Documentary Ethics: Speaking and Representing Reality, Study notes of Ethics

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Documentary Ethics

Bill Nichols on Ethics

“I speak to you about them”

“It speaks about them (or it) to us”

“I (or we) speak about us to you”

It speaks about them (or it) to us

• “Films of this sort seem to arrive from nowhere and are not the

work of a specific individual whom we could call the filmmaker…

Such works convey information, assign values, or urge actions that

invite us to find a sense of commonality within a framework that

may be dryly factual or emotionally charged, but it is seldom

organized to move beyond a statistical, generic, or abstract

conception of who “we” are.”

-­‐Introduction to Documentary, pg 64

I (or we) speak about us to you

• “This formulation moves the filmmaker from a position of

separation from those he or she represents to a position of

commonality with them. Filmmaker and subject are of the same

stock. In anthropological filmmaking the turn to this formulation

goes by the name of autoethnography: this refers to the efforts of

indigenous people to make films and videos about their own

culture so that they may represent it to “us,” those who remain

outside.”

-­‐Introduction to Documentary, pg 65

“Subjects: Do No Harm, Protect The Vulnerable”

• People are often being interviewed/filmed during times of crisis
• Power differentials are not absolute (who can sue? who can construct their own mediated image?)
• Cable companies and other distributors frequently ask for “drama” for the sake of ratings
• There’s a value in relationships, but also a need for boundaries within those relationships
• Situations where filmmakers witnessed something that they deemed unethical on the part of the subjects. (who do we protect? When does a need to intervene outweigh the need to document?)

“Viewers: Honoring Trust”

• There is an obligation and relationship to viewers, but it is more abstract than to subjects.
• Filmmakers reported feeling torn between obligations to those who hold the purse strings, their viewers, and their own personal ethics and viewpoints.

Documentary for Final Project?

• Write, observe and learn as much as a you can with your subjects before you show up with a camera in hand.
• Read Nichols Chapters 6 & 7 (on documentary modes) and the CMSI report on documentary ethics and use them as a basis for further research. (we’ll also post a list of additional resources)
• Make a short autho-­‐ethnographic documentary for Termite TV as practice, or pair up with other potential documentarians to make short documentary portraits about each other.