4. The cost of war?
4
Deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq?
919,967 (Source)
US military expenditure in decade since 9/11
$1.36 trillion
5. Documenting ‘truth’?
5
The power of documentary to reveal a ‘truth’
grants it special status
To ‘document’ a subject implies keeping a
factual record for future reference
7. The expositional mode
7
See Bill Nichols (1991/2004)
Tended to depict institutions,
communities and traditions
Public mode of address:
Highly formal
Serious
Educational
Aimed at informing citizens in a mass
democracy.
8. The observational mode
8
1950s onwards
cinema vérité
‘cinema truth’
‘direct cinema’
observe and record the reality of
everyday life as it happened without
the usual organisational planning
and structured direction
‘fly on the wall’
9. Critique
9
‘To be sure, some documentarists claim to be
objective – a term that seems to renounce an
interpretive role. The claim may be strategic, but it is
surely meaningless.
The documentarists, like any communicator in any
medium makes endless choices. He (sic) selects
topics, people, vistas, angles, lens, juxtapositions,
sounds, words.
Each selection is an expression of his point of view,
whether he is aware of it or not, whether he
acknowledges it or not.’
Erik Barnouw (1993: 287)
11. The participatory mode
11
Welcomes direct engagement
between filmmaker and subject(s)
Filmmaker:
becomes part of the events being
recorded
is acknowledged (even celebrated)
for their impact on events
12. The reflexive mode
12
Acknowledges the constructed
nature of documentary
Artifice is exposed
Not ‘truth’ but a reconstruction of ‘a’
truth, not ‘the’ truth
Frequently features the film-maker
making the documentary
De-mystifying its processes
13. The performative mode
13
Emphasizes the subjective
nature of the filmmaker
Polemical, evocative and aiming
for affect
15. The golden age of
15 documentary?
Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death (2002, UK, Jamie
Doran)
Commando: On the Front Line – TV series (2007, UK,
Christopher Terrill)
Taxi to the Dark Side (2007, USA, Alex Gibney)
Taking on the Taliban (2007, UK, BBC)
Afghanistan: The Forgotten War (2008, USA, unknown)
Afghanistan: Between Hope and Fear (2008, Canada, Dominic
Morissette, Julian Sher, Andrea Thiel)
Jack: A Soldier's Story (2008, UK Robin Barnwell, Nick
Norman-Butler)
Tree Bloody Summers (2008, UK, Richard Grange)
Armadillo (2010, Denmark, Janus Metz Pedersen)
Restrepo (2010, USA, Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger)
The Battle for Marjah (2010, USA, Anthony Wonke)
17. The golden age of
17 documentary?
In Shifting Sands (2001, USA, Scott Ritter)
About Baghdad (2003, USA, Sinan Antoon, Bassam Haddad, Maya Mikdashi, Suzy
Salamy, Adam Shapiro)
Baghdad or Bust (2004, Canada, Matt Frame)
Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (2003, UK, Steve Connelly,
John Pilger)
Control Room (2004, USA, Jehane Noujaim)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004, USA, Michael Moore)
Gunner Palace (2004, USA, Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker)
Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories (2004, USA, Mike Shiley)
Last Letters Home: Voices of American Troops from the Battlefields of Iraq (2004,
USA, Bill Couturié)
Soldiers Pay (2004, USA, Tricia Regan, David O. Russell, Juan Carlos Zaldívar)
Uncovered: The War on Iraq (2004, USA, Robert Greenwald)
Voices of Iraq (2004, Iraq/USA, People of Iraq)
War Feels Like War (2004, UK, Esteban Uyarra)
We Iraqis (2004, France, Abbas Fahdel)
WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception (2004, USA, Danny Schecter)
18. The golden age of
18 documentary?
