In preparation for talking about Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith's new film, The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, a film that moved me profoundly, I thought I would share an article I wrote that was published in the last issue of DOX Magazine about hybrid historical documentaries. While Ehrlich and Goldsmith's film differs a bit from the three films I talk about here, there are innate connections to how creative documentarians can create works that reference "history" in nonfiction storytelling. It's a theme I've addressed before, particularly in terms of this propensity on some critics' parts to judge a piece of cinema that mixes fiction and nonfiction to tell a true story in a very negative light. My essay on this blog, written after last year's True/False festival, about one of the films talked about here, Burma VJ, in fact was fueled by one of these reviews, a particularly boneheaded one for its intense myopia and lack of generosity in reviewing nonfiction cinema on its own terms. It made my blood boil, but it also made me think deeply about these issues. So here it is:
There
are several new films which use re-constructions of events of the recent past
that are standouts for their vigilant practice of every nonfiction filmmakers’
imperative: the freedom to be honest. Within that exploration, what connotes “honesty”
in documentary and how the blending of fiction (re-enactments) and reality
(archival and live interviews) enhance one another, create a singular type of
storytelling.
There is a new facility in doing a re-constructed historical documentary that, to my mind, is revolutionary for the form. There are still a lot of very stodgy ways of cinematically presenting "History" that essentially act to remove us even further from past events still strongly resonating in our collective consciousness. Emotionally engaging with the story, and the subjects involved, is a whole other set of issues with which a few filmmakers working in the current feature-length nonfiction genre have chosen to grapple, enticing audiences to actively participate and deeply think about the ever-changing, politically-motivated interpretations of seismic events through one individual's, or one particular group's, very personal experience. (Still from Ari Folman's multiple-award winning Waltz With Bashir.)
The featured filmmakers here have chosen to use various
creative tools in their arsenal, not only to re-envision an authentic account
of how things went down, but to craft their films in very cinematic ways,
borrowing much from the narrative tradition. It's a very dynamic, engaging,
and, most importantly, highly emotional type of storytelling, providing an
intense participatory experience for a viewer. And isn’t that why we go to the movies?
The Fixer:
The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi
Ian Olds’ latest film is, in essence, a tribute to a young
man (an Afghani journalist, “fixer” and interpreter for foreign journalists
from the West) who lost his life by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
One could also say, he was born in, lived out his life, and worked in a country
where a man of his intelligence and dedication could easily be fodder for a
wide array of parties with various agendas. The Fixer, which aired
on HBO late summer 2009, maintains its primary commitment throughout—to tell
the truth. As Olds stated in an
interview with Robyn Hillman-Harrigan on The Huffington Post site: “I
felt that just to focus on loss does a profound disservice to the truth, and to
Ajmal. A focus on this devastating loss is something that we as a Western
audience can relate to, but to focus on this man's life in the
context of what's really going on in that country, is history empowered.”
[italics mine]
The viewer knows from the first few seconds of the film that
the main subject has died under some pretty brutal circumstances at the hands
of Taliban captors. Olds
continues: “. . . he died at a
very specific moment, in a specific place. The aim of the film is to invoke this web of history and
power in which he was caught, while never losing sight of the man.” Olds has edited the piece
anti-chronologically to great effect, in part because he distinctly did not
want to use Ajmal’s death as any sort of dramatic device. After knowing the
outcome of the featured subject, the rest of the film tries to answer the
question “why” by spooling out the event backwards and forwards in time in a
structurally complex storyline. In this way, the filmmaker provides a key, or
guide, which can unlock the past, including as many subtleties and complexities
as he can muster along the way. Rather than a strict linear narrative, the film
flashes back and forth for the sole purpose of “unraveling meaning.”
Olds talks about Afghanistan as a “buffer state,” a land
divvied up between various power players, the British Empire, the Russian
Empire, etc. He also sees Ajmal as
a “buffer” individual, insinuating
himself between the Italians, the Taliban, the Afghan government and the U.S.,
providing a human analogy for the place within which he resides. In other words, Afghanistan is
essentially powerless on the world stage, yet provides the perfect stage to be
played upon by world powers and therein lies the human- scale tragedy of its
inhabitants. The film supplies the
emotional through line in which we can explore those themes. It allows for a human-scale
contextualization, something mass media rarely, if ever, sets out to do.
Paying attention to that context at all times, Olds began to
simply “follow the trail,” swept along by the events that had already unfolded,
organically searching for (and finding) ways in which to tell the story,
knowing that a film “shouldn’t be just a drama unfolding or a certain
circumstance or set of circumstances. It should be about an idea.” In this way, the best of nonfiction filmmaking can be
engaged with the world through its own language, the one of cinema. Ideas are
important, certainly, but it is the emotional movement across the surface of
the tale that is the overarching resonant factor for both the director and the
viewer. Speaking subjectively, Olds can say that by “bringing my own [personal]
experience of discovery accompanied by the memory of moving through that space,
showing what it felt and sounded like acts as the litmus in making a film that
reflects that emotional spectrum. Rhythms are the key to creating a deeply
resonant experience for your viewer since that rhythm reflects the pace of one
human life.”
