Intro to Film 2025 • Professor Gregory Zinman • Emory University

Category: Week 11 (11/03 + 11/05) • Documentary

  • Documentary and Ethics in Grey Gardens

    Back in September, I attended the Emory Cinematheque’s screening of Grey Gardens (Maysles, 1975), and knew I wanted to wait until the week on documentary to fully unpack what I had witnessed. In only 95 minutes, viewers are taken into the home of Edith and Edie Beale, also known as Big and Little Edie, an eccentric mother and daughter duo who are relatives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis living in their run down Long Island estate. The pair argue, sing, perform, share stories from their past life, and seemingly ignore the garbage-filled mess that is surrounding them. Ralf Webb of the White Review discusses the use of direct cinema, the ethics of the film, its historical impact, and more in his 2018 review: https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/film-direct-cinema-grey-gardens-summer/

    Still of Little Edie from Grey Gardens, 1975

    What is fascinating about this documentary, compared to any others that I have seen, is its commitment to direct cinema, in which they committed to be invisible to the object they were observing without narrative form or musical overlay. In the golden rule, direct cinema is where “interaction with the subjects should never evolve into direction” (Webb). This was exemplified through many shots of Little Edie being interrupted by the calls of Big Edie in the background, or through the subjects consistently talking to the film crews, presenting that they were not restating or asking questions until they got an acceptable answer. Watching this film reminded me of the ethics discussed in class during the first week on Rear Window, however, and how voyeuristic attitudes are only validated when what is being watched has a purpose. This mother and daughter were only relevant due to their cousin’s status, and throughout the cinematheque moviegoers laughed at their remarks, which admittedly were funny throughout the film. Still, there was a clear exposition of two women in crisis, living amongst rodents, and are now solidified in history as entertainers.

    Big Edie sits amongst her run down estate

    Their story is seen through the eyes of the documentarians, and what is told is manipulated by the production of those making the film, not themselves. The film raises ethical questions because “the Maysles, it seems, are acting in bad faith: they’ve gained the Beales’ trust, maneuvered into their private lives, and act innocently inquisitive, when, in actuality, they’re wise to the documentary gold in front of them. I could not help but think of this when watching Paris is Burning (Livingston, 1991) and wonder if my own entertainment and knowledge acquired throughout the film was ethical. Still, I believe that documentary holds a power in solidifying parts of history that may go underrepresented, and maintain the capacity to amplify voices in ways that would not be for forever. Big and Little Edie do get their stories told to the world, as do the subjects of Livignston’s Paris is Burning that would not be exposed to such a wide audience without the oppurtunity.

    Albert and David Maysles pose with Big and Little Edie

    Big and Little Edie have been remembered through movie adaptations, a Broadway show, and drag queen interpretations. After Grey Gardens‘ was released, Little Edie noted feeling accomplished in her portrayal of the film, “as though the power to partly construct a filmic version of her own reality gave her some freedom from it” (Webb). Theories like Webb’s remind us not to look too personally into the lives of the subjects we watch in these films. After spending an hour and a half with Big and Little Edie, it is easy to feel as though one can make generalizations about their lives as a whole. That is just an hour and a half of years of living in Grey Gardens, and the documentary could have been different if filmed at any other point in life.

    Grey Gardens (musical), 2006

  • Forms That Teach Us How to Watch

    In this week’s reading of chapter 10. It gives us clear forms to think with while watching a particular movie. On the documentary side, rhetorical forms are filmmaking that aims to persuade the audience. This form addresses to us directly the problem and presents arguable claims. It leans on appeals to feeling, and ultimately asks us to take a side of the problem.

    Placing Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning (1990) against this framework clarifies how rhetorical form can work without a narrator. The film’s interviews, ballroom sequences, and everyday scenes openly address us through testimony of the characters speak directly about safety, recognition, realness, class, and race.

    In contrast of the documentary, experimental work often turns into associational form. The shots and sounds are linked by analogy, contrast, and motif. Through this process we build meaning across juxtaposition of these elements rather than plot points or a thesis statement. For example, the book offered the film Koyaanisqatsi. It shows that ideas about technology and modern life without narration or a very clear line of argument. It structured our experience through segments and images of Philip Glass’s work.

    Finally it is the animation section. In cel animation, studios divide labor across drawing, coloring, and photography. It uses fine detail and capture movements, while limited animation only moves parts of the image. There is also computer animation that reshape the traditional animation film world. Film such as Toy Story establish a convention in the field of fully 3D cartoon world and improving way of making film. The book still stress that human work is necessary, such as modeling, keyframing, and lighting.

