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DOCUMENTARIES
TO REVISIT
While
every documentary should be unique, it is important for documentary
filmmakers to be well-read when it comes to documentaries to see
different ways that those who have come before them have dealt with the
joys and challenges of non-fiction storytelling. Until recently,
it has been difficult to see documentaries on demand. But now many
documentaries are easily available through Netflix, Amazon, or the local
video store. With this in mind, we wanted to revisit a few
documentaries which reflect a wide variety of styles, but all share the
power of effective story structure and character development.
IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS
by James Longley
(Reviewed by Adele Schmidt)
When I was watching the film
Iraq in Fragments I was asking myself what is it a documentary filmmaker
can learn from this film.
I would like to focus on three
points which this film is mastering at a high level.
-
Even if we are confronted
with a situation of chaos, it is important to find order in the
chaos and give a precise structure to the film.
-
Access to the characters is
key to tell a compelling story.
-
The early determination of
the stylistic approach (how to tell the story) helps to set the path
for the whole film.
Order in the chaos
The chaotic situation of an
ongoing war is not the easiest place for a filmmaker to organize
production and find a structure for telling the story in a meaningful
and comprehensive way. James Longley's approach to divide the film into
three parts makes complete sense. Each part spotlights a different side
of Iraq: The Sunni, Shiite and the Kurd perspectives.
The division in
the film reflects the fragmentation of the social and political
landscape of Iraq, a fragmentation which has deepened over the years of
war and which presents one of the greatest challenges to initiate a
process of reconciliation and peace. By presenting each side, the
filmmaker is not trying to give a broad perspective; instead he
concentrates in each part on one personal story, the story of ordinary
people. The director uses no voiceover or narration to move the story
along. He just holds the camera close to the characters and events we
see unfolding. If we get to listen to a voice, it is the voice of each
character who comments on situations and reflect about their lives.
In the Sunni side, we get to
know Mohamed, an 11-year old boy who lives in a working class
neighborhood in Baghdad and who works in a mechanic shop. The Shiite
section is narrated by young cleric, Sheik Aws al-Khafaji and with him,
the camera leads us into different situations with militant Shiite
followers of Moktada al-Sadr in Nasiriya and Najaf. The third story is
filmed in a pastoral Kurdish region, in a small village outside of
Erbil. Each story is filmed with immense closeness to the characters and
it is the payoff of Longley spending almost two years in Iraq to film
this documentary.
Access to characters
Getting close to the characters
allows James Longley to access the chaotic situation and through their
eyes and voice we have a deeper look into war torn Iraq. It seems
contradictory but the closeness opens us up a wider picture of each
section.
Mohamed has lost his father to
the regime of Saddam Hussein. His boss, owner of the mechanic shop, is
like a father for him. Or at least that is what Mohamed says at the
beginning. But the camera tells another story. The boss mistreats him
and humiliates him on a regular basis. Mohamed cries and the boss laughs
in satisfaction. In the relationship between boss and Mohamed, we
observe the components of living under a dictatorship: the abuse of
power and irrational violence of the oppressor and the fear, confusion
and frustration of the oppressed.
If the first story is
concentrated on the inside of the mechanic shop and the tense
relationship between Mohamed and his boss, the second story happens
mostly on the streets. Young men scream in a religious procession and
hit themselves with chains. We are now on the fanatic side. In another
moment, young men organized in their own sectarian group decide to
execute their view of law and order a market turned upside down in
search of vendors of alcohol. Covered with masks, they beat their
victims and detain them randomly. It seems that the reality is dominated
by young men. If women appear at all, we see them crossing the street in
the background of the frame or kneeling before men in power, begging to
free their husbands.
It is the setting of a little
village and the landscape which makes the third story quieter. An aging
Kurdish father and his son are the main characters. They express they
desire for normality and peace, but again, as soon as politics gets
involved, chaos breaks out. On voting-day, the Kurds get into a fight
with the police.
All three stories give an
unknown look into the life in Iraq today and each story makes clear that
the human sacrifice paid in this war has huge dimensions.
