Study Questions Assignments Use for Midterm Review Documentary Tradition 2010

Week 1: Sept. 13 Discussion Questions for discussion section, Week 2 based on Nichols, Ch. 5; Juhasz, Documentary on YouTube (A&deJ); Barnouw, Ch. 1; lecture, screenings 1. Where, in Barnouws reference to historical documentaries do you think the description most requires the reader to see the moving image? Why? What point would be confirmed or disputed? 2. Why does Nichols say of the Lumière films that they seemed to record and appear to reproduce the event before the camera? 3. How does the documentary what you see is what was there work as rhetoric, ie. help filmmakers to make an argument about the world? For example: How does Capturing the Friedmans go against our beliefs about the world? What argument about the world does the documentary treatment make in this case? 4. Nichols says that documentary uses the same narrative devices as fiction. Test the following on Capturing the Friedmans: a. Problem leads to solution b. Viewers desire for solution-out come delayed (suspense = delay) 5. How is the documentary interest appealed to in Why Mrs. Jones Got a Divorce (1900) like or not like the documentary interest encouraged by Capturing the Friedmans? 6. What, in Juhasz, seems contradictory about using Eisensteins definition of the slogan to describe the politics of work posted on YouTube? 7. Where does Juhasz think YouTube fails, as exemplified by the Lesbian Community search term and the videos it yields? What search term example would you give to illustrate the politics of YouTube? 8. See, on YouTube, the documentary footage from Needa Before She Gets Shot. Consider how it rallied Iranians living outside Tehran in the aftermath of the rigged 2009 elections there. How does the footage of Needa qualify or confirm Juhaszs position?

Study Questions Week 2. Sept. 20: Documentary Voice Nichols, Chs. 3 & 4 1. How is voice akin to style? List 4 ways. 2. What is meant by the ethical dimension of documentary voice? 3. What are the means available to the maker for the conveyance of documentary voice? List 6 (1 of your own) 4. How is the viewer called upon to infer the voice of the perspective? 5. Consider the documentary voice in Capturing the Friedmans in terms of the 3 Cs of rhetorical discourse. Which C does it use? 6. What does he mean by film may refuse to compel belief in the truthfulness of its representation? Describe and give examples. 1. How does Nichols use Hospital (Frederick Wiseman, 1970) to illustrate the difference between examples and concepts? 2. What definition of documentary does Nichols need to use in order to say that documentary activates our social consciousness ? 3. Nichols says that The Body Beautiful (1991) argues that Family life is like this. Read his description of the film (to be screened on 9/27 in class). How can this family be said to work (or not work) as a metaphor?

Week 3: Defining Documentary: China Study Questions for Discussion Week of Sept. 27: Nichols, Ch. 2 How Do Documentaries Differ?; 1.What do you think is the difference between a reproduction of reality and a representation of the world? 2.How do we know that 60 Minutes is documentary reportage rather than docudrama? 3.What do reflexive strategies unsettle and undercut? 4.What assumptions do spectators bring to the viewing of a documentary that they do not bring to a film based on an imaginary situation? 5.Why does Nichols argue that documentary (in contrast with the fiction film) relies less on continuity editing to create a credible world that the viewer perceives as real? 6.What is the impact of the indexical whammy and why can the fiction film not claim this? 7.What is epistephilia and how do you think documentary stimulates it?

Week 8: Study Questions for Week Nov. 8; Nichols, Ch. 7; Gaines, Political Mimesis; Wallerstein, Revolution as Strategy 1. What, according to Nichols is the problem with representing working class others as helpless? 2. How does Nichols explain the failure of so many films about housing problems since 1935 to change the conditions of public housing in the U.S. or the U.K.? 3. What did the Griersonians take or not take from Dziga Vertovs ideas about cinema and revolution? Why? 4. Explain why radical filmmaker Joris Ivens made the decision to break the edges of the shadow in his film about the struggles of Belgian miners, Borinage (1934). 5. What is the best example of what the new We speak about us to them of identity politics did to classical documentary ethnography?. Why is social change such a vague concept today in the West and what are the everyday consequences of the disconnection between social change and revolution? 2. Why are the empirical questions about social change so difficult to answer and how did Sergei Eisenstein get around these difficulties? 3. Why does political mimesis begin with the body and it is this mimesis empirically measurable or predictable? 4. Why would filmmakers in the radical tradition want to make as visceral as possible the representation of contemporary or historical struggle? What conventionalized images would they then choose to use in their work? 5. What is the discredited political downside of any theory of cinematic mimesis? 6. According to anthropologist Taussigs theory of sympathetic magic what is the source of the power of the image? How is this relevant for documentary film and video? 1. List and consider the reasons that Wallerstein gives for explaining why those who do not benefit from the capitalist world-system do not seek to transform it today. Which reason do you think offers the most comprehensive explanation and why? 2. The author argues that there were consequences to the worldwide revolution of 1968 for the Left. Evaluate these consequences in addition to his 6 points and make a case for one as most pronounced in the moment of the Great Recession. 3. If the Marxist-Leninist concept of revolution is no longer viable, what, according to the author is, and with what would you replace revolution? Or, alternatively, if you seek to change everything in order that nothing change what counter-revolutionary strategy do you propose?

