Taken from "Film Art: An Introduction (sixth edition)"
"As a type of film, documentaries present themselves as factually trsutworthy. Still, any one documentary may not prove reliable. Throughout film history, many documentaries have been challenged as inaccurate. One controversy involved Michael Moore's Roger and Me. The film presents, in sequences ranging from the heartrending to the absurd, the response of the people of Flint Michigan, to a series of layoffs at general motors plants during the 1980's. Much of the film shows the inept efforts of the local government to revive the town's economy. Ronald Reagan visits, a television evangelist holds a mass rally, and the city officials launch expensive new building campaigns, inclusing "AutoWorld", an indoor theme park that is supposed to lure the tourists to flint.
No one disputes that all of these events took place. The controversy arose when critics claimed that Roger and Me leads the audience to believe that these events occured in the order in which they are shown. Ronald Reagan came to Flint in 1980, the TV evangelist in 1982; AutoWorld opened in 1985. These events could not have been responses to the plant closings shown early in the film because the plant closings started in 1986. Moore falsified the actual chronology, critics charged, in order to make the city government look foolish.
The point for our purposes is that his critics accused his film of presenting unreliable information. Even is this charge were true, however, Roger and Me would not therefore turn into a fiction film. An unreliable documentary is still a documentary. Just as there are inaccurate and misleading news stories, there are innacurate and misleading documentaries.
A documentary may take a stand, state an opinion, advocate a solution to a problem. As we shall see shortly, documentaries often use *rhetorical form to persuade an audience. But, again, simply taking a stance does not turn the documentary into fiction. In order to persuade us, the filmmaker marshals evidence, and this evidence is put forth as being factual and reliable. A documentary may be strongly partisan, but as a documentary, in nonetheless presents itself as providing trustworthy information about it's subject. Roger and Me offers criticisms of social policies, but the criticisms are presented as based upon facts."
* Rhetorical form is one of 4 types of non-narrative film. When we hear the word documentary most of us think of the stuff that is on the discovery channel about, like, the south african dung beetle. But that is, in fact, in it's own classification of documentary. There are 2 types that refer to documentaries, and they are:
Categorical - This is like the nature one. It is named as such because it takes one single subject, or category, and breaks it into smaller categories. For instance "a film about the united states might be organized into fifty parts, each devoted to a single state."
Rhetorical - Basically, any kind of documentary that takes a side. Yes, this includes bias, we are all bias, and having a bias is not an objective viewpoint. Therefore, any rhetorical documentary is not completely objective.
Even categorical films can have rhetorical elements. If a film about various plants in the rainforest suddenly begins to speak of how we must save the dying rainforest, it becomes non-objective, and begins to argue a point. A video could be put out by a company who happens to farm these rainforest lands. It could speak of how benneficial it is that we use these fertal lands to grow specific crops. Neither of them are lying.
Just wanted to show you guys that I don't just say stuff because I feel like it. I'm not defending Michael Moore as a person, he is a bit a fanatic, and goes overboard occasionally. But I am defending him as a filmmaker, and his film itself. Of course his film is biased, by definition it must be biased; he is trying to prove a point, that's all. Besides, let's face it, we all have our biases.
"As a type of film, documentaries present themselves as factually trsutworthy. Still, any one documentary may not prove reliable. Throughout film history, many documentaries have been challenged as inaccurate. One controversy involved Michael Moore's Roger and Me. The film presents, in sequences ranging from the heartrending to the absurd, the response of the people of Flint Michigan, to a series of layoffs at general motors plants during the 1980's. Much of the film shows the inept efforts of the local government to revive the town's economy. Ronald Reagan visits, a television evangelist holds a mass rally, and the city officials launch expensive new building campaigns, inclusing "AutoWorld", an indoor theme park that is supposed to lure the tourists to flint.
No one disputes that all of these events took place. The controversy arose when critics claimed that Roger and Me leads the audience to believe that these events occured in the order in which they are shown. Ronald Reagan came to Flint in 1980, the TV evangelist in 1982; AutoWorld opened in 1985. These events could not have been responses to the plant closings shown early in the film because the plant closings started in 1986. Moore falsified the actual chronology, critics charged, in order to make the city government look foolish.
The point for our purposes is that his critics accused his film of presenting unreliable information. Even is this charge were true, however, Roger and Me would not therefore turn into a fiction film. An unreliable documentary is still a documentary. Just as there are inaccurate and misleading news stories, there are innacurate and misleading documentaries.
A documentary may take a stand, state an opinion, advocate a solution to a problem. As we shall see shortly, documentaries often use *rhetorical form to persuade an audience. But, again, simply taking a stance does not turn the documentary into fiction. In order to persuade us, the filmmaker marshals evidence, and this evidence is put forth as being factual and reliable. A documentary may be strongly partisan, but as a documentary, in nonetheless presents itself as providing trustworthy information about it's subject. Roger and Me offers criticisms of social policies, but the criticisms are presented as based upon facts."
* Rhetorical form is one of 4 types of non-narrative film. When we hear the word documentary most of us think of the stuff that is on the discovery channel about, like, the south african dung beetle. But that is, in fact, in it's own classification of documentary. There are 2 types that refer to documentaries, and they are:
Categorical - This is like the nature one. It is named as such because it takes one single subject, or category, and breaks it into smaller categories. For instance "a film about the united states might be organized into fifty parts, each devoted to a single state."
Rhetorical - Basically, any kind of documentary that takes a side. Yes, this includes bias, we are all bias, and having a bias is not an objective viewpoint. Therefore, any rhetorical documentary is not completely objective.
Even categorical films can have rhetorical elements. If a film about various plants in the rainforest suddenly begins to speak of how we must save the dying rainforest, it becomes non-objective, and begins to argue a point. A video could be put out by a company who happens to farm these rainforest lands. It could speak of how benneficial it is that we use these fertal lands to grow specific crops. Neither of them are lying.
Just wanted to show you guys that I don't just say stuff because I feel like it. I'm not defending Michael Moore as a person, he is a bit a fanatic, and goes overboard occasionally. But I am defending him as a filmmaker, and his film itself. Of course his film is biased, by definition it must be biased; he is trying to prove a point, that's all. Besides, let's face it, we all have our biases.