The D-Word's life is one of glamour and riches, as only a documentary filmmaker can live it
Cinema Fabrique
March 31,
1:40am
He seems upbeat now that his voice-recognition gizmo is working (albeit at the rate of about 10 words a minute) and he can post daily diary entries again.
He's been the subject of more media attention lately. He'll be written up in the Wall St. Journal any day now as part of a story about Web diarists. And Details Magazine has a story featuring him in its June issue.
Ask J if he happened to mention to either writer that he's to be featured in a certain, eh hem, upcoming documentary. "Ahhh, don't think I did," he replies, offhandedly. Point out in as equally offhanded tone as I can muster that such tasty-like promo ops wouldn't harm my fundraising efforts one bit.
I can say that to him because our relationship has moved to a new level now that I'm finished filming with him. He's more of a collaborator-- not in the creative process but in the marketing. It's in Justin's interest, as well as mine, that Home Page get out wide and far when it's finished. Still, I'm wary of pushing.
I tell him about the Sunday Times Magazine article on Andy Young and Susan Todd's experience making their most recent doc (It Ain't Love). I read the cover blurb: "Truth and Betrayal in the Editing Room: Documentary film makers have to manipulate reality in order to make their art, even if that means exploiting their subjects"
Justin cracks up.
Andy and Susan are friends and it was a fascinating and unsettling article to read. The gist is that in the middle of shooting a doc about teenage sexual abuse, their main subject began to balk when he realized how badly he would come off in the finished film. Andy and Susan, in need of more dramatically charged material, are shown disingenuously trying to persuade him to reenact an abusive episode as part of an acting improv. "We're all here together," Susan's quoted as saying. "We can't be defensive."
It all makes me squirm. I can so easily put myself in their position and I won't judge. I know they're terrific documentarians with great integrity, but, face it, a degree of manipulation and self-interest comes with the territory. We all do it at varying Farenheits.
I think Andy and Susan get slightly scorched here (the article is otherwise extremely favorable) because their method is classical cinema verite, where you're not supposed to do such naughty things. I, on the other hand, mostly skirt the issue by always acknowledging my presence behind the lens. I just find it more personal and interesting and honest (and, okay, attention getting, if I'm really gonna be honest). Andy and Susan do cinema verite as well as anyone doing it today, but I've been a cameraman for far too long to buy into it anymore. For twenty years I've been watching the effect a camera has on the behavior of the people I'm filming and, lemme tell ya, everyone accomodates it in some way or other.
I prefer Michel Negroponte's term for it (though I believe he was quoting someone else): Cinema Fabrique.
To Justin, who invades people's privacy in the most primal way, the fuss over documentary ethics must be an arcane hoot. Online diarists haven't met wonderous concepts like release forms and errors & ommissions insurance. Yet.
On the other hand, while he has a sizeable audience for his Web antics (upwards of 15,000 hits a day), a doc's broadcast could easily reach millions, and carries with it a more powerful sensorial punch.
So Justin hoots and I wonder if Andy and Susan holler. I plan to call them tomorrow and get their reaction, if they haven't talked themselves to death over it by now.
I'm sure they thought the promo value of a NY Times piece was too good to pass up. Hundreds of thousands of people know all about their film today, but they put themselves in the same vulnerable position as their subject and, I think, found it's a double-edged sword.
I say all this knowing an article about Home Page is due to appear in The Independent any day now. The interview(s) were so long ago I haven't a clue what I said. Hopefully, I don't come off as a complete idiot.
I know we talked a lot about the web site and how it'll integrate with the film. I suppose they'll print the D-Word url and people will come to the site and be... whatever, impressed or unimpressed.
Of course the site is nowhere near ready. It'll never be ready. That's the one constant theme -- it's a continual work-in-progress. I do know what my vision for it is, and that it'll evolve over the next few months into something very interesting.
For those of you reading this for the first time, I hope you'll come back at regular intervals as I continually update my progress.
And if you don't like what you see just remember, it's all Justin's fault!
with Justin. It's been a couple of months since we last spoke, so much catching up to do.
Copyright © 1997 D.B. Block. All Rights Reserved