4 - "Baraka" and Editing

4- "Baraka" and Editing

By: Sebastian, Renata and Autumn

Introduction

This week, we watched "Baraka" in class, and were asked to watch "Microcosmos" outside of class. Both these films are very unique in the sense that they have close to no dialogue. Through different editing techniques, words become unnecessary  and sometimes even hinder us from being able to truly understand the purpose of the movie.  Images and music are all that's needed to get a message across.

Baraka

"Baraka" is a non-narrative documentary film released in 1993. The $4million dollar budget movie, directed by Ron Fricke, who masters the art of large format cinematography and time-lapse photography, viewers are given a very poetic film. Fricke once said “Both technically and philosophically I am ready to delve even deeper into my favorite theme: humanity's relationship to the eternal.” (http://www.wff.pl/en/filmy/samsara/). The film does a fabulous job of taking us on a 96 minute journey and showing us how different cultures interact and humanity’s relationship with the world. He traveled to 152 different places in 23 countries over the span of 14 months. To make the movie possible and support his message filming was done in countries such as Kenya, Argentina, Ecuador, Cambodia, Iran, Israel, Thailand, USA, Poland, Turkey and several others.

The word “Baraka” means blessing in Hebrew, this gives us a little hint as to what the message the director wants to get across might be. The film shows us a wide array of religions, different types of spirituality and many people being connected with nature. The film is separated into three different acts , and a whole of twenty chapters. Each act focuses on one specific theme that the movie is trying to address, and it does so by exploring the theme in multiple chapters. The three main themes are: Nature before humans started destroying it, this focuses on native civilizations, and the way that they interact with the elements. The second theme is modern technology's impact on nature, this focuses on the way that our way of living affects and disallows us to have a healthy relationship with nature. The final act  is concentrated on ancients civilizations that still occupy a place in our world. Trough theses three acts the films tries to present multiple issues that have an effect on the world. Miss use of natural resources, inequality of wealth in the world and disregard for less civilized communities are some of the problems showed in "Baraka." When we see all these images, it makes us reflect on how we treat the world and we are forced to ask ourselves multiple questions: are we living too fast? Are we in touch with our inner selves? Do we treat the planet as it should be and are we being respectful enough to nature, which provides us with life? This causes us to redraw the lines defining the difference between what we need and what we want. 

One of the 152 locations they visited during the filming of "Baraka"

Fricke uses the language of images and music to declare his views and understanding of the world to us through his movie. Music and images are the universal form of communication and this enlarges the audiences who will be able to understand the film; therefore, his message will get across to the maximum amount of people. By relying on music and images to tell a story, the film directs our minds towards the message that the director wants us to receive.

One of the many special things of "Baraka" is that it is photographed in the 70mm Todd-AO format, a method that hadn't been used in over twenty years. Being a non-narrative documentary, "Baraka" gives the impression of being unbiased. This week, we focused on the editing of films and how by organizing and presenting images or sounds in certain orders, we are able to tell a story. In class, we discussed the Kuleshov Effect, we saw how film directors integrate the paradigmatic axis and syntagmatic axis to make use of this effect. Also, we learnt about the different dimensions of editing that force us to form relationships between image. The four primary forms that we went over where Graphic Relations (Relating the visual and physical characteristics of the image), Rhythmic Relations ( Relating speed of certain images), Spatial Relations (Relating two different spaces through similarities or differences) and finally, Temporal Relations (Relating time: going forwards, or backwards in chronology or history).

This documentary mainly uses spatial and rhythmic relations between the images in order to trigger personal reactions to the implied message. For example, by relating the tribal and city spaces in consecutive images of tribesmen dancing and switching to urban traffic, Fricke is forcing the viewers to reflect on the fast paced nature of urban life, like the one the majority of us choose to live. We also see this very clearly in the scene where the monk is walking through the busy city streets. By portraying the contrast of the rhythms between the slow meditative walk of the monk, with the rushed movement of cars and people around him, the film is able to demonstrate very clearly two different worlds in one single image.  Another very present concept we see in the film is the Kuleshov Effect. This effect is used to manipulate ones perception of an image by showing a specific image before another, depending on the first image the second can trigger opposite reactions. For example during the film we are shown an image of a tree being cut down in a forest. The following image is that of a native with a plain expression on his face, however many people will believe that he looks sad, angry or even annoyed. This is due to the effect we just mentioned. Film directors integrate the paradigmatic axis and syntagmatic axis to make better use of the Kuleshov Effect. Like we saw in class, by showing certain images in quick succession, without the use of dialogue, we are able to form meaning and extract information. Montage and editing is what makes all of this possible.