Stylistic Approach
In this film it is clear how
important it is to define a style before even setting up the camera. The
close and immediate camerawork makes this film authentic and compelling.
The camera is on a constant move and is followed by a fast and extremely
nervous editing. James Longley is the director, photographer and
co-editor of the film. It is the same hand which executes all three
departments with restlessness and precision.
This stylistic approach is
appropriate for a situation of chaos and uncertainty. In a certain way,
we feel thrown into that dangerous and complex reality out of which it
is difficult to make sense.
Conclusions about the war in Iraq will be
drawn in years to come. IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS does not pretend to have
conclusions, but it tells an internationally relevant story on a human
scale.
DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE
by Hubert Sauper
(Reviewed by Adele Schmidt)
In 2006, Austrian filmmaker
Hubert Sauper was nominated for an Academy Award for his documentary
DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE. Though the film lost out to another European
production, MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, it is worth a look back at this film
as an example of a multi-layered look at globalization. Sauper's vision
is dark, his pictures are disturbing and the realities he uncovers are
uncomfortable. But, through his films, it is clear that Sauper is an
highly intelligent filmmaker who has a deep understanding of the
political, social and economical complexities of the realities he is
filming. As I was watching this film, I was grateful for it, because so
many western films dealing with Africa are made by filmmakers who do not
take the time to to get involved with the situation and do not spend
enough time the with characters to gain their trust. The results are
superficial films where the filmmaker is speaking for the people and
over-relying on narration to explain everything which is not delivered
from the film itself.
Sauper's approach is different. I still remember scenes of his 1998
documentary KISANGANI DIARY: FAR FROM RWANDA, in which he follows Hutu
refugees after an attack against their camp in what was then Zaire (now
The Democratic Republic of Congo). There is always a strong commitment
of Sauper to his topic and his characters and that is what makes his
films so remarkable. In DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE, Saupert transports us to
Tanzania, to the small town of Mwanza on the shores of Africa's biggest
lake Victoria. We learn that the town sees a lot of business because of
the massive exports of a fish called the Nile Perch. This species of
fish was not known in that lake before the 1960s when it was introduced
to the lake. A predatory species, the fish multiplied, but also caused
the extinction of other species to the point that the lake could be
considered a mono culture.
And here starts the complexity of the problem: We are at a lake which is
ecologically out of balance waiting for a disaster. The export of the
fish is seemingly good for the development of Mwanza because it gives
jobs to tousands of people who work in a processing plant. Two
airplanes come every day from Russia to this little town to load in 500
tons of frozen, packaged fish fillets and fly them back to the
restaurants and dining rooms of Europe. The daily cargo could feed the
little town for a long time, but the villagers don't get to see the fish
fillets because after the fish has gone through he modern processing
plant, they cannot afford the fish. The only thing the locals get to see
and eat are the leftovers of the factory: the carcass head of the fish.
Thousands of these rotting fish heads are piled up on a beach nearby
Mwanza. As the camera pans across all these fish heads and the people
who carry them away in buckets, one can just say that all this is not
fair. That we are one more time before an example of crude exploitation
by Northern countries, in this case Europe, towards the South. The fact
that the film was shot during a time when Tanzania was hard hit by
famine makes this situation even more unbearable.
But Saupert does not want us to focus too much on the fish. For him, the
fish business is a by-product of the bigger story which he wants to
unfold to the public. There is a rumor that the transport airplanes
don't just depart with fish, but also bring weapons and munitions to
conflicts in other African countries. The story was on the news and a
local journalist claims to have evidence. Of course, we never see
weapons unload from the planes in Mwanza. People asked on the streets
are convinced that the planes are empty when they come. Though Sauper
asks the Russian pilots again and again, they won't tell and simply
lower their heads in silence. But once the thought is introduced by the
film, we can not get rid of it. Tanzania is bordered by countries with
a very recent history of war: Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and
Rwanda and it is not much further a plane ride to other hotspots. As
one of the pilots cynically says, "The children of Europe receive grapes
for Christmas, the children of Angola receive guns." You would have to
be naive to believe that airplanes come empty from Russia just to load
fish. What a lost opportunity that would be for the international weapon
smuggling networks! As we watch the locals of Mwanza tilt their heads
to see another airplane crossing above them in the sky, we draw our own
conclusions.
