Documentary is not a Way of allowing Spectators to Experience another Reality

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nIntroduction

nA documentary film offers important aspects of reality to the spectators since they are nonfictional. Through documentary film, spectators can benefit from factual and true moment of events. The main purpose of documentary film is to educate and preserve a historical information. Documentary films have a huge contribution in the spectators reality conception. They are a depictive medium just like photography (Capdevila 2015). Documentaries reconstruct and record the daily reality that spectators have no knowledge about it. Moreover, documentary is viewed as an interchanging photograph to show truth. Therefore, viewers are able to recognize a difference between the daily reality provided by documentaries and the cinematic films, which presents fictive reality. However, the kind of reality presented by documentary is not a guiltless, as it appears to be. In this regard, documentaries changes reality, which have moral effect (Ward 2012). Therefore, although documentaries are source of reality, their presentation are reflection of the subjectivity nature of the filmmaker.

nCapdevila (2015) argues that documentaries provide a truth-value of events to its audiences. However, they are engaged into a daily reality that ostensibly does not require questioning. It is characterized by a feeling of co-presence between audiences and creator that provide the spectator the sensation of what the photographs evokes. The acuity of co-presence that when sincere, is specifically how audiences acquire reality but this is seriously disarming for viewers. Despite documentaries presentations, they are normally subjective tools rather than objective medium (Capdevila 2015). In this regard, they become devices that organize representation system to promote opinions about something. Therefore, documentaries are based on inherent subjectivity, which plays a part in the formation of the film and the filmmaker interpretation (Kerner 2011). In this regard, it is difficult for a documentary film to precisely present true reality of the daily life.

nWard (2012) noted that in most cases documentaries alter reality, which can have devastating effects on the daily principles. For instance, a documentary by Hersonski Yael, “A Film Unfinished” depicts an incredible exploration of the unclear line between reportage and propaganda. Revealing film taken by the Nazis during the holocaust, in the ghettos of Warsaw, the filmmaker display what was initially viewed as raw and first-hand photographs. However, they had been delivered via ideological machinery of illusion production (Ward 2012). In this case, the documentary presents the reality but not precisely in the manner that they seem to be. In this case, it candidly demonstrates how the audiences can be easily deceived through the documentaries. In most cases, viewers admit to being deceived just to enjoy the funny parts of the film. In addition, the presentation in the documentary is not the same entity as the truth it signifies. When airing a documentary, the viewers are not viewing reality but a documented demonstration of what the event was. Nash (2011) argues that when the representation of an object is different from the actual event, then the viewers are not exposed to reality (Nash 2011).

nContrastingly, horror films such as “Wrong Turn” by Schmidt Rob are meant to initiate an undesirable emotional response from audiences by arousing their fear, nightmare, terror and revulsion. Therefore, they are not true reflection of the reality. As compared to this film, “A Film Unfinished” attempts to evoke the emotions of fear during the holocaust (Ward 2012). However, the destruction of reality normally starts during the process of filming. The recorded images during holocaust were once a reality but the representation in the documentary becomes hyper-real (Kerner 2011). The recordings are not reality but a representation of surplus from reality. Documentaries such as “A Film Unfinished” mimic were once reality via reformation closing the gap between hyper-reality and reality.

nThe production of documentary is sub-divided into two parts: the narrative and filming. Therefore, the filmmaker is obliged to select the angles of the camera and choose words in a sentence that are help to narrate a story and inform the audiences. In this case, the filmmaker is normally forced to use fictive methods of producing films instead of using objective techniques of demonstrating reality (Kerner 2011). The documentary is also based on personal interpretation of the filmmaker, which is affected by different issues such as perceived biases and attitudes as well as what narrative he or she may deliver out of the production. Therefore, it is difficult to provide a presentation that objectively represents the reality. Therefore, scholars argue that although documentaries attempts to present reality of events, they are normally affected by arbitrary prejudice, biasness hence they are subjective (Nash 2011). In this regard, they are comparable to fictional theatres since they are produced in developed subjectively especially in selection of camera angles, people and places as well as transitional cutaways and materials, structures to be omitted or shot and shooting duration (Capdevila 2015). More importantly, although filmmakers may try to be objective in their production, they normally filter the content via their cameras and individual lens.

nIn this regard, subjectivity is a deviation from the reality and it is initiated in the documentary after the producer decides how the event must be represented. Therefore, subjective production start as soon as the producer turns on the cameras and progress until the viewer screens the ultimate product. Kerner (2011) noted that most of the documentaries represent or deliver emotions of the filmmaker rather than reality. In most cases, instances of extraordinary event, such as genocide or war, documentaries lack the capacity to deliver a close knowledge of these events since it can only be delivered by persons who suffered the horror directly. Therefore, a documentary film that attempts to portray such reality will lack certain aspects of authenticity (Kerner 2011). Additionally, a person who watches a Holocaust documentary may be terrified by the events but it cannot demonstrate the experience of surviving through it. The film can only describe a shadow of reality.

nAny image used in the production of documentary is not honest but is intentionally utilized to influence the meaning of the film and to assist in establishment of a context, which helps in interpretation of the meaning of the successive pictures (Nash 2011). In this respect, people should understand the narrative presented by documentaries as subjective truth instead of objective truth since the filmmaker shapes it.

nConclusion

nDocumentaries attempt to deliver content that represent reality. However, it delivery of reality information is normally affected by subjective characters of the filmmakers. In most cases, it is disguises as objective presentation of events particularly via reconstructions. Nonetheless, documentary has no clear reflection on what was fictional or real (Ward 2012). Therefore, it is only hyper-real demonstration of events based on the producers attitudes and camera angles (Kerner 2011). In addition, documentaries cannot exclusively deliver actual reality it purports to represent since they are very subjective.

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nReferences

nCapdevila, P., 2015. The objectifying documentary: realism, aesthetics and temporality. Comunicación y Sociedad, 28(4).

nKerner, A., 2011. Film and the Holocaust: New perspectives on dramas, documentaries, and experimental films. A&C Black.

nNash, K., 2011. Documentary-for-the-other: Relationships, ethics and (observational) documentary. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 26(3), pp.224-239.

nWard, P., 2012. Documentary: the margins of reality (Vol. 29). Columbia University Press.