The Thin Blue Line

This film was literally a life changing documentary. This documentary saved a man from the potential of the Texas death penalty. For a simple documentary to do that is simpy mind boggling. The two suspects in the case were Randall Adams and David Harris. At the time of the murder Adams was in his late twenties while Harris was 16 years of age. Adams was the man that was convicted of the murder after a long trial, but Harris was the actual one that commited the crime. The reason they did not try to convict Harris was because he could not receive the death penalty, and Texas judges seemed to love the death penalty around this time.

The film used three different types of material for its footage. There would be the reenactments of the murder, the interviews of many of the people involved in the case, and arch able material such as news papers and crime scene photos. The director did a great job of showing both sides of this trial through his footage. He would interview Adams about how he felt the legal system was, and then he would go to Harris who was bragging about all the crimes he commited. If Harris was not talking about the crimes he did then he would talk about the trial. Errol Morris also did a great job of not showing any preferances of the two men that were suspects. He gave each of them a substantial amount of time to fight for their innocence until the end. The ending of this film was what saved Randall Adams' life from receiving the electric chair. The final interview with David Harris was what set Randall's freedom in stone. The astounding part of this documentary was that it was originally supposed to be on Dr. Death, a psychologist that decides if criminals deserve the death penalty. Were it not for Errol Morris stumbling onto this case then we would have one innocent dead man burried beneath us.

Three articles about...the abnormal

We read three separate articles for class at the beginning of the month that were very interesting: The Performance Art is for the Birds: Jackass 'Extreme Sports, and the De(con)struction of Gender, Charmed School, and lastly Guys Gone Wild? Soft-Core Video Profetionalism and New Realities in Television Production.

First I will begin with the Jackass article. Many of us have seen Jackass and the stunts that they pull, all of which are supervised by proffesionals, but yet they seem so "fun" to do. The critisism with this program is that it is all white males and they turn violence (a manly thing) into a laughable matter. Juddith Buttler argues that gender is a performance in itslef. He means that men have to act like men to make it believable to others that they are truly men.

The next article discussed the show Charmed School. In this show, the girls from The Flava of Love that did not win were sent to this school. The objective was to turn them back into "real" women. The article argues that, during the reality show that they were previously on, the girls were morphed into these inhuman ghosts of their former selves. If the girls failed at any of their tasks then they would be forced out of the school and back into society to try and reconfigure their lives on their own.
The last article was about the infamous soft-core videos Girls Gone Wild. The article discusses how men are the only ones filming (obviousy), and that they are somewhat of creeps for hounding drunken teenagers for their breasts. It is for man's entertainment that these videos are shot. Construction of gender is obviousy present with all of these articles in their own way.

Paris is Burning

This documentary was very unique and was very eye opening to me. It covered an issue that had yet to be covered within its time. The film maker (who is a woman) goes into these things called "balls." These balls were where gay men were able to come together and either cross dress or do fashion walks for trophies. These balls' intensity rivaled that of gang wars. I say this because each individual within these balls was a respected member of a house. These houses were named after their founders. Then the members of these houses would do their "walks" and compete with all of their hearts to try and win the judges' hearts and scores. The house with the most trophies was more likely to get more recruits for the future and be prosperous longer.

Walking for the younger gay men was a huge occasion. It is greater than a high schooler graduating from high school in their eyes. There was one man that was already part of a house that the director interviewed. The man was talking about how he was not yet ready, but he was old enough to walk with his fellow people. It is very nerve wrecking for these less experienced men to walk amongst the veterens/legends of the balls.
Another interesting point I found in this movie is, how did this female director get access to these very exclusive balls? It is a question that was never answered throughout the film, but she did a phenomenal job showing the hardships and successes of these gay man. The film was made in the late 80's when gayness was totally unaccepted and frowned upon. The director put herself in danger of anti-gay activists and people like that.