It is this lack of proof which
some may find troubling, especially those who are accustomed to seeing
journalistic-style documentaries where proof is so key to
storytelling. But Sauper makes clear in the film that he has his own
point of view and that he is not hesitating to impose his own truth. It
is now up to the viewer if he or she wants to share that view. I can
say that my colleague, Erica Ginsberg, has had challenges with the film
for this reason and also because she believes that the film is
ultimately so dark and hopeless that it leaves the audience with little
reaction but to feel despair and maybe give up eating Nile Perch.
Indeed you could argue that
Sauper focuses too much on the dark side, on the side of African
despair. Through his eyes it seems that the village of Mwanza is
populated by a collection of glue-sniffing kids living on the streets,
prostitutes plying their trade to the Russian pilots and occasionally to
the migrant workers, families reduced to half of their size because of
the effects of AIDS, and the assorted foreigners involved in the
processing and export of the fish. He takes us inside the lives of
these characters. We meet them in close conversations and engage with
them because the filmmaker captures them as they laugh, sing, and share
their dreams. The camera is always very close to the subjects. Sauper
has obviously spent a lot of time with them to get them to feel
comfortable opening up, as though in a conversation. The moments
breathe. When we hear a prostitute sing a song “Tanzania, Tanzania”
with a big smile on her face, we understand how proud she is of her
country in spite of its dire circumstances. She says she dreams of
getting a better education. A street kid aspires to become an engineer.
These dreams are authentic and valuable but we are already so drawn into
the hopelessness of their lives, that we know full well these dreams
cannot be fulfilled. Not in the world Sauper portrays.
And here Sauper leaves us alone
with a situation which seems not to have a solution. Yes, the dark side
is a truth in Africa but it is far from the only one. It is hard to
believe that there are not other normal people in this town with a
positive take on the situation. People for example who work in the
factory and have benefited from the fish business, even if it is on the
sacrifice of the lake. People who are working their way out the circle
of poverty because they have a job and they now can improve their living
condition and send their kids to school. But Sauper does not enter that
terrain.
Maybe Sauper thought by bringing
in more diverse voices, the message of the film would be in jeopardy,
but here he is mistaken. Bringing in positive voices would have made the
situation more complete and would have given the people from Tanzania
respect. Now we just feel miserable for them.
DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE feels like a
“film noir.” It is not an activist film which presents a problem and
suggests a solution. Instead it helps shed light on a place that few of
us would have the likelihood to visit and yet which is impacted by our
actions or lack of action.
JESUS CAMP by
Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
(Reviewed by Erica Ginsberg)
At Docs in Progress workshops,
one of the questions we ask every presenting filmmaker is “why did you
make the film?” It is important that documentarians think about what
their intentions are with a documentary. Especially when treating a
controversial subject, it is essential for the filmmaker to know his or
her own point of view even if he or she has no intention of being a
character in the film.
In the 2006 film
JESUS CAMP, filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady enter a world
quite unlike the one they know firsthand. With both filmmakers hailing
from “Blue States” (New York by way of Detroit and Washington DC
respectively) and neither actively religious, they chose to enter the
world of the Evangelical Christian movement and explore the relationship
between religion and politics and the national debate over values.
That values debate forms a
narrative device in the film. We open to the scenery of middle America
(highways, fast food joints, gas stations, and motel signs reading “God
Bless USA). A car radio blares the news that Sandra Day O’Connor has
just announced her resignation from the Supreme Court. Talk radio goes
wild with speculation about whom President Bush will nominate as her
replacement and how much impact Christians can have on the nomination
process. The camera takes us inside a radio station where extreme
close-ups of the technical equipment underscore how media – especially
talk radio – plays an integral part of that values debate. However,
this radio host, Mike Papantonio, provides a dissenting voice to what we
heard on the car radios. He is openly critical of what he calls the
“religious right” because he believes they are entangling politics and
religion. “What kind of lesson is that for our children?” Papantonio
asks. Less than four minutes into the film, the main conflict of the
film is established, even though we have not yet met any of the main
characters.