Trailer for "Samara": Fricke's newest movie, very similar to "Baraka"

Microcosmos 

(Marie Pérennou and Claude Nuridsany, 1996, France, 80 minutes.)

"Microcosmos" is a documentary film which brings us incredibly close to nature, and most importantly insects. The French film, which was shot over a span of three years, combines slow motion footage with incredible close ups to make it possible for the viewer to witness the magical world of insects. The film consists of multiple images of over twenty types of different insects, filmed in three different countries, going through their daily routines. The film is accompanied by incredible music, and in very small intervals, narration. During the documentary, we feel like we are participating in the everyday tasks of these creatures. We see how intricate each and every one of them really is, and how they all struggle to make in it this world.

A dung beetle struggling to remove its dung ball off a spike 

Although the film’s focus is on insects, it is part of a much bigger picture. When one watches the documentary it makes us think and realize how distant we have become from nature. One forgets that we are not the only species living in this world, even if sometimes we may think we are. Just like we have to get up in the mornings, and work our way through our day, they do too. Just like we encounter obstacles in our everyday lives and have to fight through them, insects have to do the same. In a sense, the film tries to show us that we’re not very different from bugs or even other animals, and that we are not the only living beings in this world that have organized and structured lives. Maybe it is time to stop thinking ourselves so superior to these other life forms, and slowly go back to our roots. Slowly reconnect with nature instead of abusing it like we have been doing as of late, because the manner in which we are abusing nature, takes a toll on these almost invisible creatures that we sometimes tend to forget about.

This documentary, much like "Baraka" is able to deliver its message so clearly due to the way in which it is presented. Although there is a narrator present during the introduction and conclusion of the film, the majority of the images’ sole companion is music. The fact that there is barely no dialogue, and simply music, along with the juxtaposition of images and editing of the film make for an incredibly enriching adventure, which makes it really easy to follow the succession of events, and enables one to infer the message that the director is trying to get across, as well as giving us room to make our own interpretation.

The documentary often makes use of multiple of the editing relations seen in class, to guide us along this wonderful journey through the insect kingdom, which to us is unknown and most of the time invisible. For example, the film begins with a shot of a quiet meadow in France, where there seems to be no life apart from grass and trees. The image then changes and we are suddenly in a close up shot of different insects, moving busily through their daily activities. This simple change of both rhythm and space, speaks volumes about the movie. Just from this juxtaposition of images, we are able to infer lots of meaning about the movie: Its purpose is to show us the invisible, and tells us about how even though we might not think about and sometimes even forget that bugs exist, they are always there, and occupy roles that are equally important as ours. Further into the documentary we are shown an image of a caterpillar walking along a branch and eating and that image is then followed by a shot of butterfly that starts on a branch and flies away. Although we are not explicitly told that the caterpillar has turned into a butterfly, through graphic relations, people watching the documentary can automatically make the link, and draw meaning from these two images that were shown side by side. Finally, at one point in the film, a shot of the sun is followed by an image of a dandelion flower turning into a dandelion seed head over the span of ten seconds. Of course, that process does not take ten seconds but much longer, however by showing us the sun which is a source of energy for the flower, through temporal relations we are able to understand that what we are witnessing is taking a longer time than what was presented to us.

All in all, "Microscosmos" is a very enriching movie both visually and knowledge wise. It makes us question the manner in which we occupy this world, and if we should maybe think about the fact that we are not the only ones here. By use of music and editing it tells us a story that we all need to hear, see and reflect upon.

Disconnected from nature?

The documentary films "Baraka" and "Microcosmos" offer viewers a unique experience. Having no narration, or only very brief moments of narration, they force us to create our own opinions and draw our own conclusions on what the message being conveyed is. Ultimately the films are showing viewers the relationship that different species have with the world. They allow viewers like ourselves to go on a spiritual journey, experiencing lifestyles that are foreign to us, making us reflect on our own lives and the choices of the society we choose to be a part of.

The films are heavily focused on the connection to nature that varies depending on the life one chooses to lead, and just how much we do not know about this planet we call our home. It is obvious that the destruction of this planet is rapidly increasing; while the powerful turn a blind eye and the powerless are forced to watch. "Baraka" reveals how different cultures or groups respect or discard their connection to the Earth and to fellow humans. "Microcosmos" enlightens viewers by presenting the daily lives of "The Grass People.” They are a small example of all the wonderful creatures that lay hidden in our world and shows us that insects are not simply pests that need to be eliminated. In a world of consumerism the majority of humanity more often than not never pauses to appreciate the face that lies behind the cigarette behind smoked, the ant being stepped on, or the chicken being mindlessly eaten who was once sentient and aware of the of torture it endured for momentary "satisfaction". Both films are humbling in the sense that they give us a window to the world making ourselves seem much less significant and realizing that this world has much to offer that we are unaware of.

