Pardon the silly title, I think I'm missing my father and my friend Josh so every pun in the world seems to bring them closer.
So last night we watched "Born into Brothels" which was our first Documentary style film. We talked some about this form of media last night, but I'd like to push into it a little further (surprised?) on here. By the way, I want to thank you all for making last night so much fun and so interesting. It was great to have some new people there as well as some familiar faces.
Regardless of the content, the Documentary format changes whatever you're watching compared with a normal fiction story. We established last night that there is no such thing as an unbiased presentation, whether it's a movie or a documentary or the evening news. If a human is involved there is bias. But what about ourselves? We're quick to judge the motives of the person deliverying the story, but what about our motives in our reception? If Michael Moore is using his bias to push information our way, we might be using our bias in rejecting it. I agree 100% that he abuses the word documentary and twists facts at times so that people cannot swallow his stuff as non-fiction. BUT, to toss aside the information presented would probably also be a mistake, and in my opinion would be driven by our desire to not be confronted by some of the things in his films. That's where our bias can effect the transfer of information.
The fact that some people who hear about slave labor in other countries say "well if it's really that bad they don't have to work there" or something along those lines is a perfect example. We don't want to be convicted, so we try to change the information so that it's more pallatable to us. So while we need to discern through what the film maker is trying to get us to believe, we need to figure out what we are actually TRYING to believe and fight through that for truth. Truth changes us. why? Because we're believing lies!!!
One other thought i had about something that was said last night was about the difference between watching a movie about depravity vs. watching it on the news. the newsabout depravity is trying to tell us what is going on out there. the movies about depravity are capable of showing us how to deal with what is going on out there, and giving us new insight. at least in my experience. people don't want to believe that's true b/c movies are just for entertainment, right? both are told with a bias, whether clear or unclear... but both still have something concrete to offer if we're willing to dig.
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7 comments:
You wascawwy bwogger.
I just watched the documentary Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train. For those who aren't familiar with Zinn, his most famous book is A People's History of the United States. You may have heard it referenced in Good Will Hunting (Matt Damon narrates the documentary).
Zinn is an anti-war activist, but also a veteran of WWII. One of the special features on the disc is a lecture he gave at a Veterans for Peace meeting in which he addresses the misperception that WWII was "the good war." I'd highly recommend it, along with People's History.
The documentary definitely has a bias, but it's about a man, and it portrays his bias. And considering Zinn's education, passion for justice, and the fact that he was one of the only white professors in the South involved in the Civil Rights movement, it's a bias worth listening to.
I think one thing to remember is that every story has a bias, but the documentary has to be giving truth in order for it to be rightfully called a documentary. Where Michael Moore gets into trouble is when he twists truth and puts his bias ahead of the information. But, that being said I still would not toss out all information presented by him whatsoever.
by the way, your little joke at the top of your comment was read by me at first to say "you're a scary blogger" until Mandy cleared it up for me. I thought you were a moron who made no sense, but she made me understand your brilliance.
I'll have to check out the Zinn stuff... there you go again, bringing it back to war. it's like.... important to you or something. crazy.
While we're on the topic of Documentaries, I thought I would just run down a list of ones that I've seen and liked, so in case you like this format you can know some to turn to. I'll put the movie and then a ranking from 1-10 beside it.
Spellbound - 8.0
March of the Penguins - 8.0
My Brother's Keeper -6.0
Murderball - 7.5
Super Size Me - 8.5
Bowling for Columbine - 8.5
To Have or not To Have - 6.0
Control Room - 7.5
if others have lists please do share.
So...Adam and I rented "Born into Brothels" a few nights ago. Somehow this particular DVD didn't have the subtitles for the feature film. Go figure. We tried to remedy it - Adam said they weren't meant to be there and it "is what it is" - I refused to accept it. Anyway, we watched the entire movie w/o knowing what anyone was saying except for the few phrases in English. While watching some of the extras, the subtitles showed up, but we might try renting another copy of it to see if we have better fortune. It's interesting to watch an entire documentary w/o any language that you can understand. We still felt moved, we still cried at the end and felt a huge swell of hope and joy when we heard the three words "Amsterdam", "tomorrow", "yes". And Ryan, it's a good thing you have Mandy...scary blogger - ha!
Bethany, that's really strange that there wasn't subtitles, there are on my DVD. :( You miss so much without understanding what the kids say, but I do envy your unique experience that I will never have.
Hopefully you will find it eventually and get the full experience. In either case, I'm glad you felt moved. :)
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I've been screwed over by rapid price drops in the past... especially this one time when I bought a Micro SD for my DS flashcard at what I thought was a bargain price, only to later see that it had dropped by $5 in a week's time.
(Submitted using InterPost for R4i Nintendo DS.)
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