This war of words acts as a
backdrop for the main story, which looks at how the next generation of
Evangelical Christians is being raised in their faith. Children with
camouflage warpaint and carrying stick swords dance at the front of a
church, speak in tongues (in keeping with their Pentecostal beliefs),
and talk of being soldiers in the Army of God. They are led by an
unlikely general, Becky Fischer. A children’s minister who challenges
kids to be the part of this movement, Fischer has a down-to-earth style
and disarming sense of humor which engages the viewer as much as it does
the children to whom she preaches. In one scene she compares, almost
enviously, her children’s ministry to that of radical Islamic madrassas.
In another, she is teasing her hair in front of a mirror, betraying the
more routine concerns of a middle-aged woman.
In fact, it is the juxtaposition
of the humanity – and indeed the mundanity – of the characters with the
idiosyncrasies of their religious beliefs that really gives depth to the
film. On the surface, we are in the landscape of Anywhere Suburbia.
But there is always a twist. A mom helps her children with their
homework; they read from creationist textbooks which are central to
their home-schooling. Children play videogames and read stories, but
they are all Christian-themed; their homes are free of Pokemon and Harry
Potter, both of which are seen as anti-Christian endorsements of
witchcraft.
As the film progresses, we gain
a deeper understanding of the characters, even if we do not share their
beliefs. In addition to Fischer, the film focuses on three children.
Levi has aspirations to be a preacher at a mega-church, seeing himself
as part of a key generation to bring Jesus back to America. Rachael
takes pride in her efforts to evangelize non-believers, whether it’s her
next-door neighbor or a stranger at the bowling alley. Tory loves to
dance, though she prefers Christian heavy metal to Britney Spears
because she says it is for God and not for the flesh. The film
masterfully reveals each of the kids through a combination of
observational footage and interviews done in the mise-en-scene of the
characters, often while they are engaged in their everyday activities.
While the first act of the film
introduces us to the values debate and the main characters, the second
act takes those characters and us to the Families on Fire Summer Camp,
run in North Dakota by Becky Fischer. Again, we see the contrast of the
normal rites of passage of a children’s summer camp with the deeper
reasons why these children are there. In one scene, a group of boys
stays up late for the familiar ritual of telling ghost stories, only to
have the party broken up by one of the parental chaperones who reminds
them that such stories are not honoring God. In the daytime, the kids
have some time to be kids: play on swings, skip stones in the lake,
laugh with friends in the cafeteria, or go exploring in a nearby cave.
But they spend good portions of their days participating in the intense
fervor of sermons that focus on washing away their sins of hypocrisy or
breaking the reins of secularism over government. Fischer and the other
pastors challenge the kids about whether they are ready to be a part of
the Army of God.
This brings us to the third act
which shows how the children are becoming part of this movement to use
their religious values to influence politics. Whether it is blessing a
cardboard cutout of President Bush or going on a field trip to
Washington DC to protest against abortion in front of the Supreme Court,
the children are ready to fight for what they perceive to be “one nation
under God.” Levi even pays a visit to one of the largest megachurches
in the country, the New Life Church in Colorado Springs which was at the
time led by Pastor Ted Haggard (filmed before the sex scandal which
forced him to resign). Haggard makes an appearance in the film and
drives home the message that it is churches like his which have the
power to influence the national political agenda. As he says in the
film, “If the Evangelicals vote, they determine the election.”
