When it comes to documentaries, it is impossible to create a truly unbiased film. The magic of a documentary is that it leads us to believe that it is true, authentic, unbiased, real. But when ever an image is captured with the camera, an edit is made, or a take is chosen, the film maker inadvertently infuses within the documentary a feeling, perspective, slant, an angle (no pun(s) intended). The rhythm of these elements will suggest one thing or another that was or was not originally in the captured story.

Those who are documented are also affected by the documentary process. The mere presence of film makers can change the way people behave. They might begin to say things that they might not otherwise say. If a documentary film maker is taking on the role of an Anthropologist, a culture may be affected in a way that causes them to act different from normal. I’m sure the human race would not act the same way if alien scholars came down from space and began to make a documentary on us.

It’s important to note that the term documentary, when used to describe a film such as Super Size Me, capitalizes on the effectiveness of the sense of truth. Film maker Minh-ha explains in her writings that a film creates this illusion through cinematic technique. Long takes, 29 frames per second and hand held camera are a few examples of these techniques. By keeping these things consistent, it keeps the viewer from feeling that the documented account has been altered. Hand held camera also dilutes the feeling that the footage has been staged, prepared, created or somewhat fabricated.

I can't stand seeing people get tricked into the believability of mere cinematic tricks. I must have some type of "documentary immunity" inside me. I remember mentioning in class my reaction to the documentary film Super Size Me. The intent of the filmmaker was to make all of the McDonald’s burgers look disgusting and undesirable, but it only made me hungry.

Long takes subdue the illusion that the film has been edited or modified, and that time has not been altered. It gives a feeling of actually being there, in the moment as if you yourself were taking an authentic account of the events. In the sci-fi thriller Children of Men, there are several scenes that are one take. The tension is incredible in these scenes, which tend to occur during climatic action sequences. Normally in heart-racing scenes like these, continuity editing is used to create the rhythm, but this single-take effect really enhanced these scenes, making you feel like you're in the action, documenting with your own eyes the events unfold. One of the long-take sequences even went as far as a blood splat that was flung onto the camera lens, and remained there throughout the shot. The end effect was a heightened sense of reality, authenticity, and documentary.



Minh-ha's own film Reassemblage uses these techniques to create the illusion as well. Several intimate close-ups invoke the feeling of actually being there, being close and unobstructed to what you are seeing. (On the other hand I think she went a little to far with the many close-ups of breasts, she showed more of these shots than necessary, seemingly with the premise that showing the breasts is a natural, uncensored view of the culture’s way of living. If that’s true then why did she include an abnormally high amount of close-up breast shots? I didn’t see an equal amount of, say, bare feet. Perhaps the fact that breasts are so out of place in our and other cultures made Minh-ha feel the need to emphasize it.)



Based on her writing, Minh-ha doesn’t feel that her documentary should hide under that veil of truthful intention. She believes that a documentary is and must be a subjective view from the viewpoint of the film maker. She asks, what is the value of an authentic idea and to whom is it valuable? Where and from whom did the idea of meaning become such a ruling maxim for documentary and Anthropological accounts? What makes one source or narrative technique more accurate than another?

Interestingly, Minh-ha argues that this is an idea founded by a vain premise. She says “The West moistens everything with meaning, like an authoritarian Religion which imposes baptism on entire peoples.”

Why should documentarians seek to impose a meaning or value on other cultures, especially when the culture that is being evaluated doesn’t place meaning on their own practices in the way an Anthropologist does? Not only that, but the Anthropological account is being created for assessment from another culture, from the viewpoint of another culture. Objectivity in this instance is impossible. Quite possibly the best objective viewpoint is from the viewings of many different subjectivities. Such a diligent practice would likely expose the “authentic-looking” subjectivity of documentary as being almost comical and adolescent in it’s attempt to seduce us with it’s “true-feeling” cinematic techniques.

The bottom line that Minh-ha is trying to state with her text is that documentaries are not capable of truly being factual, and many film-makers simply run the gamut with our societies preconceived notion that documentaries are in fact true (eg. Morgan Spurlock, Super Size Me; Al Gore, Inconvenient Truth; Michael More, Bowling for Columbine). Minh-ha says, “The result is the elaboration of a whole aesthetic of objectivity and the development of comprehensive technologies of truth capable of promoting what is right and what is wrong in the world, and by extension, what is ’honest’ and what is ’manipulative’ in documentary”.

And she’s right, after all objectivity is something that, ironically, cannot be objectively achieved, though it is sought and attempted by many. For some film makers, just creating the symptom of authenticity is good enough.

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