Midterm Preparation To Prepare for Midterm, in class Nov. 15: 1) Answer all Study Guide questions 2) Review key ppt. lessons posted on MediaThread 3) Be certain you have seen all film/video titles screened in class Reading for Midterm: Bruzzi, 153 – 155; 171 – 180 NOTE pgs. shortened!!!! Bruzzis def.: documentaries are a negotiation between filmmaker and reality and, at heart, a performance. a performance. Midterm structure: 100 pts. total 1)From Readings: Multiple choice: 25 questions – 50 pts. 2)From Lecture/discussion: Essay questions: Choose 2 of 4 – 50 pts. Examples: a. Compare Aoi (Good Woman of Bangkok) and Sandro (Bus 174) as exemplifying the tradition of the documentary victim. b. What is the difference between the indexical whammy (Nichols) and the pornography of the real (Godmilow)? Explain with an example of a moment from 1 film screened in class. 3. From your class papers: You may be asked to write about the position you took in Assn # 2 Rewriting Radical Documentary History or Assn # 3 Documentary Classification, so writing your last paper will be itself a review for the midterm.

ppt Slides for Midterm Review

Us-Them (We speak to us about them) First World – Third World Subject of gaze – Object of gaze Camera – Photographic material Outsider – Insider (world of informant) Advanced technology – Primitive technology

4B. Ethical Dilemmas Representation-Misrepresentation 1.ethical ideal: do not misrepresent the other 2.ethical condition: representation is always misrepresentation, anyway 3.Representation = a standing in for the thing itself

1. Review: a. Documentary Codes Solution to Problem of Documentary Realism: Documentary = codes of realism signify authenticity or stylistic conventions used by makers & recognized by viewers 1. Voice-of-God narration 2. Long takes 3. Synchronous sound 4. Black and white film stock 5. Archival footage 6. Hidden camera and microphones 7. Apparently unrehearsed moments 8. Hand held camera high shooting ratio invisible editing = erasure location sound ambient noise visible camera & microphone video diary mode: acknowledgment of camera

4B. Ethical Dilemmas Representation-Misrepresentation 1.ethical ideal: do not misrepresent the other 2.ethical condition: representation is always misrepresentation, anyway 3.Representation = a standing in for the thing itself

Documentary Rhetoric: Voice and Story 1. Explicit voice: –Interview: talking head on screen –Voice-of-Authority voice over 2. Implicit voice: See Nichols, p. 43 style plus –point of view vs. reproduction of reality –documentarys informing logic vs. fictions compelling story 3. Social movement use of documentary: uprisings and events have to be narrativized. 4. Narrative = cause & effect relations in time For Ex: a. story of a life b. story of a strike

Review: The Grierson problem moment film 1. concentration on individuals social issue vs. personal portrait (Nichols) Bus 174: personal and social inextricable? 2. heroic worker becomes social victim? 3. power relations: us vs. them 4. problem moment structure: no causes, only effects Social problems can be solved, if... The victim documentary

Study Questions after Midterm

Week 10 Study Questions: November 22 Bruzzi, 67 – 74; Lioult, Framing the Unexpected 1. According to Bruzzi, Nicholss position on observational cinema is that it comes at the expense of loss of voice? If Nichols has seen voice style plus, what is at stake here? What else is lost? List. 2. Consider the 4 different direct quotes Bruzzi attributes to U.S. direct cinema makers about their documentary practice. How have these statements been construed? What are other possibilities for interpreting these statements? 3. What are 3 practical aspects of basic film and/or video making that make the ideal of pure cinema impossible for makers to sustain? 4. How would direct cinema makers (for instance, the Maysles in Salesman) defend the manipulation of events to suggest a story? 5. Bruzzi says that observational cinema has been mis-defined, mostly by observational filmmakers. What new definition does she offer? Does this definition apply to all documentary films? 1.How does Lioult convince you that there is a problem with the staged-unstaged dichotomy that has historically defined documentary practice? 2. How can a documentary scene be understood as both spontaneous and arranged? 3. Why does Lioult need to add the category framing the unexpected to Ponechs Type I flexible plans and Type II more restrictive plans as strategies for documentary practice?

Assignments

Assignment # 3 Documentary classification Due: Mon. Nov. 8 in class – 5 pg. double-spaced + Appendix Readings for assign: Nichols, Ch. 8 How to Write about Documentary 1.Refine your original definition of documentary to fit these films. See Nichols, p nd paragraph; Re-read Nichols, pp. 20–22; Locate a prototype as starting point. See Nichols, list, websites below, explaining why it has basic features you will isolate. 3. Produce a working filmography (3 films min.) as list in Appendix 4. Write a 5 pg. paper in which you argue that you have discovered a new tendency. Describe the features of your examples in terms of documentary codes or conventions, and, if relevant, documentary voice/style, performance, etc. Disagree with Nichols if necessary. Note: For your purposes, documentary is not a genre but a mode. You are discovering a new sub-mode. 5. Appendix (in addition to 5 pgs) Filmography (alphabetical use format in Nichols, p. 191; Bibliography (class readings only, format as on syllabus) In-text citation to class readings: For ex: (Bruzzi, 32) Do Not do outside reading. (articles and clips) (National Film Board of Canada)

Assignment # 1 Due: September 27 in class Define documentary mode: ½ page paragraph -- double-spaced Agree or disagree with lectures, readings; use examples from films viewed inside or outside class if that helps.