In the Shadow of the Palms (2005, Australia, Wayne Coles-Janess)
Occupation: Dreamland (2005, USA, Ian Olds, Garrett Scott)
The Dreams of Sparrows (2005, Iraq/USA, Haydar Daffar, Haydar
Mousa Daffar)
Why We Fight (2005, USA/France/UK/Canada/Denmark, Eugene
Jarecki)
Alpha Company: Iraq Diary (2006, USA, Gordon Forbes III)
Baghdad ER (2006, USA, Jon Alpert, Matthew O’Neill)
Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006, USA, Robert Greenwald)
Iraq in Fragments (2006, USA, James Longley)
My Country, My Country (2006, USA, Laura Poitras)
The Ground Truth (2006, USA, Patricia Foulkrod)
The War Tapes (2006, USA, Deborah Scranton)
When I Came Home (2006,USA, Dan Lohaus)
19. The golden age of
19 documentary?
Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq (2007, USA, Jon
Alpert, Ellen Goosenberg Kent)
Body of War (2007, USA, Phil Donahue, Ellen Spiro)
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (2007, USA, Rory Kennedy)
I Am an American Soldier (2007, UK/USA, John
Laurence)
No End in Sight (2007, USA, Charles Ferguson)
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime
Experience (2007, USA, Richard Robbins)
This Is War: Memories of Iraq (2007, USA, Gary
Mortensen)
Three Soldiers (2007, USA, Shailly Agnihotri)
Year at Danger (2007, USA, Steve Metze, Don
Swaynos)
20. The golden age of
20 documentary?
Bad Voodoo's War (2008, USA, Deborah Scranton)
Fighting for Life (2008, USA, Terry Sanders)
My Vietnam, Your Iraq (2008, USA, Ron Osgood)
Reserved to Fight (2008, USA, Chantelle Squires)
The Corporal's Diary: 38 Days in Iraq (2008, USA,
Patricia Boiko, Lauren Spellman)
Brothers at War (2009, USA, Jake Rademacher)
Triangle of Death (2009, USA, Folleh Shar Tamba)
The Unreturned (2010, USA/Canada, Nathan Fisher)
The War You Don't See (2010, UK, Alan Lowrey, John
Pilger)
The Tillman Story (2010, USA, Amir Bar-Lev)
26. CentCom
26
• CentCom (Qatar)
• $1.5m briefing centre
• Plasma screens, mini studious, phone banks
• Designed by Hollywood set designer, George Allison
• Platform for truth (US General Tommy Franks)
• Seating arrangements reflected pecking order
32. Control Room
32
Behind the scenes access to
Al Jazeera at CentCom
(Doha, Qatar)
33. ‘Grunt documentaries’
33
‘by privileging personal experience over
historical awareness, these accounts construct
a version of the war in which it becomes
impossible to apprehend such atrocities as
Haditha, Ramadi, Abu Ghraib’
34. Restrepo
34
The Korengal Valley
Embedded with Second
Platoon, B Company, 2nd
Battalion, 503rd Infantry
Regiment (airborne), 173rd
Airborne Brigade Combat Team
of the U.S. Army
35. Seminars
35
Where does Restrepo fit?
What kind of documentary is it?
What function does it serve?
36. Sources and further reading:
36
Jeffrey Chown (2008) ‘Documentary and the Iraq War: A New Genre
for New Realities’ in Peter C. Rollins & John E. O’Connor (2008)
Why We Fought: America’s Wars in Film and History, Lexington:
The University Press of Kentucky.
Tony Grajeda (2007) ‘The winning and losing of hearts and minds:
Vietnam, Iraq, and the claims of the war documentary’, Jump Cut,
No. 49,
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc49.2007/Grajeda/text.html
Douglas Kellner (2010) Cinema Wars: Hollywood Film and Politics
in the Bush-Cheney Era, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Sherry Ricchiardi (2007) ‘Obstructed View’, American Journalism
Review, April/May 2007, http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=4301
Peter C. Rollins & John E. O’Connor (2008) Why We Fought:
America’s Wars in Film and History, Lexington: The University
Press of Kentucky.