How to Make a Documentary

Last week in class we watched a documentary that taught us how to make documentaries and all of the film techniques that we would use within our films. One thing that was stressed in the segments we watched was Montage editing. Montage editing is juxtapositioning of images to create meaning not found in either individual shot by itself. What this is saying is the film would show a shot of a freezing girl struggling to survive, then it cut to a frozen river, and then back to the girl. The audience can assume that the girl is contemplating suicide by jumping into the river. The film also talked about Kuloshov's Montage Theory. This theory was tested with several subjects. These subjects were asked to simply have a blank stare and look into the camera. Then the film maker went and filmed a dead person, food and another thing. He then used the blank stares and montaged them with every one of these things. The result made the person with the blank stare either seem hungry, terrified or any other emotion just by tying these two shots together. An example of the Kuloshov experiment can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTnUf4QoXo8 this has a girl sitting there as dozens of clips role by. I came to the conclusion the girl was either thinking or high on some substance.

The Feed

The Feed was a very interesting documentary that used alot of cross-cutting to make me laugh a few times. For instance, there was a scene of Jerry Brown campaigning very hard and all of a sudden it cut to Bush Sr. simply sitting in his chair waiting for him to go live. This film was more comical than serious in many ways. The movie was basically a "blooper reel" of the politicians. It is good for us Americans to see that politicians aren't these jugernauts that run the country with no real human qualities.

There was one scene within the film that had no politicians in it. There was a city street with rioters for and against Bush Senior's re-election. Through this scene a fight breaks loose and a girl gets pushed to the ground. This ends the fighting quickly with both sides tempered beyond reasoning. This does not have much to do with the presidents, but it does show a real side to the fight for politics.

This film argues that who is the real president and who is the performer. It is hard to tell becuase this film seems to be a big joke around and makes me think that these people are fake, but when analyzing this closer, I realized that these were human qualities and not those of the politician.

The Checkers Speech

In 1952 Richard Nixon made his famous Checkers speech. This very speech is believed to have saved Nixon's future as a president in America. Throughout his days, Nixon was believed to be behind many conspiracies in America, including the infamous Watergate Scandal. Many people in America hated the thought of Richard Nixon, but this is because of the media "always hating him," as Nixon would say.

Nixon had 6 key points that he would make in many of his speeches: the media hates him, I'm not a quitter, I'm a family man, I am telling the truth, he is the poor man made good and he is a patriot. These motifs were very consistent throughout his campaigning for the presidency in the early 1970's. There was also another thing that Nixon did consitently and this was using his wife as a prop. The scene in the Checkers Speech was mostly of him just sitting and talking directly to a camera while occasionally glancing down to see what he had written. He then addressed his wife, who was just sitting there, and talked about one of his motifs, being a family man. Nixon's figure was reconstructed many years after his resignation. He came and talked one some late night news cast with a interviewer. The man asked him many questions, and by simply watching, you can see how Nixon has changed from a shaky man in front of the camera, to a calm, cool, and collected politician.

LBJ

The strangeness of this documentary rivals that of Sans Soleil. It had many hidden messages that takes a lot of wit and careful viewing to see. This film was a hate film towards Lyndon B Johnson, and it formed a conspiracy that is trying to frame LBJ for the assassination of the Kennedys. The director of this film was a Cuban communist and wanted America to see its president for who he really was. Throughout the film you can tell that the creator had extreme hatred towards his subject.

During the course of this film the viewer may notice an owl that appears in "random" segments. Actually these segments are not random. For instance, there is the scene of MLK giving his "I Have a Dream Speech" and every time Dr. King says "dream" you see a firing squad followed by an image of an owl looking into the camera. I believe that the owl represents LBJ overlooking important deaths throughout the 1960's. It is an astounding conspiracy made by the Cuban director. In another scene that I found interesting there was LBJ in knight's armor, this clip was immediately followed with a crusader with a burning village to his back. This symbolizes LBJ slowly burning down American society with his "ordered" assassinations of MLK, JFK and Bobby Kennedy.

