melanie saumure

1. Documentary makers must have a moral responsibility to engage in social and political discourses.

Documentary is not a narcissistic outlet for intellectual masturbation. As mentioned by Julianne H. Newton in her book The Burden Of Visual Truth: The Role Of Photojournalism In Mediating Reality, the documentary maker, as a witness, has a social responsibility to report human experience with accuracy and honesty in every context (i.e. peace, harmony, conflict or trauma) as well as to get their work for the world to see (Newton 2001: 28). What you see on public television or in the newspapers is highly convergent and largely influenced by corporate and capitalist values. Barbie Zelizer also addressed the act of witnessing in her essay “Photography, Journalism and Trauma“: “Bearing witness brings individuals together on their way to collective recovery. Defined as an act of witnessing that enables people to take responsibility for what they see (Zelizer 1998: 10), bearing witness moves individuals from personal act of “seeing“ to the adoption of a public stance by which they become part of a collective working through trauma together. “ (Zelizer 2002: 52).

2. Documentary must not be “politically correct”.

Documentary makers should not censor themselves to conform to hegemonic ideology to secure funding and distribution. They should resist to commercial pressure and homogenization by criticizing mainstream point of views. They should not sacrifice their integrity and beliefs, nor avoid any sensitive or unpopular issues so that their work would be judged “corporate friendly” by the institutions of media concentration and the public and private broadcasters in a consumer society. Documentary is about awareness and it is a tool for education, information, debate and agitation.

3. Documentary is about instinct.

Documentary should not be planned, organized and calculated like fiction film. Documentary makers should not treat their subject like puppets or fictional actor in order to construct their work. They should observe life and trust their intuition so that they could construct a dramatic curve with the real.

4. Documentary is not about absolute truth. Since there is not such thing as truth and pure objectivity, the viewer must be able gather information and to build-up his own understanding of reality.

Documentary makers are intermediary between the world and the viewer. Their dedication and integrity as much as their desire for accuracy and fairness are “bearers for visual truth” (Newton 2001: 12). Julianne H. Newton addresses the issue of “mediated reality” and of the paradox of objectivity: “The paradox is that in this unreal, constructed, perceived world of ours, we sometimes see sparks of something we can call reasonably true because of the skill and the integrity of those who mediated the sparks.“ (Newton 2001: 12). According to Susan Sontag, the perception of reality through photographial representation is largely influence by the dichotomy of objectivity/subjectivity: “This sleight of hand allows photographs to be both objective record and personal testimony of reality and interpretation that reality – a feat literature has long aspired to, but could never attain in this literal sense.” (Sontag 2003: 26).

5. Documentary should not be a tool for an aggressive kind of didacticism based upon a utopian notion of an absolute truth or a political doctrine. It should fight against any retreat response, passive attitude or apolitical position.

Documentary must engage the viewer in an open dialogue in order to question dominant ideology and to avoid the phenomenon of compassion fatigue: “Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers (Sontag 2003: 101). “People don’t become inured to what they are shown – if that’s the right way to describe what happens – because of the quantity of images dumped on them. It is in passivity that dulls feeling (Sontag 2003: 102).

6. Documentary is not strictly limited to the elitist class or the academia and it should be disseminated in public space.

It should not be restricted to specialized channels or repertory cinemas, nor confined to gallery contexts. It should circulate in any possible ways in order to fulfill its advocacy function. As a communication tool, it should raise awareness on cultural and political issues as well as thwart aggressive corporate propaganda and consumerist values.

7. Documentary work should speak for itself.

Documentary makers should not have to explain and deconstruct their work and their vision to please any dominant institutions, governments, media conglomerates or other power structures. As a result of this practice, the work can be denaturalized, sterilized and de-contexualized and something becomes lost in the very private act of creation, leaving no more room for the viewer to interpret the work. “You know, I really think with a good part of myself that an artist shouldn’t talk very much about his work, or himself (…) But an artist is too special a man in society anyway. “ (Katz 1971: 368-369).

8. Documentary maker should not walk away from the possibility to sometimes be a messenger to “advocate for other peoples needs” (Alcoff 1991-2: 29).

Documentary makers, as products of mediating forces, should engage in the “act of representation” by seeking to establish dialogue with their subjects. By “speaking with” rather than “speaking for”, documentary makers are participating in the development of “strategies for a more equitable, just distribution of the ability to speak and be heard” (Alcoff 1991-2: 29) and the empowerment of the less privileged persons.

9. Documentary is not strictly limited to the elitist class or the academia and it should be disseminated in public space.

It should not be restricted to specialized channels or repertory cinemas, nor confined to gallery contexts. It should circulate in any possible ways in order to fulfill its advocacy function. As a communication tool, it should raise awareness on cultural and political issues as well as thwart aggressive corporate propaganda and consumerist values.

10. Documentary must not be versioned.

Documentary makers must have full control over dissemination of their works. No film or audio documentary should be mangle in order to fit in a time slot allowed by broadcasting corporations run by the conglomerates and the “gatekeepers“ that embrace uniformity and conservative values.

works cited

Alcoff, Linda. “The Problem of Speaking for Others.“ in Cultural Critique. Winter. NC: Oxford University Press, 1991-1992: 5-32.

Katz, Leslie. “An Interview with Walker Evans.“ in Vickie Goldberg (Ed.) Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981: 358-369.

Langlois, Andrea, Frédéric Dubois. Autonomous Media: Activating, Resistance & Dissent. Montreal: Cumulus Press, 2005.

Newton, Julianne H. The Burden Of Visual Truth: The Role Of Photojournalism In Mediating Reality. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001.

Schechter, David. The Death Of Media: And The Fight To Save Democracy. Hoboken, New Jersey: Melville House Publishing, 2005.

Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2003.

Zelizer, Barbie. “Photography, Journalism and Trauma.“ in Zelizer, B. and S. Allan (Eds.) Journalism After September 11. London and New York: Routledge: 48-68.