Though every creature on Earth shares the same origin, we have built up different societies and rules that would cause an outside source to question if we are from the same planet. In our North American culture we may think we are free, but we are the products of our environment, living in a wheel of capitalism to be another rat in this race without a winner. Tribal groups play a large role in the unfolding of "Baraka”, tribal groups which may be deemed “savage” by “civilized” people such as ourselves. In reality these tribes are simply more open to accept and respect their connection to both nature and themselves, whereas our society has created an urban jungle, rejecting nature with an artificial sense of progression. Again, we are wordlessly asked to rethink who are the savages? But humanity is not the only society we must acknowledge, "Microcosmos" beautifully depicts the lives of insects that are only seen by those who open their eyes to what is going on beyond our bubble of humanism. Strangely enough, these insects lead lives that draw parallels between most of the societies created by humans. "Microcosmos" can be seen as a microcosm of life on Earth, stripped down to basic needs of food, shelter, reproduction and so on. All creatures on Earth have the same needs and work towards the same cause, survival.

Two slugs, intertwined in an act of beauty

These films are eye-openers and a needed reality check for many viewers. The directors are without a doubt creating these cinematic works as a gateway to insist that each and every viewer should reflect on their own lifestyles and reevaluate their views on what is right or wrong. They challenge us to break down the barriers dividing different species, races, religions, classes, etc. and appreciate that we are all equal, that we are all earthlings.

Conclusion 

In conclusion, after having watched and analyzed these two documentaries which share the same structure, it is very interesting to see how easily editing and juxtaposition of images can tell us so much. We have also learnt from these two films, that the human race needs to take back a step and think about the way we have been treating nature, and slowly make our way back to it.

3 - "Bowling For Columbine" and Image

"Bowling For Columbine" and Image
By Marc-Antoine, Akshay, and Justin

Introduction

Michael Moore one of the most popular documentary filmmakers has a very special way to communicate his opinion. In this blog you will learn how he does it and how makes it so strong that it persuades the audience to believe what he believes. We used two of his greatest documentaries to explain to you how did it, one being the documentary about the horrible gun culture in the USA ‘’Bowling for Columbine’’ and the other being ‘’Capitalism; A love story’’.

Bowling For Columbine

The documentary we had to watch this week was “Bowling for Columbine” it is a documentary that is purposed to inform the public on -gun laws. The director, Michael Moore, does a great job explaining to the audience what his perspective on guns is, and how his outlook on guns was created. The film shows its viewers many things that they may not have known before. For example, it is shown in the opening scenes to us just how easy it is to get ahold of a firearm.

 The documentary is dedicated to showing its audience the consequences of placing a gun in the wrong set of hands, and how we as caring citizens can approach this battle against guns. As shown in “Bowling for Columbine”, when a gun is placed in the hands of a child, it is impossible to predict what the outcome may be. Not once, but twice, it is shown that children with access to firearm(s), may lose their sense of sanity and lash out. In these cases, the result of the “lashing out’s” resulted in fatal school shootings. One, is the most notorious school shooting in the history of the USA, Columbine, the other, a shooting of a six year old, committed by a six year old. Michael Moore searches for answers to why in the United States of America there are so many fatalities as a result of guns? He blames the media, saying it has filled everybody’s mind with hate and paranoia, forcing them to take precautions, in the form of purchasing weapons. He shows the audience what they can do to help the cause of a gun-free America, and how it only takes 3 men, to have such great impact on the changes made for an entire society. One of the final scenes of the film shows Moore with two survivors of the Columbine shooting travel to the K-mart headquarters to demand the discontinuation of the bullets they sell. After days of arguing with K-mart officials, their wish is granted.

Michael Moore consistently uses real (live) footage of the events in the film, and it is this that makes the film so unique. The documentary is created to convince its viewers that our society is better without guns. By using the real footage of the events used to show the audience that guns are bad, they are able to actually see with their own eyes what exactly the consequences are to the use of guns.

In class, we discussed the three forms of rhetoric seen in the film.  
1) Ethos (Believing someone because of their social position)…Although not everything in the film is true, like the opening scene where Michael Moore walks into the bank and walks out with a gun (where if that were to happen to anyone else, it would take nearly 2 months receive the firearm), however because of Moore’s great reputation for documentary making, the audience believes everything he presents.  
2) Logos (using numbers, facts, figures)…. Used when presenting the totals for those killed by country, and 
3) Pathos (Appealing to emotions to alter the auditor/reader/viewers judgment)…. Using real footage (such as the 911 calls from Columbine) to have the audience experience a sense of fear, which in turn leads them to agree with the point Michael Moore is making throughout the entire film, that guns should be taken off the streets and the hands of civilians.

