In the early minutes of season one episode three of “Documentary Now!” entitled “Kunuk Uncovered”, the narrator of the program states: “In 1922, director William H. Sebastian introduced American audiences to an Eskimo named Kunuk in the now classic film, Kunuk The Hunter.” He continues, “It was groundbreaking cinema, a box-office success, and has been credited with creating the genre that we now call documentary.” The uninhibitedly enthusiastic narrator closes, “But questions about Kunuk have always lingered. What was the relationship between filmmaker and subject? Were the actions depicted real or staged? Was the first documentary a documentary at all? Or was it something else?” Make no mistake, “Documentary Now!” is a satirical show birthed from great minds whose jerseys hang in the “Saturday Night Live” rafters. However, in these opening sentences, a great deal of question is brought upon the concept of documentary. Throughout the past semester, my classmates and I were subject to asking these questions ourselves.
My own process during the semester, the changes in idea and concept, really made me think about what it meant to create a documentary. And once I thought I had made revelations about it; I witnessed my peers’ projects at both midterm and final. From there, the idea of the documentary grew.
Now, documentaries that catch my eye typically have to do with, let’s say, ill-minded groups. I find them fascinating. It’s incredible how with simple woo-ing and LSD that Charles Manson was able to have people commit atrocious murders for him. Even more remarkable how Adolf Hitler convinced many that anyone unlike his kind was the enemy and needed to be eradicated (and also in one documentary I saw that he might have had a unit of Werewolf Nazis, but that could have just been a video game, I’m not sure.) And TEN TIMES more unimaginable are the accounts of neo-Nazis carrying these horrendous beliefs IN THIS CURRENT DAY AND AGE! Essentially, this is what I thought documentaries were about: telling stories of misunderstood (sometimes insane) groups or happenings that hold significance in the current world. But as time went by and I saw the projects of others, as well as my own’s development. I realized that the role of the documentary was much simpler than that.
The questions posed by the narrator in season one episode three of “Documentary Now!”:
- What is the relationship between filmmaker and subject?
- Were the actions depicted real or staged?
Throughout the course, I realized that there is no perfect answer to these questions in relation to defining a work as “documentary”. The first question is more of a matter in why an audience would care about a work. For instance, I made a “documentary” about my mother. This is a relationship that a majority of people can understand and connect with. While I did this, my friend Shane made a documentary about a nearly deceased mall in his home town. This is not a typical relationship that most can relate too, but both hold identical documentary merit. Quite simply, there is already a relationship between filmmaker and subject in that the filmmaker has decided to put time and effort towards creating something about the subject, regardless if it’s his mother or his mall.
The second question divides into two further questions. If you are shown an account of something yet it is a reenactment, is it really a documentary? Or does it have to be actual footage of the account? Again, I feel that the idea behind a documentary can bend toward subject. Certainly, it is decidedly more interesting watching the real accounts of whatever it is being documented, however, reenactments and treatments alike are interesting as well. Yes, watching the neo-Nazis romp around moronically, use pick-up lines such as “So, what do you think about white power?” is an incredible sight, but so is the documentary style that incorporates folks reflecting on something. It’s quite the nebulous topic.
Regardless, I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to cast something out as documentary. It’s like art as a whole. What is truly important is the ideas being said, heard, workshopped and discussed.