JESUS CAMP met with praise and
controversy when it was released in 2006. Some felt that it treated the
topic in a sinister manner through its reliance on a spooky-sounding
score and editing of sound bites that emphasize militancy and political
activism espoused at the camp. Pastor Haggard spoke out against the
film as not representing the full spectrum of evangelical Christians and
encouraged members of his church to stay away from the film when it
previewed in Colorado Springs. Although Becky Fischer has indicated on
her
Kids in Ministry website that the film is not a totally accurate
representation of her ministry (especially the theatrical trailer which
she felt portrayed her ministry as “cult-like”), she also believes the
success of the film has given her a unique opportunity to convey her
mission. She and several of the kids have attended various film
festival screenings with the filmmakers and her ministry’s website
contains many
comments from viewers who felt the film actually encouraged them to
become more fervent in their faith and eager to attend the camp.
Similarly on the film’s
MySpace page, the comments reflect a diversity of opinion – from
those who have been inspired by the film to others who have found it
deeply disturbing.
In my own opinion, if a film can
take a controversial issue and be equally upsetting to both sides of a
debate, then it is as close to balanced as it can ever be. But the one
truth about non-fiction work, it is that it can never be truly
balanced. Even John Grierson’s definition of documentary – “the
creative treatment of actuality” – indicates that there is no way to
portray truth, but only to creatively interpret it. Selecting the
characters, deciding when to turn the camera on and off and where to
focus its attention, choosing clips and contextual information and the
order of how they are edited, and deciding on the music and where to
place it in the film all reflect a point of view.
Even the presence of the
filmmakers can impact the reality they document. While this was
certainly noticeable in JESUS CAMP in the Ted Haggard sequence where the
film includes shots of him teasing the cameraman, there is another
sequence which many viewers may not even realize was impacted by the
filmmakers. At one point, Becky Fischer calls in to Mike Papantonio’s
radio show for a debate on whether her ministry is indoctrinating
children in its religious and political beliefs. This is a key scene in
the film because it returns us to the film’s major theme of the values
debate by actually including a direct debate over values. However,
according to the directors’ commentary on the DVD, Fischer’s call-in
came about as a result of the filmmakers’ intervention, not as a chance
happening in an unfolding documentary reality. While the call-in itself
was not scripted, this sequence does present an ethical issue to the
documentary filmmaker. What is his or her role in impacting a storyline
in order to craft a more dramatic narrative arc?
I should add here that it was a
controversial decision for Docs in Progress to feature this film among
our reviews because my colleague, Adele Schmidt, and I have very
divergent views on this film. We both agree that there is merit to
seeing the film because it covers an issue about which almost every
viewer may have a strong opinion. Additionally, it is a case study of
how to tell a big-issue story through the more accessible lens of a
character-driven narrative. However, we disagree vehemently on the
issue of the film’s point of view. Every directorial decision
ultimately reflects the point of view of the filmmaker(s). Filmmakers
should never shy away from having a point of view, even when trying to
present as balanced a story as possible. In my view, this film seems to
have helped Ewing and Grady – and, by extension, viewers who come from
similar secular backgrounds – to step outside of their own environment
and discover more about people with whom they may never agree, but who
they can now better understand. In Adele’s view, the filmmakers bent
over too far backwards to please their subjects and betrayed their own
point of view in the process. She does not equate discovering a reality
with having a point of view.
We’ll leave it to you to see the
film for yourself and decide. We’ve re-posted this review in our
blog and invite you to add your own comments to the discussion.
© April 2007, Docs In
Progress
These articles may not be reprinted without permission.
LOST
IN LA MANCHA
by Keith Fulton & Louis Pepe
(Reviewed by Adele Schmidt)
Filmmaking can be a very torturing process. Nowhere can this be seen
more easily than in documentaries about the making of a film. Some
documentaries have provided deep insights into how difficult it is to
get a script onto a screen. Just remember the insightful documentary
BURDEN OF DREAMS by Les Blank who follows German filmmaker Werner Herzog
into the Peruvian jungle where he was filming
Fitzcarraldo. As the
documentary unfolds, Herzog encounters enormous problems during the
shooting in the Amazons. Even after three years of stop-and-go,
Fitzcarraldo was completed
and Werner Herzog's dream fulfilled. But what happens if the fight to
realize a dream ends in a fiasco? How does this affect the “Making Of”
story?