Capitalism: A Love Story

The documentary that was assigned to our group was Capitalism; A love story. A 2 hour film produced by Michael Moore, an American citizen criticizing the political and economic system of the United States. It is about the financial crisis in 2007 and Moore is trying to prove that it happened because of capitalism. Basically capitalism is the stock market. People invest in companies that make a lot of money, and every time they find out new ideas, the value of the companies goes up, therefore making people richer. But when the company’s value starts going down, their value goes down’ and people start losing money and this is what happened in 2007 with Dow Jones.  He also asks the question to the different groups of Americans, like poor families and stock holders. What is the price they have to pay for capitalism, some of them are their jobs, and some of them are their homes and some of them are none of these two, on the contrary, they get paid with capitalism.  This is what Micheal Moore explains in his documentary, that in capitalism, there are poors and rich and the rich control the poor. There is no middle class. The documentary has a bias opinion of capitalism, the director is against capitalism and he does a great job using propaganda and rhetorical factors to support his arguments, making them strong and believable. He presents his arguments with interviews and in a specific order so that the audience can understand more clearly the message he is trying to send. He does not interview someone who has strong arguments about capitalism, because then he would just defeat the purpose of this whole film. The most important sections of the film would be when he explains to us how the government is controlling the market, because then we can really understand what capitalism is about, in his opinion, a failed corrupted system controlled by greed, this is why he believes that it is problematic.

Opposed to Bowling for Columbine, Micheal Moore uses a lot more the ethos form of rhetoric. He interviewed highly ranked people, for example a woman that is part of the congress, he also  showed the audience numbers, graphs and charts of different financial topics. For example, he went to a bank in New York, and asked a women (who is suppose to take care of the money) where the Americans people money was, and she replied “I don’t know.” The director is trying to prove that even the bank workers have no idea where there money is going, but we all know that there cash is going to the CEO of the company. He also uses a lot of Pathos. He used comedy and sadness. He does not talk about this in the film, but we can clearly notice that Michael Moore’s documentary is a roller coaster of emotions. For example, at one point he goes into a bank to make a citizen’s arrest on the CEO, which is absolutely stupid because he has no evidence that it is him who has all of the Americans money, even if we know it is them (CEO). An example of a sad part is when we see poor families kicked out of their own homes because there money was all stolen by rich people just so that they can get more money. And those people that are kicked out of their homes have no place to go.

Example of Pathos Rhetoric:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4q55Y6Q1CU

 Micheal Moore is a master at rhetoric arguments. He is a very good critical thinker, and he demonstrates that in a lot of his documentary films. But one can argue that he is a one sided person. If he believes that something is right or wrong, he will try to convince everyone to think the same way. So we can say that his documentaries are biased. For example, he uses two main propaganda techniques; card stacking, which is when the director or producer re-arranges the facts in a positive light, in this case a negative light the other technique used a lot was plain folks; this is when the producer portrays simple people as holders of the truth. In the documentary Capitalism; A love story  the ‘’holders of the truth’’ would be the poor people, because Michael Moore only shows them in is documentary as sad and poor families rejected from their homes. Never in capitalism; a love story has he talked to someone that explained what their point of view on capitalism was, and if he did show an interview, it was someone who had the same opinion as Micheal Moore. Now, don’t get us wrong, we don’t think that capitalism in a good thing, but this documentary has extremely changed our perspective on this topic and this is exactly what Micheal Moore’s goal was.

Comparison

In these two films the director, Micheal Moore, clearly pushes us to believe there is something fundamentally wrong in our society today. In these films he forces us to look at ourselves and to observe what we have become. Michael Moore always reminds his audience that he’s just like us. This is important because we see ourselves as being average and he points that out and makes us relate to him. In these documentaries we learn that we want to be the best person we can be. When you are watching these two films you are forced to make a choice of what you believe is right and what the documentary tells you is right. If by chance you disagree with these documentaries' point of view you may find it difficult to watch this film. Through these documentaries you learn where you stand and what you believe in. In some cases you may be forced to change your point of view and that in itself speaks volumes to who you are as a person. 

