If I were making a documentary about the uniformity that has infested modern documentaries, it would go something like this: Open with a sequence detailing the extent of the problem, flashing on examples of its reach, cutting in quick, declarative sound bites, scored with music of steadily mounting tension that climaxes just as the title is revealed. Over the next 90-120 minutes, I would lay out the problem in greater detail, primarily via copious interviews with experts on the subject, their data points illustrated via scores of snazzily animated infographics. Along the way, I would introduce the viewer to a handful of Regular Folk affected by the issue at hand, and show how their daily lives have become a struggle (or an inspiration). But lest I send the viewer staggering from the theater bereft of hope, I’d conclude by explaining, in the simplest terms possible, exactly how to solve the problem. And then, over the end credits, I would tell you, the viewer, what you can do to help — beginning with a visit to my documentary’s official website.
What you would learn from this film is that too many of today’s documentaries have become feature-length versions of TV newsmagazine segments, each a 60 Minutes piece stretched out to two hours, two pounds of sugar in a five-pound bag. And perhaps this viewer became more aware of it in 2014 because, early in the year, I saw a film that was like a case study in what’s wrong with this approach: Fed Up, a position-paper doc on the obesity epidemic. It’s got the thesis-paragraph pre-title opening, the animated graphics (complete with cutesy, nonstop sound effects), the closing-credit instructions. And then, as if its TV-news style isn’t obvious enough, it’s even got the comically commonplace “headless fat people walking down the streets” B-roll and narration by, no kidding, Katie Couric.
Fed Up plays like something made to burn off time on MSNBC some Saturday afternoon between reruns of Caught On Camera and Lock-Up, but nope: I saw it at the beginning of 2014 because it was playing at the Sundance Film Festival. It received a simultaneous theatrical and VOD release in May; last month, Indiewire reported that its robust earnings in both have made it one of the year’s most successful documentaries.
Look, this could just be a matter of pet peeves and personal preferences, and of trends that have merely made themselves apparent to someone whose vocation requires consumption of more documentaries than the average moviegoer. But this formula, and the style that goes hand in hand with it, is infecting more and more nonfiction films, lending an air of troubling sameness to activist docs like Ivory Tower (on the financial crisis of higher education) and Citizen Koch (on the massive casualties of the Citizens United decision). But it’s been in the air for some time, with earlier films like Food Inc., Bully, The Invisible War, Waiting for “Superman,” and the granddaddy of the movement, Davis Guggenheim’s Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth — a film, lest we forget, about a PowerPoint presentation. And it doesn’t stop there; even a profile movie like Nas: Time Is Illmatic has a big, state-the-premise pre-title sequence, which plays, in most of these films, like the teaser before the first commercial break.
The formulaic construction of these documentaries — as set in stone as the meet-cute/hate/love progression of rom-coms or the rise/addiction/fall/comeback framework of the music biopic — is particularly galling because it’s shackling a form where even fewer rules should apply. The ubiquity (over the past decade and a half) of low-cost, low-profile, high-quality video cameras and user-friendly, dirt-cheap non-linear editing technology has revolutionized independent film in general, allowing young filmmakers opportunities to create professional-looking product even directors of the previous generation could only dream of. (...)
It’s easy to arrive at that point with these diverse subjects, the logic goes, but a more straightforward, news-doc approach is required for aggressive, activist documentaries with points to make and moviegoers to educate — and the commonness of that thinking is perhaps why so many critics have gone nuts for CITIZENFOUR, Laura Poitras’ account of Edward Snowden’s leak of NSA documents detailing surveillance programs around the world. That’s a giant topic, but the surprise of the picture is how intimate and personal it is, primarily due to the filmmaker’s place within the story: she was the contact point for Snowden, hooked in to his actions via encrypted messages, in the room with the whistleblower as he walked through the documents with Glenn Greenwald.