Primary

It is argued that John Kennedy started the trend of TV campaigning within United States politics. His good looks won him many debates that, when heard over the radio, he seemed to have lost. He was a "TV" president and had the love of many Americans. The film was released in 1960 while Kennedy's term was from 1961-1963. The film made comparisons between Humphrey and Kennedy. It intrigued me when they showed clips between the two candidates. Humphrey seemed to be flocking towards the people while, in Kennedy's case people, were madly flocking towards him. Humphrey did not seem to resonate the way Kennedy did. JFK was so influential that he ended the fedora hat phase amongst American men. Women would drool over this man, resulting in many adulterous incidents. Even though Kennedy was a great president, he had his issues with the ladies. The film does not seem to go onto this route as it seems to be in Kennedy's favor. Humphrey seemed to be very stressed whenever the camera scenes fell onto him. He would be driving around or handing out fliers, but when Kennedy left his car he was practically mobbed.

Articles #2

For my class last week, we had to read two articles on reality television. One was written by Beverley Skeggs and goes over the different types of reality television shows that can be created, and the other article presents the show called Frontier House and uses it as an example for different ideas.

The first article talks about how shame and guilt play into alot of the roles of reality television. The new television show Undercover Boss is a great example of this. For instance, the CEO of Hooters goes undercover to one of the Hooters restaurants in his company. He does this strictly to see what things he can improve on for himself and for his million of workers, but the employees of this very restaurant are clueless that their "God" is standing right beside them. The way shame and guilt are tied in is within this very episode. The owner of the very shop he visits makes his Hooter Gilrs do ridiculous tasks everyday before they leave, but justice is served as the unfortunate fool's actions are displayed to America.

The second article is about the show Frontier House. It pits people into 1900's settings and forces them to live without everyday needs of our current 21st century society. Some of these common things that they are deprived of are electricity and frozen food. The author of the article goes into a discussion of reality television versus documentaries. The author said a reality television show is more concerned with social actors than actual real life scenarios. So how real is reality television? According to our author, not very much at all. Some scenarios are set up, some are played out by whoever is being recorded, but some are true blue scenes of everyday Americans.

Articles #1

The The first of the two articles that I read was about an American sensation for shows like Wife Swap and Nanny 911. Both of these shows tied into the idea of the females role in society. The article went into great detail about how the shows portray women's roles via their job/social status/marrital status. Jim Brancato discussed how the situation of the "Perfect House Wife" was switched with some lower class "trailer trash" like family. Each woman had a completely different setting from their normal daily hardships. Americans seemed to be fascinated by this because of its abnormality. When do you see two husbands agree to switch wives, and their wives agree to the terms? I would say never, but America is quite strange. Of course by the end of the show, both families' issues are solved and the mothers can return home to there new and improved home life.

The second of the two articles, written by Mark P. Orbe, explains the countless different reality televisions shows, and why people are so obsessed with them. One of the things he addresses is the fact that the focus of many of these reality shows is competition. They put people up against one another for money, prizes, or dream vacations, and as a result, America gets its 30-60 minutes of entertainment. Some of these competitions are for a hand in marriage, Bachelor for instance. The most infamous of the reality television shows is The Real World. This show pitches conflicting personalities and people together just to show the world the drama of a young adult. Is this really reality?