Keith Fulton and
Louis Pepe, the makers of the documentary
Lost in la Mancha, lead us
through that worst case scenario by documenting the making of the movie
The man who killed Don Quixote,
an ambitious film adaptation of
Don Quixote by charismatic filmmaker Terry Gilliam. Sure, this
documentary was planned with a different outcome, the “happy ending” of
a finished film, but the reality unfolded itself in a different way and
filmmakers Fulton and Pepe had no choice than adapt to that change. The
film production of The man who
killed Don Quixote failed after only one week on location. The
documentary which intended to document the making of a $32 million movie
turned into a film about the downfall of a production. Out of that
production experience came not a feature film, but a documentary which
every filmmaker should see to learn how to handle a story which goes off
course from the one you expected -- and perhaps even find a more
interesting story in the process.
In spite of the fact
that Fulton and Pepe had just six days of shooting on location, they
managed to document the passion which stands behind Terry Gilliam’s
creation. At the same time, the documentary is constantly reminding us
of one crude reality which waves behind every mayor film production:
That next to talent, enormous management skills are needed to complete a
movie and sometimes luck is not on your side.
The passion of
filmmaking
Terry Gilliam is
known for his eccentric futuristic fantasy films, such as
Brazil and
12 Monkeys. This time,
Gilliam is not projecting his imaginations into future but into the
past, into the mindset of Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes who wrote
Don Quixote in 1605. The plot is well known: An old man who
has read so many stories about knights believes in a confused state that
he himself is a knight and sets out with his horse to fight injustice.
In one of his most famous adventures, he fights against windmills,
believing that they are giants.
Unfortunately we
never get to see the unfolding of the fight against windmills before the
camera. The only thing we get to see from that scene is the casting of
the three giants. Gilliam selects three big and comical looking Spanish
men and does some camera rehearsals with them. What we see through the
camera lens in that rehearsal makes us want to see more. Fulton and Pepe
make it clear throughout their documentary that quite an outstanding
film is on the way.
A look at the
storyboard alone, illustrated in animated drawings, helps us to
understand that. These drawings, a mix of surreal cartoons traced with
extraordinary detail, are an art work unto themselves. Fulton and Pepe
choose to start their documentary with these drawings to set up the high
stylistic level of Gilliam’s film. These animations also give us a hint on how complicated this production will be, with huge set
constructions and extravagant costumes. Gilliam, the fantasy auteur,
envisions a film where magic dissolves into reality, where giants
appear, and where gigantic handmade marionettes dance on enormous
strings.
Most of all, we see
an enthusiastic director who is in love with his project. The camera
follows Gilliam as he interacts with his crew in preproduction. He
macro-manages the overall look of the film, giving instructions to the
set designer and at the same time micromanages details when we see him
in discussion about Don Quixote’s armor. We get to know other crew
members as they are all working full speed in each department to be
ready for the first day of shooting.
Fulton and Pepe made
important choices in editing in order to create the drama. By giving us
from the start a good taste of the high production value of
The man who killed Don Quixote,
we fall in love with the project. We want to see the film happen. We
want Gilliam to succeed with his dream.
Fighting the odds
The documentation of
the downfall condenses weeks of pre-production and les than a week of
production into 90 minutes. It points out the risk factors which can
make any film production fall apart, especially one which aspires to
Hollywood production values without being produced by Hollywood.
We are told from the
beginning that the real cost of this film is $80 million. Gilliam was
not able to convince any Hollywood studio to produce the film. He raises
half of the money from European investors and sets out to Spain to shoot
the film for $32 million. Filming at a less than an ideal budget is a
scenario familiar to most documentary filmmakers. Gilliam faces similar
tradeoffs and compromises that many low-budget doc-makers face.