As a result, much of the film is spent in Snowden’s Hong Kong hotel, Poitras’ camera capturing those explanations and strategy sessions, a procedural detailing logistics, conferences, and conversations. There are no expert talking heads to provide (unnecessary, I would argue) context; there are no jazzy charts and graphs to explain it all to the (presumably) slower folks in the audience. The only such images come in a quick-cut montage of illustrations within the leaked documents, and they’re solely that — illustrations. The most powerful and informative graphics in the film are the mesmerizing images of encrypted messages from Snowden to Poitras, which fill the screen with impenetrable numbers, letters, and symbols, before clearing away to reveal the truth underneath, a powerful metaphor for Snowden’s actions (and the film itself).
What you would learn from this film is that too many of today’s documentaries have become feature-length versions of TV newsmagazine segments, each a 60 Minutes piece stretched out to two hours, two pounds of sugar in a five-pound bag. And perhaps this viewer became more aware of it in 2014 because, early in the year, I saw a film that was like a case study in what’s wrong with this approach: Fed Up, a position-paper doc on the obesity epidemic. It’s got the thesis-paragraph pre-title opening, the animated graphics (complete with cutesy, nonstop sound effects), the closing-credit instructions. And then, as if its TV-news style isn’t obvious enough, it’s even got the comically commonplace “headless fat people walking down the streets” B-roll and narration by, no kidding, Katie Couric.Fed Up plays like something made to burn off time on MSNBC some Saturday afternoon between reruns of Caught On Camera and Lock-Up, but nope: I saw it at the beginning of 2014 because it was playing at the Sundance Film Festival. It received a simultaneous theatrical and VOD release in May; last month, Indiewire reported that its robust earnings in both have made it one of the year’s most successful documentaries.
Look, this could just be a matter of pet peeves and personal preferences, and of trends that have merely made themselves apparent to someone whose vocation requires consumption of more documentaries than the average moviegoer. But this formula, and the style that goes hand in hand with it, is infecting more and more nonfiction films, lending an air of troubling sameness to activist docs like Ivory Tower (on the financial crisis of higher education) and Citizen Koch (on the massive casualties of the Citizens United decision). But it’s been in the air for some time, with earlier films like Food Inc., Bully, The Invisible War, Waiting for “Superman,” and the granddaddy of the movement, Davis Guggenheim’s Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth — a film, lest we forget, about a PowerPoint presentation. And it doesn’t stop there; even a profile movie like Nas: Time Is Illmatic has a big, state-the-premise pre-title sequence, which plays, in most of these films, like the teaser before the first commercial break.
The formulaic construction of these documentaries — as set in stone as the meet-cute/hate/love progression of rom-coms or the rise/addiction/fall/comeback framework of the music biopic — is particularly galling because it’s shackling a form where even fewer rules should apply. The ubiquity (over the past decade and a half) of low-cost, low-profile, high-quality video cameras and user-friendly, dirt-cheap non-linear editing technology has revolutionized independent film in general, allowing young filmmakers opportunities to create professional-looking product even directors of the previous generation could only dream of. (...)
It’s easy to arrive at that point with these diverse subjects, the logic goes, but a more straightforward, news-doc approach is required for aggressive, activist documentaries with points to make and moviegoers to educate — and the commonness of that thinking is perhaps why so many critics have gone nuts for CITIZENFOUR, Laura Poitras’ account of Edward Snowden’s leak of NSA documents detailing surveillance programs around the world. That’s a giant topic, but the surprise of the picture is how intimate and personal it is, primarily due to the filmmaker’s place within the story: she was the contact point for Snowden, hooked in to his actions via encrypted messages, in the room with the whistleblower as he walked through the documents with Glenn Greenwald.
As a result, much of the film is spent in Snowden’s Hong Kong hotel, Poitras’ camera capturing those explanations and strategy sessions, a procedural detailing logistics, conferences, and conversations. There are no expert talking heads to provide (unnecessary, I would argue) context; there are no jazzy charts and graphs to explain it all to the (presumably) slower folks in the audience. The only such images come in a quick-cut montage of illustrations within the leaked documents, and they’re solely that — illustrations. The most powerful and informative graphics in the film are the mesmerizing images of encrypted messages from Snowden to Poitras, which fill the screen with impenetrable numbers, letters, and symbols, before clearing away to reveal the truth underneath, a powerful metaphor for Snowden’s actions (and the film itself).
by Jason Bailey, Flavorwire | Read more:
Image: Fed Up