In both documentaries Michael Moore wastes no time and sets the tone straight away . In Capitalism: A love story he shows the credits mixed with music playing while footage of people robbing a bank is played. In Bowling for Columbine he shows the world as being normal but then says that the United States just bombed a country we couldn’t pronounce. These are two cases where he shows clearly that the world we live in is not as it seems. In a way he’s teaching us straight off the bat that there is something wrong that needs to be changed. In both film the director wants us to believe in his left-wing mentality. In Capitalism: a love story he seeks to tell us that capitalism is a broken system that needs to be changed for a more socialist system. In Bowling for Columbine he wants us to believe that America’s obsession with firearms needs to stop. Before watching these films you may think that a school shooting happens and it doesn’t affect you. Throughout the movie your vision of the world transforms to how these issues that the director points out could affect you. Before watching these films, I imagine that most people saw school shooting as being an issue that was unsolvable and that capitalism is the political system in the world that is the best for everyone. 

In a world as crazy and fast paced as ours we tend to get narcissistic. For example, when the horrible shooting happened at Dawson college I never knew school shootings were happening. I was a kid quickly exposed to how dark our society can be. Of course most people only mourned a loss that day but no one ever really thought of asking why this happened . Now I know it’s because of the easy access to firearms mixed with some crazy individuals that cause this to happen and is how Micheal Moore Pushes us to see the truth .


Conclusion

Micheal Moore is a master of propaganda, he uses the specific images, tones, people and even music to make the audience beleive in what he thinks is true. Even though, our group beleives that he is right on most of his topics, there are still poeple who are not agreeing with this director. Propaganda is Micheal Moore tool, he uses it in all of documetaries, and it has worked.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/stock/040706


 

2 - "Waltz with Bashir" and Realism

Waltz with Bashir and Realism
By Gabriel, Christopher & Karissa

In class during week 2 we covered the topics of realism, memory, scopophilia versus epistephilia and Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir. These themes are also present in Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis, another animated documentary that takes place in the Middle-East. Both films also deal with war and perception, and they can cause us to reflect on issues that are still around today.

Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008, Israel, 90 min.) & Realism - Where Imagination meets Animation


The documentary film Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman is a film about Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Surprisingly this documentary covers events of this invasion not by historical records, but based on the memories of ex-Israeli soldiers who took part in this invasion. The reason for this odd representation of this war is because of how Ari Folman (who was a soldier during this war) has forgotten most of the events that transpired during the war. So he locates some of his old friends from the war to try and put the pieces of his scattered memories together. An interview with Folman can be seen below.

This film is very unique. Animation is not a very accepted characteristic of the norms and conventions of documentary films. When watching a documentary film it is mostly preferred to see live action filming. A documentary film is intended to document real life, but the usage of animation contradicts this. However, reality is portrayed efficiently in this film as we will see later on the blog. Animation does not weaken the effect of a documentary film it actually enhances its effectiveness on the viewer by the manipulation of the environment by the director. How is animation useful in documentary film? Deciding to make a film in animation is very cost efficient. The cost of making a live action documentary of a war would have most likely made Ari Folman broke even with the large response from the film. Even if he had shot a million dollar live action documentary with payed actors, props and other professionals to do the war sequences, the film might not have had such a positive response. As was discussed in our class discussion, animation allows the director to form the perfect environment. Animation is the ultimate form of creativity in film. It allows one to create exactly what they envision in their imagination. The dream sequences in particular are perfect of example of the advantages in using animation.

Although this film is showing the events of the invasion of Lebanon, Ari Folman says that for him this film was about memory. What can be said about memory after watching this film? One of the things discussed in class was that memory is not controlled by our own will. Instinctively memory can disappear. In the case of Ari Folman, his memory was repressed after being involved in such a traumatic war. Also, Folman talks about the psychological theory of manipulated memory, which how a suggestion of a fake event in a person's life that is presented to the person can make the individual actually believe he or she that that event actually happened. This is shown in the film by the carnival scene where Ari Folman's friend is explaining this psychological phenomena.

The theme for this week was reality. What is reality? Is it something that can be portrayed on film? Isn't that the function of documentary films? So does that mean that this film does not portray reality. It is only after watching Waltz with Bashir does the reality of this film smack you right in the face. When the animation stops and actual footage of the massacre appears we realize that the animation portrays reality of the situation. For example: there is a scene where the soldiers are in a mansion that was raided by the Israeli army and they are just hanging out and one soldier is even watching porn. This scene portrays the reality of warfare. Like in many films about war, directors focus more on the fighting and not what the soldiers do between fights. Reality in film is not always live action, yes the things seen in live-action are real, but reality is what is actually happening.

Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud, 2007, France, 95 min.)

