Before watching this week’s screening, chapter 10 of film art reshapes how I understand what makes a film a documentary. This section of the book is focused on emphasizing how documentaries do not simply capture reality but construct the way it wants us to perceive reality through a series of choices. And after reading the article about Livingston’s film it makes me reflect how the ballroom scene will inevitably blend observation and persuasion rather than just showing things as they are.
One of the themes that stood out to me in indexicality and the book describes it as the physical link between what the camera records and what existed before it while emphasizing that link is not the same as objectivity and accuracy. Just because images are real it does not mean that they are neutral and non staged.
The reading also explores two major types of organization: categorical and rhetorical form. Categorical form groups information thematically ( like a scientific or sociological study for example) while the rhetorical form uses facts and emotions to persuade the viewers of a viewpoint.
Finally, Bordwell and Thompson remind us that documentaries often stage or structure events (editing interviews, adding narration, asking subjects to repeat actions) to shape meaning. This idea complicates how we judge truth in non fiction and how can we discern reality from construction.
When I think about these ideas in relation to the documentary film The Salt of the Earth (a personal favorite) by Wim Wenders, the tension between documentation and interpretation becomes even clearer. This film relies heavily on indexicality as the photographs used in it are literal traces of real suffering, displacement and resilience. Yet the filmmakers use sound design, narration, and editing to guide our emotional response, transforming the images into a rhetorical form that advocates for compassion and ecological awareness.
Formally, The Salt of the Earth alternates between still photographs taken by Sebastiao Salgado (the subject of the film) and present day footage of his travels creating something close to categorical form. But as the film progresses, it moves into rhetorical form as it persuades viewers to see beauty in devastation. This shift makes visible what Film Art calls “the filmmaker’s argument”: the shaping of real material to express a worldview.
My questions for this week are: 1. Does Paris is Burning use both categorical and rhetorical forms to shape meaning similarly to The Salt of the Earth? 2. Can a film ever truly let its subjects speak for themselves or if it is always going to be an act of shaping reality?
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