This is an idea that was inspired in my by an Ithaca film professor's guest lecture here at the University of Iowa about the future of Documentary film. It touches on something I had been thinking about ever since viewing a large amount of short documentaries while helping program a local film festival.
The thought started as we watched a film that was completely fictionalized, it was supposedly a day of an odd character, filmed and editted by the character himself. First, it was that Napoleon Dynamite, I'm really unnaturally awkard, pastel color kind of humor which I am not a fan of in the first place. Second it was completely fictionalized, there was nothing true about it. I happen to think that no matter how well thought out a character may be, if they are not a real person then it is fiction. The biggest factor qualifying a dodumentary as a documentary to me is that it is Non-fictitious. Even if it has an interpretive take on non-fictitious subject it can be a documentary, but if the source material is not real, then it is not documenting anything, it is a mockumentary, or simply a comedy. The other classmates and instructor were quick to defend it as a documentary, on what basis I am not sure of. I am fine if they say its on the cutting edge of film, but not documentary.
The lecture was from a woman who worked as an archivist and put together abstract video pieces that she referred to as eye refreshers. I like these kind of things, it's like a screensaver set to music, there's no narrative just interesting images that are enjoyable to watch. I am down with these type of things, as long as they are honest about what they are. She then went on to talk about how through her work she has come to have a D-WO attitude, meaning "do it with others" she preached the values of making films a highly collaborative effort. I am all for a collaboration, but she preached it as less of, lets put all our ideas together, and more, lets throw all of our ideas in a pot, mix them up indiscriminately and put the brown result on screen. I don't want to sound like a some paranoid conservative, but is sounded quite socialist.
She proposed that the future of documentary lie in projects such as one in which people RFID tagged hundreds of cockroaches and released them in a walmart, screwing with all of Walmart's scanners, or one in which the Walmart machines were hacked the barcodes were changed so that when they were scanned the display would say "You're feeding the monster that destroys our economy" instead of "pizza."
This to me is in no way documentary. For one, nothing is documented. Second, this is just a prank that really inconveniences people at Walmart. It has very little redeeming quality besides making a slight statement. It is a statement that for the most part be regarded negatively by everyone except for those who were already in support. I saw that and thought, interesting statement, I wish they had just proposed the idea of it and the expected results, they didn't have to actually go out, be total jerks and actually do it.
I think people feel more validated if they can think that what they do is on the edge of documentary filmmaking , it's forging new frontiers in an aging field. There is no filmmaking, or documenting involved. People shouldn't be ashamed to say, well this isnt documentary, it's an entirely new thing, because thats exactly what it is. If I invented the automobile, I wouldn't claim that I was on the cutting edge of walking, because I am not walking, I am doing an entirely different thing, Maybe the cutting edge of transportation, but certainly not walking.
Moral of the Story: I really don't like Hippies.