    During free time I watched Suzume by Makoto Shinkai. His film feel like chapter’s hybrid model in practice: hand-drawn character aesthetics integrated with digital composition for skies, water, light, and particulate depth, very much in the Mononoke vein the book describes.

    I also spot the strategic use of limited animation for emphasis. The hold and micro motion of the character agaginst the detailed environment aligns with the chapter’s point of limited versus full. It is not just budget constrain but rather a stylistic choice of Shinkai. I will also write a viewer post later this week to discuss about Suzume later this week.

    One question I would like to bring up is:

    Do hybrid animation change how we read movement as expressive. In other words, when do we attribute meaning to limited motion as style versus as a budget constrain?

  • Week 11: Documentary – constructing reality

    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?

  • “Life After Paris is Burning”

    After watching Paris is Burning, I became really curious about what happened to the lives of these dancers, house mothers, gays, transexuals after the film was released in 1990. Now that more than 30 years has passed, a lot must have happened to the clubs and the ballroom culture too.

    Fortunately, I did find a relevant YouTube video that followed up most people in the film and described their lives after (although most of them passed away by now). The link to the video is here: Life After Paris is Burning | TRIBE TV NTWRK. I will summarize what is being said down below.

    1. Pepper Labeija

    Pepper LaBeija - IMDb

    From when he became the mother for the House of Labeija, Labeija remained to be the mother for the following 20 years. On May 14, 2003, Labeija died of a heart attack only at the age of 54. Recall how he said in the documentary that he felt smart not to do the sex reassignment surgery, such that in the following 40 years he would live well, hearing his death at just 54 makes me feel sorry and unexpected.

    2. Venus Xtravaganza

    Justice for Venus - Dallas Voice

    Venus Xtravaganza is one of most memorable person to me from the film. She is just so pretty and talks so softly. I remember her talking repeatedly about her hopes of life and what she wants as an aspiring model. She also talked about how she escaped an attack from a man that tried to sleep with her. Another reason why her image sticks in my mind so much is probably because her death occurred during the filming of Paris is Burning. Her dead body was under the bed of a Duchess Hotel, perhaps due to a similar occasion of his attack.

    As of 2019, the killer has not been found, but in 2013 a New York’s theatre group displayed a murder mystery play that referenced Venus’s death. In POSE, Venus was also paid homage through multiple hot lines.

    3. Octavia Saint Laurent

    Be as Multifaceted as Octavia - by COLEY - Kailon Magazine

    Octavia was the girl who took modeling seriously and tried the best out of her self. I remember her because her dance is good, her makeup is done well, and her poses when she was being photographed as a model were all delicate. After Paris is Burning, in 1993, she played a role in the Saint of Fort Washington. In 2005 Octavia was a host of the TV award show, The Pill Awards. The next year she starred in Wolfgang Bush’s How Do I Look. In this film, she commented Paris is Burning as “a terrible movie.” She also discussed her drug use, sex work, and fight with AIDS. In 2008, she was diagnosed with cancer, and on May 17 the following year, she passed away.

    4. Willi Ninja

    Meet the Godfather of Voguing

    Willi Ninja is the mother of the House of Ninja. My impression of him is that his vogue dance was so good and delicate. If I remembered correctly, he became the godfather of Vogueing and even in the film, he described himself as the one who could dance the best out there. Paris is Burning greatly helped Willi’s career. He starred in the music video for Malcom McLaren’s song Deep in vogue. He also danced in two of Janet Jackson’s music videos from the album Rhythm Nation 1814. He also appeared in the 2006 follow-up How Do I Look documentary. Unfortunately, Ninja died of a AIDS-related heart failure the same year How Do I Look was released.

    5. Angie Xtravaganza

    Angie Xtravaganza Times Square NYC 1991 Mother of the House of Xtravaganza - she is interviewed in the film Paris is Burning #godsandgoddessesofTimesSquare #ParisHasBurnedJesseGreenNYTimes #SallysHideaway #ParisIsBurning #preservingballroomhistory ...

    The mother of her house, Angie’s nice and tender personality is probably what made me like her so much when watching the documentary. She took such great care of her house members, saying how whenever there’s a ball she would have to help her members prepare. During a short passage describing how she got paid to get her breast, her members cheered her up and said that Angie “nourished them,” showing their love for Angie. She also won the mother of the year, as shown in the documentary!