Sergio
In the last years of his life, consummate diplomat Sergio
Vieira de Mello was reluctantly persuaded by Kofi Anaan, then Secretary General
of the UN, Condoleezza Rice, then US Secretary of State under George W. Bush,
and Tony Blair, then British Prime Minister, to take up the post as United
Nations ambassador to a freshly invaded Iraq, a war to which de Mello was
vehemently opposed. He would die in the midst of that invasion, despite his
personal point of view. On August 19, 2003, a deadly bomb struck the UN
headquarters in Baghdad where de Mello was working, marking a watershed moment:
for the first time in history, the United Nations had become a target of
terrorism. Filmmaker Greg Barker recreates the events of that day in a very
forceful and visceral way by expertly melding harrowing, and extremely
emotional, testimony from Sergio’s fiancée, Carolina Larriera, and the military
paramedics who risked their own lives to try and save de Mello.
Sergio is based on historian and activist Samantha Power’s biography, Chasing the Flame: One Man’s
Fight to Save the World. The film
interlaces the haunting archival footage shot on the day of the bombing in
Baghdad, and the dramatic reenactments of the rescue attempt by two US Army
reservists, Bill von Zehle and Andre Valentine, to save de Mello and Gil
Loescher, a civilian expert on refugees, both trapped underneath the rubble
from the explosion. They would successfully rescue Loescher; they were not,
however, able to save de Mello.
The two men, in operatic and devastating re-enactments, re-live that day
again in the film, generously sharing that pain and fear with the rest of
us. The emotional impact of
watching this cannot be overstated for it resides in the marrow of a collective
traumatic memory.
With a background in international relations and economics,
Barker has filmed and worked in more than 50 countries on six continents,
always drawn to “character-driven stories that also illuminate how global
politics really work—who wins, who loses, what the real priorities are behind
politicians’ lofty rhetoric,” finding the truth out of a very complex reality.
Sergio de Mello also immersed himself in the world’s complexities, inhabiting
the shades of gray between “right” and “wrong.” This is the same gray area
where Barker finds he can tell complex stories, the place where real progress
in our understanding of the world around us is made, enabling him to make a
film through the retrospective lens of history by using one man’s experience
and commitment to making peace between warring nations.
In the tradition of Herzog’s Little Dieter Needs to Fly, we watch as the subjects who were there that day
relive the event on the screen. Barker directed the two men in long takes to let
the re-enactment of their partially successful rescue mission play out
completely, all in one go. So, as
highly directed and expertly created as these segments were, there is also a
strong nod to the vérité tradition, capturing something as it’s happening in
the moment, and the emotions, of course, are very, very real. Sergio will broadcast on HBO this spring, with
special screenings planned at the UN and other overseas festivals throughout
the year.
Burma VJ
With Joshua, the Burmese VJ (video journalist) of the title
as our conduit, the radical condition of the “hidden” country of Burma is
brought to lush life, creating a deeply resonant experience of the human fight
against oppression. Burma VJ displays visceral insight into civilian journalism and dissidence in a police
state while providing thorough, painstaking, and outright thrilling,
documentation of the dramatic days of September 2007, when Buddhist monks led a
citizen march for peace and freedom against a repressive régime.
Danish filmmaker Anders Østergaard has been making
nonfiction cinema for years and is well schooled in the organic process of
crafting a story, patient enough to let it reveal to its maker how it should be
told. This feature-length tour-de-force was originally meant to be a 30-minute
film on Joshua and his experiences working as a clandestine operative in
Thailand, orchestrating both professional and amateur video journalists in
capturing the uprising in the capital city of Burma when it was closed to
outside journalists so that footage could be smuggled out and disseminated
throughout the world.
Østergaard explained to me in a phone conversation that this
documentary short would, out of necessity, have had to have been made using
mostly recreation, a much higher percentage than was used in the final
film. Yet when it became possible
to use the authentic footage, it enabled the director to create a timeline with
immediacy, a story played out moment by moment. Directly because of this, the
fictional elements or re-creations, take on an even more powerful role in
knitting together the whole story.
Østergaard’s overriding desire when making nonfiction films
is to “go inside space and time, to fight the ‘provincialism’ of time.” He also
explains that there is a whole way of working with archival footage as a
graphical element, an element that enhances the creation for context, emotion,
mood, tension, and a deep connection with the material when positioned within
that specific context. The desire to “really go to places in time and space” is
essential for a full experience, but Østergaard is careful to note, it still
qualifies unequivocally as documentary since its main interest is in what actually happened; there is no indication that what is being
presented is supposition or conjecture.
“The truth is an inspiration and the details [of that truth] give one
the texture of the story.”
The political energy of the footage speaks for itself, framed
for the biggest emotional impact possible. Yet as Østergaard points out, “The filmmaker is a chronicler,
certainly, but we can never be a slave to the footage. It is not the quality of that footage
so much as its political relevance that is utmost in importance. You lose clarity otherwise, and the
focus of the main event; the ‘History’ gets submerged in irrelevant footage and
other elements that only help to cloud the story, not reveal it and set it
forth.”
It is the revelation of these little-known heroes’ stories
in the shadow of history’s big events that will, hopefully, continue to push
the way historical documentaries are crafted. We need more stories that feature different racial, ethnic
and gender perspectives on history; we need to continue to re-create those
intimate moments of a life hidden from history for this tells us everything
about what it means to be human and creates a revolutionary dialectic in form
and content, proposing no final answers except the unending struggle of human
beings making something out of what history has made of them. The hard and fast
categories of fiction and documentary melt away; there is an insistence that
both forms are equally mediated by the intention of the filmmaker, and that
that hybrid thus requires a fresh critical stance and a more precise notion of
this dialectical imperative on the part of a thinking audience. It can help redefine some of the more
cherished assumptions of a documentary film experience. These filmmakers have beautifully shown
us that the drama of one human life deserves as much.
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