What is reality?
- This is an extremely complicated question which is ultimately impossible to define
- "existence as filtered through human perception"
- The notion of reality is highly subjective
- However, the term 'subjective truth' is clearly a binary opposition/oxymoron
- It is complicated, and this should be communicated in any response you deliver on documentaries!
Truth can be inferred through a number of different mediating factors
- Intention of the film maker
- The ideology of the film maker
- The bias of the film maker
- Assorted micro elements
In what ways can film makers utilise micro elements to encode verisimilitude?
- Use of naturalistic lighting
- Use of handheld cinematography
- Minimal editing, for example extensive use of long takes
- Naturalistic performance
- Minimal alteration of the setting/environment
- Naturalistic, ambient sound
- Establishment of a diegesis
- Diegesis - ' in the world of the narrative'
- Use of a voiceover can provide a documentary with narrative. Extradiegetic sound
- Candid photography, a voyeuristic mode of address
- Shaky-cam
- Ugly, grim, raw, REAL mise-en-scene
- Naturalistic, non-scripted dialogue
Hard To Be A God (2015)
In what ways does Alexei German utilise so-called documentary techniques in order to force the audience to question their perspective of what is real?
Hard To Be A God is NOT a documentary film. It is a science fiction film, but an extremely subversive and atypical one. Like all of German's films, however, it uses what can best be described as a 'documentary style', which is used to deliberately distance, upset and alienate the spectator.
- Soft, washed out black and white gives the film a cheap, nasty feeling
- Naturalistic, un-staged performance, including performs tripping over, constructs a notion of truth
- Use of extreme long takes and lack of editing constructs a sense of verisimilitude
- Characters looking directly at the camera break the fourth wall, and creates a sense that this film is being documented . This creates both an intense emotional response, but also an unpleasant distancing technique
- Unpleasant imagery and sounds, for example buttocks being stabbed, a child singing tunelessly, and the overwhelming mise-en-scene of mud and filth
HyperNormalisation (2016)
In what ways does Curtis utilise micro elements to implement stylistic embellishments in the construction of his documentaries, and why?
- Use of stark, threatening on screen deliberately alienates the audience from the themes and ideas of the documentary
- Curtis uses a combination of mise-scene, sound and stock footage to force the audience to make their own conclusions and decisions
- Use of of confusing montage of stock footage positions the audience in hopeless and an antagonistic mode of address
- Ugly, jerky, and deliberately contradictory use of montage again confuses and upsets the audience
Rain In My Heart (2006)
In what ways does Paul Watson utilise micro elements to construct an emotionally manipulative mode of address?
- Use of grainy, rough and unpolished footage constructs a bleak and absolutely hopeless atmosphere
- Shocking rapid-fire cuts to abject mise-en-scene, for example bloodshot eyes, tears, vomit and slurring faces further alienates the audience, while creating an intense and problematic personal relationship
- Paul Watson insets himself in to the narrative from the first scene, and will ask his interviewees blunt and upsetting questions. His posh, eloquent nature forms a binary opposition with slurring, drunk underclass he is interviewing, which presents a deliberately challenging mode of address
- The spectator is forced in to a difficult process of mediation: do they accept that this is a challenging but necessary look in to alcoholism, or is it voyeuristic and unethical? Or, is it both at the same time?
- Editing is rough and unpolished, which constructs a more compelling and raw mode of address