Sherman's March

Another strange, and slightly awkward, documentary was the 1986 film Sherman's March. It was an interactive and reflective documentary. This means that whoever the subject of the film happens to be is receiving some form of interaction with whoever is behind the camera. This being the case, the entire movie was the cameraman/director interacting with whoever, mostly ladies, he chooses. The purpose of his film was originally do document the damage and destruction left behind by the Union General Sherman. It eventually came to be a search for love as the director kept on the hunt for a companion. He came across several different women along the way, but the one that seemed to draw the most attention was Pat. Personally I believe that she was simply using the camera to increase her fame. Simply put, she was an actress looking for a big break and may have been using the director, Ross McElwee, for this her own personal gain. There was one comical scene where Pat was doing her anti-cellulite exercises. Would someone actually do that, or was it for the attention? It is left to speculation, but I believe she's nothing but a Hollywood wannabe.
Throughout the film there seemed to be five big topics that Ross kept coming back and talking about. They are: Sherman's conquest, Ross' personal romantic conquest, the camera, his car and nuclear warfare. There is one thing tied into all of these and that is phallic. All of these things could be viewed as the male's way of showing dominance. For instance, when Ross is riding on the train you see one young blond woman. Shying away from his view, yet he keeps the camera trained on her for a good amount of time. The car showed a masculinity aspect because it was a nice muscle car and they were attempting to fix it up. Lastly nuclear warfare showed the masculinity trait. Warfare around this time had been strictly for men, and only men could kill with such an atrocious weapon.
You can argue that Ross was using that camera as a facade for his true self. He used it as a conversation starter, a protective barrier, and for his job all at once.

London

In 1992 the BFI ( British Film Institute) funded a reflexive journey documentary about London. They left Patrick Keiller in charge of making their desire come true. This film was very strange, in my opinion it was right up there with Sans Soleil. The film traversed the English frontier in a random pattern. It was a story of two men: Robinson and the narrator. The narrator spoke of both of their journeys throughout London and what they have learned/seen. The film used the Voice of God narration style, which is, when there is a voice that is not attached to a visible body. The film also has no synchronous sound at any point. This means that whenever there is a voice or a noise, it will not be attached to whatever is making that noise. An example of this is when the camera is focusing on the entrance to an old park and remains there for a while. All of a sudden the viewers can hear an ambulance.
There is also another strange part of the film. This is that many of the images do not relate to the narration that the mystery man is giving us. For example, when he is talking about Robinson's best place to write and read, but the corresponding scene was of a mall's escalator. This film was definitely a strange one. In being strange it also falls under the avant-garde film style. This style is extremely experimental and mixes fiction with reality. Some people argue that documentaries shouldn't have any fictional elements. This is just a stereotype that falls onto documentaries, but this film definitely had its fictional elements.

Rick Burns

Last week, renowned documentary film maker Rick Burns came to the Aurora University campus to discuss his new work with the students. He began with an introduction of himself and his many awards. These ranged from things like his writing ability to his filming ability. He then left a little opportunity for us, the audience, to ask questions. He was a very educated man and had superb speaking ability. He then gave us a little treat, we would be the first people to see the preview to his new documentary. This film was going to cover the voyage of one of the only boats in history to be attacked and sunken by a whale. The film was very interesting and held my attention for all of it, which is something to say for a documentary. He told us that everything he used for the film, ships, clothing, and other voyaging supplies, were made from scratch. This is a monumental amount of work for a two hour film. This film also took a great amount of coordination to make because he didn't use any arch-able footage. All of his footage was from actors or extras on the boats doing actions that he directed. The story itself I have never heard of. The crew of a whaling ship set forth to go hunt whales, obviously. They were on the water for quite some time when a large sperm whale began to ram the hull of the ship. It broke the ship with little effort and left the crew stranded amongst their life boats. It wasn't for many months, and over 2,500 miles that the two survivors that ventured forth, that they were discovered. His style of film making is one i have yet to see in my Honors Film Studies course. He used historic events and actors to play out the events of the sea. There was no material to use for him besides the stories and the history reports, so Rick had a lot of work to do to make this documentary a good one.

7 Up

7 Up is a mid 1960's documentary on 14 children of 7 years old. Each of the children are native to England and live there throughout the course of the documentary. This documentary shows many different point of views of little children. The director does an interesting thing with this series. Every 7 years he goes back and films the children, who are now grown, and asks them a series of questions. It is done to show how their ideals, lifestyles and dreams have changed as they've matured. For instance, one of the boys wants to be an astronaut when he gets older. How many of us could say they wanted to be something ridiculous when we were little children? I'm sure most of us fall into that group. The director does a good job of simply asking and listening in these documentaries. He strategy would be to take each child, or even a group of them, and question them about things such as their future, their love lives, or maybe there families income. For 7 year old boys and girls, they were able to answer the questions with a fair amount of maturity. You can see as these stories go into the later years of their lives that everything from their childhood begins to change. The one that wanted to be an astronaut now realizes that it wasn't a realistic possibility, the ones that really disliked girls have crushes, and they have gone from bit sized to nearly full fledged adults.