Filming under budget
means a director has less time or no time for rehearsal. Less rehearsal
means more time on the set to get the acting and dialogue right. Selecting French actor
Jean Rochefort to play Don Quixote makes sense for the European
investors who need a hook to get the film into French cinemas, but
Rochefort speaks shaky English. We are told that he started to learn
English just to perform his part. All this contributes to problems on
the set from the start.
Filming under budget
also means crew and actors get paid less. Less payment means less
commitment. Johnny Depp, who will play Sancho Panza, makes clear from
the beginning that he has an extremely tight timeframe for the shoot
between other film commitments and cannot extend under any
circumstances.
Further, filming under budget
means that the shooting schedule is extremely tight and must be executed
as planned. There is no room for unexpected events, accidents or emergencies.
Fulton and Pepe
select the crucial moments in the six days of shooting to document the
challenges facing the production. We see Don Quixote riding his horse in
a desert landscape. We soon learn that this landscape is located next to
a NATO airbase, something one would think could have been identified
during the location scout. On almost every take, a NATO fighter jet
speeds through the sky, drowning out dialogue. The film crew spends most
of the day on the rocks waiting for silence.
The next day, clouds
make their appearance in the sky and turn into a severe thunderstorm
with such a heavy rain fall that the crew has little time to hide in
cars and secure the equipment under plastic sheets. The equipment gets
flooded anyway and the next two days are used to restore it. Back on the
set after four days of unsuccessful shooting, Jean Rochefort screams in
pain as he unmounts his horse. It turns out that he has prostrate
problems. He flies out to Paris to consult his doctor. Gilliam still
hopes that the production can resume to shoot scenes where Rochefort is
not needed, but soon learns that Rochefort is under doctor’s orders not
to get back on a horse. Without their star, the insurance and the
investors close the production down.
As we see the puppets
get packed back into their boxes, we ask ourselves if everything can be
blamed just on unforeseen forces that brought the production down. That
is the argument Gilliam uses to convince the insurance company who has
to come up with the lost money. But we have to wonder whether his
unrealistic planning was also a major factor in the equation. Is it
possible to act like a Hollywood director without having Hollywood
behind you?
Fulton and Pepe do
not get into details here because they have found a new story for their
documentary. Just as Gilliam’s heart breaks over the loss of his dream,
so too does the heart of the audience who had invested our hopes in the
film being completed. What started out as a “Making Of” documentary
found a new life as an “Unmaking of” documentary. A man dreams the
impossible dream and finds invisible forces – many of his own making –
block his way. Only the man is not Don Quixote, but Terry Gilliam.
When all is said and
done, Lost in LA Mancha
has two lessons for documentary filmmakers:
Pay attention to what
is within your control. Plan carefully to make your production a
success. A low budget is not an excuse for poor common sense.
Pay attention to what
is outside of your control. The story you want to tell may not be the
one which wants to be told. As you document what unfolds, go with the
flow and you may find a new, even more powerful story.
©
January 2007,
Docs On Progress
These articles may not be reprinted without permission.
ME
AND ISAAC NEWTON
by Michael Apted
(Reviewed by Adele Schmidt)
At our
Docs in Progress workshops, we often talk about character development as
an essential part of documentary storytelling. At the same time, we
encourage filmmakers to create works which are visually attractive.
ME & ISAAC
NEWTON
, by renowned British filmmaker Michael Apted, is a good example of how
these two goals do not need to be mutually exclusive. The film profiles
seven remarkable scientists: chemist Gertrude Elion, theoretical
physicist Michio Kaku, computer scientist Maja Mataric, environmental
physicist Ashok Gadgil, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, professor of
cancer medicine Karol Sikora and primatologist Patricia Wright.
When the film was first released in 2000, Apted was asked in an
interview why he selected these scientists in particular.
He said he had initially interviewed many more, but decided to
select these seven because they are the best in their respective fields
and were able to transmit their highly complex ideas and theories into
understandable sentences. This
is very important because sometimes the top experts or someone who has
an interesting life story may not be at their best on camera.
Casting is essential.