Persepolis is a 2007 France-made film, directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi. The film is based on a graphic novel, also written by Satrapi, an autobiography about her life from her time as a child during the Iranian Revolution to her adult life. It shows her family and how they lived during and after the Revolution as well as Satrapi’s exile into Europe as a teenager. Though she returned as an adult, it was not long before she left for France again, being unable to readjust to Iran’s strict, female-dominating laws. The film stands out because it is from the perspective of a woman, and women are not usually given a voice in the Middle-East. Satrapi was a young girl for the first part of the film, and also presented the simplistic point of view of a child on both political and social problems.

The main issues covered in this film were Iranian politics, the influence of western culture and extremism in the Middle-East. Satrapi, or Marji as she called herself in the film, was a young girl during the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s. Iran had been under control of a leader supported by the U.S.A. and England in return for easier access to oil. Marji was taught in school that the Shah (Iran’s ruler) was chosen by God, and only after the revolution began did her parents tell her the truth. Her
uncle had even been locked up as a political prisoner for opposing the government. For more information on the Iranian Revolution of 1978 and 79, see here.

The relationship between Iran and the U.S.A. and England caused western influence to remain, even after the fundamentalist government took over. This is shown by Marji listening to Western singing groups like the Bee Gees or Michael Jackson. She would have to do so secretly because the government, and even citizens, would try to take them away to preserve their culture. It shows a cultural struggle between tradition and western society in Iran. This East versus West conflict is also present when Marji goes to live in Austria. Because she is Iranian, she is treated differently by the people there, at worst being perceived as ugly and savage, and at best being considered ‘exotic’ by her Austrian friends. Either way, she is viewed as standing out and not quite fitting in with the rest of the ‘Easterners’.

Extremism was also present in the film. After the Shah was deposed, the new government was a fundamentalist Islamic group. Women were forced to be completely covered except for their face. Alcohol, gatherings of both men and women and anything western were completely banned. As a young girl, Marji spoke out against her teachers who were enforcing this, causing her parents to send her to Austria for her own safety. Returning as an adult, she found that not much had changed. She was not allowed to see her boyfriend in public, and when caught she was threatened with being whipped.

Persepolis is animated in a style similar to the graphic novel it is based on. Stills of the film appear almost identical to the graphic novel panels. It is a black and white cartoon, with comic-style transitions. An angry character’s head might swell up, for example. Though it is autobiographical, linear and sometimes serious, it often blends in humour.

Film.

Graphic novel. If it were not for the writing, could you tell the difference?

What is real and what is being exaggerated in the film is clear because of the animation style. It stays plain during parts that probably really happened to Marji, while other scenes are not. Marji ages all at once in the film, going from around twelve to twenty years old in seconds. There are also a dream sequence, where Marji speaks with God and Karl Marx, which obviously never physically happened. The scenes with her family and her friends seemed more realistic because nobody ever turned to the camera or acted strangely.

The film plays off both scopophilia and epistephilia, with the content appealing to knowledge and the format appealing to sensation. The issues in the film, the sexism, the extremism and the relationship between the Middle-East and the west are all issues that we recognize as existing still today. The pleasure of looking comes from the style of the movie, the funny, cartoony look, Marji’s dreams and the cartoony moments such as when she literally swells up in anger. Marji’s childish perspective also adds to the pleasure of looking, because it lets us see the issues with a naïve perspective that brings humour and silliness to otherwise serious moments.

The visual style of the characters and most of the scenes are based on Marji’s memories of the experiences she had. There was a scene where two older women caught her buying an Iron Maiden CD. They were tall, mean and bent over. They appear that way because that was how Satrapi remembered them. The whole film was based only on her memories, but that does not mean it is any less true.

How are we Affected?

Through films, we can learn and experience various kinds of emotions. We see how people have to deal with certain aspects of their lives, how they overcome their fears, or they can teach us something they feel strongly about. Films have the power to let our minds analyze how we really feel about something, and to rethink what our opinion is based on the topic of the film. Seeing something visually can make it clearer to understand and grasp. Waltz with Bashir allows us to learn not only about the film, but ourselves as well.

We learned just how much the past can haunt us. As we saw in the movie, Folman struggles with his past and gets numerous nightmares. For example, we can experience something like this in everyday life, like if something bad happened to us as a child, those bad memories can be with us forever. We can repress them, but they can still linger. In the documentary, we see how Folman realizes that he can’t remember his past during the war. He has a lot of trouble trying to remember what exactly happened, which leads him to asking questions to the men who fought in the war with him. Because he could not answer them himself. This teaches us that we cannot always trust our memory. At times our memory can play tricks on us. Due to the way we want to see and think of the world as maybe being different from true reality, our memory can alter itself to protect and shield us. Can we even really be sure if something happened at all? The film literally challenges our vision of the world, suggesting that what we remember may not be what happened.