    Unfortunately, she passed 3 years after the filming from an AIDS related liver disease, only 28 years old. 3 weeks after her death, the NYT published an article on the ball scene and gave her a large photo on the front of the Styles section, with the title, “Paris Has Burned”. A year later, Junior Vasquez released a house single titled “Eggs”, dedicated to Angie.

  • “Film Art” Chapter 10 and Mixed Media

    This chapter of Film Art introduces documentary, experimental, and animated films. Documentary films interpret reality to tell what is meant to be a nonfiction story. This can be a nonpartisan organization of information or an attempt to persuade the viewer into believing something; these are defined as categorical and rhetorical. Experimental films do not follow traditional narrative rules, but rather may focus on patterns of sound or light and may have an unconventional narrative or no story at all.

    There are many types of animated films, but their defining characteristic is that it constructs reality by drawing, computer generating, or manipulating objects frame-by-frame. When I read this section in Film Art, I reflected on how a lot of animated media uses multiple forms of animation. One film that came to mind was Jimmy Murakami’s 1986 war film When the Wind Blows.

    The film utilizes a mix of traditional and stop-motion animation, which creates a juxtaposing effect that is perfect for the message of the film. The two characters are drawn and animated with the process of cel animation. This is when clear sheets of celluloid (or “cels”) are drawn on and then layered and photographed. When these cels are shifted, it creates the illusion of movement. However, rather than a drawn background. This film uses sets made of real objects and adds the drawn characters in later. The objects in the set are animated to move as characters interact with them. This film is about the devastating impacts of nuclear warfare, but the characters are relatively oblivious to the danger they are in, which is displayed by the set around them mimicking reality as they remain drawn. There are even multiple live-action scenes in the film, such as when the bomb drops in the film. I don’t think this fully classifies as experimental but the use of mixed media definitely breaks traditional narrative rules.

    Another animated movie that came to mind was one of my favorite animated films, Satoshi Kon’s Paprika. This film blends hand-drawn imagery (cel animation) with CGI, which is computer-generated imagery. This is an extremely surrealist film with an extreme amount of detail, and the CGI is used to aid the drawn animation to aid this effect and be more efficient. (https://www.tboake.com/manipulation/yeung/4films/paprika.html)

    After reading the Guardian article about Paris is Burning, I think it raises a concern in documentary-making that I never considered. The documentary received backlash because the director is a white filmmaker making a film about a predominantly black/latino scene. This raised questions about cultural appropriation and lack of profit/recognition for participants in the film. This also highlights how, while documentaries are meant to be fully nonfiction, the experiences/identity of the filmmaker always matters as it can create bias.

  • Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films

    This week, we read about three different types of films: documentaries, experimental films, and animated films. All of them differ from narrative film in some way.

    Documentary films claim to present factual information about the world. They have their own genres and often mix them to create a collage of records centered around a specific subject matter.

    Experimental films, on the other hand, are created to express a unique viewpoint or experience, convey a mood, show a physical quality, or explore possibilities of the medium. Narrative form tells a story with expressionistic features, but the two main forms of experimental films are abstract form and associational form. Abstract form emphasizes pictorial qualities such as shape, color, or texture. You can think of abstract form as art in the medium of film. Associational form suggests ideas and emotions to the viewer by assembling images and sounds that may not have any logical connection. You can think of associational form as poetry in the medium of film. The juxtaposition of images creates linkages that the viewer can interpret. One example of an experimental sequence in a film is from 28 Years Later, where war footage is intercut with the current scene.

    Animated films are a series of images that are shot one frame at a time. They encompass a wide range of genres and types of films. You might see a narrative, documentary, or experimental animated film. Older animation techniques involved celluloid (or cels for short), layered animated drawings that created an illusion of movement. Other animation styles include cutouts, clay animation, or model/puppet animation. I recently watched A Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick 1993), which was created in the puppet style of animation as a stop-motion musical.

    Tim Burton Crann

    In a lengthy process of two years, the animators had to pose the puppets for each frame of the movie. That added up to roughly 110,000 frames. In addition, the creative team built all of the sets and props from scratch, while Danny Elfman wrote all of the songs and was the singing voice for Jack Skellington. The result is a movie with a unique visual and musical identity that remains a beloved family film to this day.

    Another studio that is famous for puppet animation is Studio Laika. Coraline, Kubo and the Two Strings, and ParaNorman are some of the movies they have made. Their upcoming feature, Wildwood, released a first look documentary a few days ago.