Salesman

Last week we viewed a documentary that started the direct cinema movement. Salesman is a 1969 documentary made by the Maysles Brothers. These two followed around four bible salesman that were going door to door attempting to sell extremely expensive bibles to the poor population of America. The cost of just the bible was around fifty dollars. Today's equivalent of fifty dollars is somewhere near 500 dollars. It is astounding that they were even able to sell a single bible to the people.
The way direct cinema works is the director/cameraman attempt to capture reality and represent it truthfully. The filmmakers usually spend countless hours with their subjects. This was a direct cinema because of the long period of time this film was taken over. The film went from the prime of Paul Brennan's selling to his downfall.
The film itself had many different emotions to it. At some points the film was very funny, showing the comical sides of these lowlife bible salesman, but in some cases it was extremely serious. One example of this is when you see how poor some of the Americans are that they are trying to sell to. The people cannot afford even a dollar a week for the gorgeous bible.

Prison Terminal

The other week, in class, Dr. Butters brought in a friend of his. This friend was a documentary filmmaker. He talked to the class for a very short amount of time, and then he showed us a film he is in the process of making. The film is called Prison Terminal, and it follows a terminally ill prisoner that has a life sentence. The prisoner, Jack, seems like an angry old coot, but his story made me feel sympathetic. Jack is an inmate that is sentenced to life in prison for killing a drug dealer. The real reason Jack killed the drug dealer is because his son was addicted to drugs, and he ended up committing suicide.
Now more about the actual film and its style. The director used cinema verite to record the happenings at the prison's hospice. Cinema verite is the "fly on the wall" style of documentary film making. The way it works is the cameraman/director is given a portable camera. The cameraman follows his subject(s) around without any interference or side commentary. There is no voice of God narration. The only input the director had was the title screens between segments, and he also controlled what scenes the audience would be viewing.

Sans Soleil

We viewed the awkward documentary Sans Soleil in class the other week. This film was very strange, to put it lightly. It was almost telling a story in a way. The narrator was a woman. This is different on most accounts and caught my attention immediately because almost every single documentary I have watched before this used a male narrator to do the Voice of God. Why did the male director chose a female narrator when the film was also through a male cameraman? The only thing I can say is that the film was already strange enough, so why not add a female narration? The film was formed as a letter to someone dear of the filmmaker. The reader of the letter was the narrator, and the cameraman caught what the letter was saying through his camera lens. I honestly did not think he was capturing half of what the narrator was saying, but that is why film making is an art form.
Another thing I found interesting was the directors interests with the strange ways of the Japanese people. Well it is strange to us Americans because it is so foreign to us, but to them it is an everyday thing. One scene that interested me was the multiple cat temples and shrines. It seems to me that the Japanese have a sacred belief towards cats.


Another interesting thing about this film was the way the woman narrator was speaking the man's thoughts. One scene where I noticed this was when the cameraman was trying to gain eye contact with a random African woman. The narrator was talking of how the woman would look up, and then she would look away. All of this that she was saying was what the cameraman was portraying, but it was what the writer's (a.k.a. the director) letter that she was reading.
When all is said and done Sans Soleil is one of the most strange and awkward films that I have viewed and will always stay at the top of that list for me.