It
may sound strange to “cast” for nonfiction work, but it is important
to find the right character who will represent the film and who often
carries a certain message the filmmaker wants to share with a wider
audience. The better the character expresses him/her self in words and
actions, the more the film benefits from it. This is especially
important for films like ME & ISAAC
NEWTON
where the director decides not to include the additional voice of a
narrator. The film is carried by the interviews with the scientists and
by the outstanding footage Apted captures by visiting them in their
homes, their workplaces and other surroundings.
With each scientist, Apted introduces us to an unexpected new
world.
The film is divided in four chapters, introduced by titles: Beginnings,
Work,
Eureka
, and
the Future. Each character speaks to each chapter with his or her
own experience. In Beginnings
we learn, for example, that theoretical physicist Michio Kaku
constructed an atom smasher in his mom's garage when he was a teenager.
Computer scientist Maja Mataric shares with us her teenage experiences
immigrating to the
United States
from former
Yugoslavia
. Back then, her biggest preoccupation was how to get rid of her foreign
accent in order to appear like all the other girls in her classroom.
The
development of Mataric
during the film is very engaging.
In the Beginnings section,
we see her pregnant while working on a computer program to instruct
robots in a laboratory at MIT. In the final section, The
Future,
she pushes her newborn baby in a stroller, followed step by step by a
couple of little robots.
In
Beginnings,
we also learn that Patricia Wright never thought of becoming a scientist
until,
one day she stood in front of a pet store and decided to buy a monkey.
Wright was so intrigued by the behavior of the monkey that she
started to get involved into the research about the species.
In
the Work section, we see the scientists at work. These
scenes function on two levels. They provide visual breath to what
could otherwise be a very abstract or talking-head film. But they
also continue to establish and develop the characters by showing them in
the environment of their life's work. Steven Pinker reflects on
the question of what kind of "software" the brain brings with
it in babies. Patricia Wright takes us to
Madagascar
where she is establishing a lemur preserve. With Ashok Gadgil, we travel
to
India
where he is inventing a process to purify water in villages where
children are dying from diarrhea because of infected water. The endless
struggle to find a cure for cancer occupies Karol Sikora. We see him in
the laboratory and interacting with patients. The urgency of the
research becomes particularly clear as we see him in a consulting
session with parents and their young son who is diagnosed with cancer.
ME
& ISAAC NEWTON's division into chronological chapters follows a
relatively linear approach. While this may make some more ambitious
documentarians yawn, it is important to see films which do this
effectively. In the case of this story, the linear approach makes
sense because it is difficult enough to make an audience interested in
following seven characters, let alone to make us follow their stories out
of sync or one at a time.
What
the film manages to do is to tell this story without resorting to
by-the-book b-roll. The
images Apted selects to cover the interviews go beyond simple or literal
illustrations of what we hear. They
work as metaphors which represent deeper meanings of the situations. When
we see Patricia Wright dancing with the villagers in
Madagascar
, we understand that she has accomplished more than just protecting
lemurs. When we see 81-year old Nobel Prize Laureate Gertrude Elion
traveling around the world sharing her expertise with college students, we
understand the value of passing on life experience to the next generation.
We get to know each scientist as a remarkable person full of compassion
and dedication for his/her work. The film succeeds not because it is
about science and scientists, but because it is about the human beings
behind those scientists.
The
film is also recommended for filmmakers because ultimately it is about how
to cope with the ups and downs of the creative process. We
understand the scientists' work is a constant process with all the
success, challenges, and limitations. When asked how they overcome
the moments when it seems you have reached a dead end, the answers allow
the viewer to identify easily with the characters.
Sometimes the “click” happens overnight, after weeks of
analyzing a problem from every possible angle.
Sometimes it takes a special ritual to help break through.
In fact, the film’s title comes from this sequence; when
theoretical physicist Michio Kaku gets stuck, he goes ice skating.
The camera captures him figure skating in deep concentration while
we hear the words: “It’s just me and Isaac Newton skating on the
ice”.
© 2006-2008,
Docs in Progress
These articles may not be reprinted without permission.
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