In the film, Folman lacked accuracy. He did not know the difference between his imagination and the truth, the actual events he went through. Knowing the truth means that there are facts and evidence to prove it. In society, we can notice how facts can be broken as they get spread around by multiple people. This gives us the benefit of the doubt because it makes us think “what is really the truth?”. It is as if society is playing broken telephone. “Throughout history and today, truth has been twisted and sculpted to fit the needs of certain people or groups. Even if one is not trying to misrepresent something, there are unintentional societal, cultural or personal biases portrayed”. What this quote from here means is that by living in a society full of unfaithful people and having to doubt what someone says, is the reason why we question our memory and what really is the truth. For example, on the news, we hear all kinds of stories that can frighten us, yet many of them are exaggerated to an extent. If you were to see the accident or incident happen with your own eyes, you’d know it is the real. One such story on the news recently, is of the Arab Spring, which has much in common with a central issue in Persepolis.

The Iranian Revolution that happened during the events of Persepolis are similar to the wave of revolutions that have been occurring in Middle-Eastern countries recently, also called the Arab Spring. Both conflicts were littered with violence but the revolting sides ultimately hoped that it would be for the better. While the Iranian Revolution was able to get rid of their dictator, the Shah, the Arab Spring was likewise able to free (or in the process of freeing) the people living under oppressive regimes and allowed them to set up a new government that they believed would be fairer. For a more in-depth look at the events of the Arab Spring, see here.

Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis both demonstrated the effectiveness of animation in documentary, that even the unreal can present the real if the director wishes it. It also allows for a seamless transition between the reality of the people in the film, and their dreams and memories. Both films showed war, violence and other things that may be difficult to discuss or see, but were able to make them easier to present to an audience. We are able to not just recognize these issues, but we can also be immersed in the beautiful world the directors saw in their minds. They can also make us think about the nature of reality, how we perceive it or how we remember it, and teach us to be better critical thinkers about how we see our environment.

1 - An Introduction to Documentary Films

An Introduction to Documentary Films 
By Sylvain Duguay

[Introduction]
What is documentary film? How does it relate to this “Knowledge” Humanities class? How did documentary films come into being, and how did they develop over time? Those questions seem to be central to the course we just started. This past week, as an introduction to the course, we looked at the course outline, we participated in a small activity designed to get to know one another, and we had a look at the advent of cinema in general, and of documentary film in particular.

 [Title for part 1]
The Advent of Documentary Film 

We started the lesson in small groups, where we were asked to make a list of words we associate with documentary films, and then we shared those. From the list on the board, it seems clear that most people view documentary films as something informative or educational. But the words ranged from formal characteristics of documentary films (voice-over, interviews, etc.) to the topics covered by those films (war, politics, nature, etc.). We then saw how film was developed from photography, thought the experiments of Edward Muybridge and Jules Marey. It’s the French Lumière brothers who invented the first cinématographe. They sent their operators throughout the world to demonstrate the new technology and they drew very large crowds. After a year, though, they all came back to France and the Lumière started to sell their cinématographes to whoever wanted them.

At the beginning of cinema, two main trends were observable: fiction and non-fiction films. As we saw with “L’homme-orchestre”, by Georges Méliès, fiction film was mostly devoted to entertaining people through storytelling, magic, and visual effects. In this black and white film, a man is able to multiply himself and play all the instruments in a small band. It’s like the ancestor of special effects as we know them today. The Lumière film “Exit from the factory” exemplified the other trend: we simply see the workers of a factory leaving the grounds (for lunch or at the end of the day). It is non-fiction since the camera only records reality as it unfolds, not trying to stage it (or only minimally). It did not take long for those two ways of making films to take their own directions as many more people throughout the world started to experiment with film.

We also started to look at how documentary films constitute a field of knowledge. “Epistemology” is the philosophical term for the study of the nature, the sources, and the limits of knowledge. Knowledge can be defined as justified true beliefs, and documentary films often bring justifications to explain why their vision of the world (their belief system) is true, is reliable, is based on evidence or sound reasoning. Event though documentaries can be hard to define (as we saw from the variety of words in the lists we made), we will try to do that throughout the semester by watching a variety of films. As a guide, we looked at 5 categories of documentary films. They are not exclusive – more than one may apply to the same film:
1. Expository films: they simply expose a situation, often with a voice-over;
2. Observatory films: a small crew of filmmakers observes a situation as it unfolds, very discreetly. We are like a fly on the wall, spying on people’s lives;
3. Interactive: the filmmakers interact with the people on the screen (ex: interviews);
4. Reflexive: the filmmaker reflects on the process of filmmaking. It’s like a mirror reflecting film onto itself, forcing us to ask questions about truth and cinema.
5. Poetic: images and sound are used to compose a sort of visual poem, calling to our emotions rather than our reason.