The World at War and Harvey Milk

The World at War was a 24 part documentary series that looked over World War II. It also covered many things from strategies, to key battles, and the struggles of the Jewish people. The one we viewed in class was something I have never seen before. The episode took the side of the German Army and showed them over throw a Russian stronghold. This was unique to me because every WWII documentary or film that I have watched in my life has been on the Allies.
This documentary was extremely controlled and showed the viewer strictly what the filmmaker wanted us to see. The narration was the typical Voice of God style that we have seen countless times. The way this film worked was very simple. It would show clips of soldiers marching and fighting, and after a key battle it would cut to a battle map where the only thing the viewer could see is a pointer and symbols that represent the German and Russian Armies.
In this entire series the narrator is viewed only once between the 24 episodes, and the one time he is seen is to warn the viewers of the dark and terrible images they would be viewing in the up coming episode. This episode was about the Jews and their mass execution/prosecution.
The other film we viewed on that day in class was The Times of Harvey Milk. The way this film was constructed interested me. It opened the exact way it ended. This made it seem like the film was coming back around full circle. The opening/ending scene was of a woman at a press conference announcing the assassination of both Harvey Milk and the mayor of California. Why was Harvey targeted? Well he was gay, and this was before the gay activist movements. Some say Harvey was the father of the movement since he was the first openly gay person to hold a political seat. Harvey knew he could be the target of an assassination attempt so he wrote his will. This was read after his cold blooded murder. In the will it's stated that he is one of the leaders of the gay movement for all of his brothers and sisters.
The narrator of this film was Harvey Fierstein. The reason this is important is because Mr. Fierstein is gay himself. Why would the director choose a gay person to narrate a film of a gay man? It is left to speculation, but the relation is clearly apparent.

Millhouse: The Nixon Killer

Our last day in class we watched the film Millhouse: A White Comedy, or as i titled "The Nixon Killer." I say this because it is the first flaming of Richard Nixon on film. This is made by none other than Emile de Antonio. This film follows Emile's usual filming style of no narration. I find it to be more real when I watch a documentary in the style of Emile. The way he edits his films still gets his point across, but he does it by letting the one he is filming destroy his/herself, as he did in this film with Nixon. Emile also seems to be ahead of societies curve. This flaming of Nixon was before his treacherous Watergate Scandal that destroyed himself.
The opening scene of this film was very interesting. He opened with a segment where a man is assembling a wax model of Nixon. It is very organized, neat, and creepy. This ties in towards Richard Nixon himself as he was obsessed with his own personal image. Being good looking must have been a big help to get him into office because what i saw did not impress nor get him my "vote" and why didn't the American citizens realize he wouldn't be good when California didn't elect him mayor.
Onto the actual effects Emile employed. He used his masterful skill of editing once again to portray someone the way he wants without using the "voice of God" tactic most documentaries use nowadays. This also allows for the viewer to use his imagination as to what his scenes/messaging is actually trying to say.

The Nam Scare

In the mid sixties, before the anti-war movement, one daring film maker, Emile de Antonio, made an somewhat anti-war film about the issues over seas in Vietnam. There were many strong clips throughout the film making both sides of the war seem good and bad. One scene he makes the wife of Vietnams leader look absolutely pig-like. In the scene Antonio shows the wife in a luxurious outfit and immediately cuts to a scene of the poverty right outside of her dream world. Emile does a phenomenal job of sending messages to his audiences without using a voice of God. Simply using subliminal messaging through his editing is enough to send a mind wandering about what de Antonio is really trying to say.
Another powerful scene is of the monk that burns himself alive. This was used as a measure of protest against the Vietnamese regime in 1963. Many of the bystanders sprinted towards his burning body and bowed in praise of his unflinching death. Emile used this as a form of his anti-war effort. The editing would cut to a clip of carrosine being poored and then a politician speaking of it. Then it would follow with the ignition, followed by more speaking, and lastly, the rotting corpse and a quick cut to another speaking American.
Emile always seemed to be ahead of his time. He made this film before the American protest and tried to rat out Nixon before he reached office. Sadly people simply took his films for granted without truly analyzing what he was saying.

