crowd, but in which Scorsese sits openly with The Band, and you see notebooks and tape recorders. We understand that Scorsese is a stand in for us, because we are seeing the concert from a vantage point that is given to Scorsese, and not to members of the audience. We understand more about The Band, who are not everyday people but performers surrounded at all times by groupies and journalists; we understand that even when The Band is relaxed, they are constructing and performing their image and/or promoting a view of the best direction for rockstars, music, and American culture. For them to appear in this way is more honest than for them to seem unaffected by dialog; it is truthful that they, the performers, are performers, and answer questions from fans and journalists when cameras are not rolling, or at least not these cameras.

This betrays the real difference between documentary and journalism, which is a difference of intimacy. Journalism tells us stories we have a right to know; they tell us what is selling, who is buying it, what politician said what, and who was responsible for the new real estate development that we all know will mess up area traffic. This is noble and imperative, and can be an art even though it is necessary, just as pottery, quilts, and furniture can be art. Documentary, on the other hand, is privileged access; it is a view on the world we are lucky to be allowed to see, whether it is a beautiful event in a beautiful place most of us could not travel or an honest and personal conversation we would not otherwise get to hear. These things are not owed to us; we do not need these vistas to be good citizens, and the interview subjects could finish their lives without telling anyone how it felt to stand in a line in a certain year. It would be no dark secret.

I like documentaries when they recognize this privilege, and this intimacy, and react to it humbly, with the grace of a good guest. I like documentaries when they wonder.