[Additional Film’s Title]
Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922, USA, 79 min.) 

Robert Flaherty was a trader in the Canadian Arctic and as such he came in contact with many of the then called Eskimos (today’s Inuits). As he got to know them better, living with them and sharing their daily experiences, he started to film many of the events unfolding in the community. A first version of the film was lost to fire (film strips were highly flammable in those day), and Flaherty went back up north to shoot Nanook and his family again. We see, among other things, the Eskimos building an igloo, going walrus and seal hunting, visiting by kayak the trading post inhabited by White men, and many more details of their lives. The film was released to great critical acclaim, and it is known today as the first full-length documentary film.

Nanook of the North, by filming the day-to-day life of the inhabitants of the Arctic, clearly belongs to the category of the non-fiction film. As we watch the film, we have the impression to witness a way of life very foreign to ours, and to observe Nanook as his people as they take care of their needs for food, shelter, clothes, and more. The feeling is very realistic: the characters look natural, nature seems untouched by civilization, and there is an overall aura of authenticity attached to the images. But to say that it presents “the world as it is” may be stretching it a little.

Flaherty was faced with many challenges. His camera being very big (in the 1910s and 1920s cameras very not easily movable), he had to organize the action around the camera, rather than going where the action was taking place. Also, the film stock needing a lot of light, they needed to build an igloo open on one side in order to have enough light to give the “illusion” that they were inside. By the time Flaherty visited Nanook and his family (Nanook was not the Eskimo’s real name), they were already enjoying some of the perks of the civilized world (guns, clothes, etc.). Flaherty convinced them to reenact the ways of doing of their ancestors. Those factors, while they may force us to question the “truth” of what we see, were simple technological and logistical problems that had to be circumvented in order to make the film as real as possible. Even today, when we watch documentary films, we must always question what we see on the screen and ask ourselves what role (conscious or unconscious) the filmmaker did play in the shaping of the events depicted, and in what measure we can call them “real.”

[Title for section 3]
Opening our eyes and our minds to the world around us 

Documentary films definitely belong to the world of cinema: they have been central to the development of film since its early days and they as relevant today as they were then. It is important to be able to read documentary films properly in order to understand how they depict the reality onto which they turn their camera. By being more aware of the context of production, of the general history of the events depicted, and of the claims to truth made by the filmmakers, we are able to read the films properly, to understand their possible meanings, and to situate their relationship with truth.

Films like “L’homme orchestre” are certainly entertaining, but they do not really serve any other purpose than to amuse us. Documentary films, on the other hand, are “instrumental”: they have the purpose to educate and edify us. A film as simple as “Exit from the factory” tell us many things about the Paris of 1895 without even trying: who were the factory workers of the day (women and men), how they dressed, what means of transportation they used, how the buildings were made, etc. It’s a very brief glimpse into a past gone forever, yet preserved on film. While all those people have been long dead, they survive for us to watch and observe. Like our family photographs, or the home movies we make, they offer a trace of how people have lived and interacted together. I feel this way every time I take out the family albums, or run an old movie: I am reacquainted with images from the past, with people who have been a part of my life, some still here, some gone...

Films like “Nanook of the North” are more detailed: they take the time to introduce characters, their settings, and their daily activities. They are partly ethnographic (presenting another culture) by bringing to us an unknown way of life. By observing people in their habitat, we realize that our way of life, which we may believe is “normal”, is in fact nothing more than one way of living among many other possibilities. When we see this, our comprehension of the world changes, we open up to differences, and maybe become more accepting, more understanding of people around us.

By using the expository mode of filmmaking, those films open up a window on the world and it is our task to decode what they can teach us. We must make sure never to take for granted that was is shown to us is an absolute truth; we rather should take the opportunity to analyze the content of the films (as well as the way they carry their message) to understand what the is the relationship of documentary filmmaking to truth.

[Conclusion]

Using the possibilities of cinema to record the world as it was unfolding before their eyes, early filmmakers have laid the foundations for documentary film as we know it today. The short films of the Lumière brothers and the longer films like Flaherty’s “Nanook of the North” allow us to access a world that has since disappeared. They speak to us though time, forcing us to question what we see, to appreciate the challenges they overcame during the filming process, and to question notions of truth and authenticity. We will most certainly come to understand those notions better as the semester progresses.