The Male's Eye

In class last week we had a discussion of how the male's eye can be viewed through the lens of the camera. So we were set out with a mission to find a clip or a video that displays the eye of the male sex. If you would just sit and watch a typical movie, you may see clips or segments of it focused on the female body. One example of this could be the show The Girls Next Door. This show is strictly of the Playboy bunnies and how they go through their days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IH8tNQAzSs In this clip is a rap video of Lil Wayne's popular song Lollipop. The video portrays women with scantily clad outfits and big busts. Many rap videos nowadays follow this theme of showing the woman's body off while the rapper continues with his song. Is it a disrespect towards the opposite sex or is man showing more respect? It is left up to debate.

The Point of Order

This last week we watched Emile De Antonio's documentary The Point of Order. This documentary was a phenomenal piece of filmmaking during this era. Emile took ever 200 hours of film and was able to cut it down into just over 90 minutes of film and still was able to relay the overall message of the hearings. This project took the better of a decade as Emile worked oin this piece from the fifties and not releasing the film until 1963. These hearings were the McCarthy vs. the United States army. The feud was about McCarthy and Kohn giving an army soldier special privileges, and they followed by counter suing the army saying there were communists inside of it. McCarthy got to power by accusing people of being communists, but he never revealed who these commies were.
The point of Emile's film was to show the hearings in general, but the way the editing was done made it seem much more than that. The film starts with McCarthy being extremely powerful, but progressively he loses all of his power and eventually is just dust in the wind, as shown by the last scene of everyone leaving McCarthy alone yelling into nothingness. This was not the intention of De Antonio. He simply put clips of powerful footage together to give his watchers the general idea of what took place over the thirty plus days of the debate.
Throughout the film there was minimal narration. Actually the only narration for this film was at the very start. It was a simple intro to let the viewer know what to expect for the following 90 or so minutes.

The Zapruder Film & More

In class this last week we watched a series of miniature documentaries. The style which these documentaries followed was the Zapruder film style. This form of movie making happens completely by accident. For example we watched the JFK assassination video. This film was not meant to show him being shot, but it was meant to be a family video of the day JFK rolled into Dallas to great his people. Some critics call this a snuff film. Meaning its a film of a murder, but when you look at it closely this was just an average guy with a new piece of technology trying to have fun. There is still much speculation on whether or not the film is legitimate and if the whole assassination was a setup by the government or the driver, but the film sadly does not give us enough information to tell.
The other film we watched was the brutal beating of Rodney King. The filmmaker in this piece was an average person who happened to be at the right place at the wrong time. Through the camera's eye we see the African American Rodney being beaten my a squad of cops, between 5-8 cops take their rounds at Rodney and beat him senselessly. The film held up as phenomenal evidence towards this case as it was the only real account of what had happened that night.
The Zapruder film style is an extremely valuable way of film making that anyone can do. It just takes the right amount of luck an d having the right technology at this right moment.

Hearing the News vs Being There

The article which we were required to read was a man's (David Pillemer) account of how memories between people vary from where they are, who they are with, or how they hear it when the event takes place. For example, in class we had a discussion of 9/11. We talked about where we were, how it affected us and any other thing that may have happened that day. Of course we were only kids at the time and do not really have any burned memories of this event. It may be different from person to person because of family issues, but the majority of our class had identical stories of how their day went.
This article could connect to the theme of our class when looked in a more broad prospective. The main discussion of our class is the study of documentaries and the way the filmmakers decide to film them. I believe the purpose of documentaries is to strengthen or even build memories we may or may not have. David Pillemer discussed how tragic events are burnt into our minds. Some documentary makers take these same horrific memories and either make them their own or strengthen the thoughts we may already have about them.
Another point David makes in his article is that many of the memories the average person have fit a certain criteria. Whether it is an experience with the opposite sex, a tragic death, or some other fantastic or horrific personal experience. Of course someone who had a family member pass with the 9/11 may have an identical memory to someone who had the same thing happen.
All in all David's article got me thinking about how my memories may differ from society, and how I look upon events such as 9/11. It showed me my tragedies may or may not be the same as another person. Even my family may have completely different memories than me and we live together every day for the last 19 years.