Nichols: The Fake Fruit, The Black House, and The Inscription of War
In Bill Nichols’s chapter, “How Have Documentaries Addressed Social and Political Issues?” He underlines the inherent difficulties of representation of the other, he posits, "As Winston notes, the urge to represent the worker romantically or poetically, within an ethics of social concern and charitable empathy, denied the workers a sense of equal status with the film maker. The filmmaker kept control of the act of representation; collaboration was not in the air. (Nichols, 213) He discusses this dis-junction between the portayor and the portrayed by introducing the dichotomous nature of representation of the ‘other’ in documentary-style film making. Nichols does so by first addressing the idea of personal biases and governmental interests causing pathetic representation of the worker in some films, then juxtaposes it with opposing representation of acts of resistance by workers as means of solidarity.
Moving into a discussion of how the documentary film maker approaches the many sided issue of otherness portrayed. He goes on to discuss the visual naturalization of personal bias and societal norms as major issues in representation. The despotic tactic of hegemony is to make itself seem organic and 'others’ seem inorganic through there differences and once more that those differences are weaknesses (noble/ignoble savage, celluloid maiden, 'male gaze’ as objectification->degradation). Dziga Vertov’s Kinopravada (film truth) approaches documentary style as a manner breaking from narrative techniques to use the aspects of film not shared by other media in order to portray new ways of being that are clearly possible as they were captured in every day life in their 'life unawares.’ While he sought after this form of representation, it is difficult to say he was entirely successful if only for the fact that the film is cut and spliced and he still chooses in what direction the camera will move, thus introducing a number of personal biases into his representation. After a number of steps the discussion moves to John Grierson who focuses on the oration quality of the documentary; a technique that Nichols later discusses as a guiding voice orienting our perspective to align with the directors (I think it feels like the voice I think with telling me how to feel or look at a situation in alignment with the director’s bias). Then onto Joris Ivens who believed in the purposeful manipulation of shot and settings to display a metaphorical truth as opposed to the hands off oratory approach. He underlines that Ivens enlisted the help of workers whose struggle he was depicting as an attempt to subvert the difficulty of the question Nichols initially asks, "How may we represent or speak about others without reducing them to stereotypes, pawns, or victims? (Nichols, 212) He stresses the issue that in attempting to create a unifying work the director caused a reinforcing of stereotypes wherein the portrayed is meant to stand for the whole of where they come from.
What style of documentary do you think Fake Fruit Factory by Chick Strand, The House Is Black by Forough Farrokhzad, and Images of the World and the Inscription of War by Harun Farocki, fall under and is this representation successful in conveying a clear political statement that urges the viewer to go forth and do something about the issue? Why or why not? And by what means does the director meet or fall short of this end goal of a sort of visual performative utterance?
Side Note: In Giorgio Agamben’s work, "What is a People?” he discusses this issue of an obsession with totalizing structures and their attempt to create a uniform self and the innate consequence of otherification.
