Final Project-Outside of the Box.

Outside the Box

My idea of documentary it goes along with what Nichols expresses about the idea of constructing national identity. I believed that this idea build a better understanding of community in humanity. With almost every piece that I watched from the Observational to Documentary and the Gospel my desire of getting involved with community or a sense of belonging increased. Nichols Explained this term with these words,

“The construction of national identities involves the construction of a sense of community. “Community” invokes feelings of common purpose and mutual respect, of reciprocal relationships closer to family ties than contractual obligation. Shared values and beliefs are vital to a sense of community, whereas contractual relationship can be carried out despite differences of value and belief.  A sense of community often seems like an “organic” quality that binds people together when they share a tradition, culture, or common goal. As such it may seem far removed from issues of ideology, where competing beliefs struggle to win our hearts and minds.”

This means that the sense of belonging somewhere is more powerful than any other rational feelings, it is intrinsic in us.  While reading Nichols thought I also think that this idea of community can come from the inside and the outside. An autobiographical experience can be a valuable as an observational piece refers to one topic. Both to me are valid and deserved a certain kind of exposition.  Because people watching this are also going to have an autobiographical experience and even though they might not be recording their own experience watching a video, this can be create a great impact. In short, I believe that my idea of documentary is a recreation of something that can help to create a sort of need of community, and at the same time is that experience watching the one that position us being in the outside, and at the same time having a personal experience with the subject and making our own idea of this like an autobiographical mode. 

[My documentary has some flaws on editing and maybe narrative. I believe there is an idea that I wanted to point out and even though aesthetically is not the most amusing, it still works for the purpose of creating an idea of documentary. ]

In my piece I evolve to an essayistic mode that could use more that one mode to express one idea.  It is the case of the greening Cat in which one topic is presented and there is some meander during the film that would eventually lead us to a greater conclusion of a determined topic. I wanted to talk with an autobiographical narrator, the experience that I’m having here in the United States.  The earthquake is a metaphor that helped me understand better the value of the community I left in Chile. The feeling of suddenly having no roots and nostalgia about a nation. It took only 3 minutes to have the feeling that I might have lost everything, and that the place I was by that time, it was only temporary. There is a link with my story to all immigrants or people who live outside their own country, it can be for a couple of years or for decades. There is this nostalgia and idealization of what is left and the eternal desire of coming back to a land that saw us depart. In the Fox reading he said that when “autobiographical mode is successful, the use of self serves as an access point to a political and historical questions of a larger social relevance.” Even though I might agree with this statement, I still think that using more than one mode  can be very useful to provoke in an audience to ask themselves political and historical questions with social relevance.

Is for that reason that I also include myself in this film, just reflecting about my experience from the outside, and my friend’s experience from the inside.  To make is more essayistic I thought that both point of views are equally valid.  At the same time I realize I really small interview to my friend in a participatory style in which I was engage with the topic as director and also as someone from that country. And finally the Performative mode helped me to inspired and to explained a concept that putting in another way I think It wouldn’t be as powerful as watching this Chilean cowboy dancing to the flag. This represent immigrant who get to a point in which connecting with their roots is essential. Also, is part of building our own little world to make us feel a bit closer to our cultures and believes and most importantly to our community.

By the end of this work I come back again with my own thought and reflections about the impact that had in me this whole experience.  I don’t think I’m formulating only one way to go from my own opinion, but I wanted to inspired some reflection about where is our community and what are we doing to preserve that in our lives. 

Documentary and the Gospel

Documentary and the Gospel is a wonderful opportunity to share Gospel principals without being preachy at all. The sense of giving a voice to the voiceless and “portray and appreciate ordinary people in their ordinary circumstances” is exactly what Jesus did when he came to earth. Even his own example of being born in humble conditions relates to this voiceless people in this world.

Dean Duncan  described what a documentary should have as means of its ideals and purposes. I believe there are some interesting interaction between his point of view and the scriptures he quotes relating to this matter. As I already mention,  the scriptures that mention the born of Christ and the way the writer described that moment. There is a poetic approach as well as observational on the description.

The documentary New York Dolls  tells the life of this punk rock star who is converted to the LDS church. The approach of the documentary is so simple  and clean. Even though the subject matter had some important relevance on the history of Punk, he is such an authentic character that can be relatable to anyone who has found a new faith after a tragic event. Although all the cool stuff and the legendary people talking about Arthur, I felt very touched by the portrayal of this humble and honest person.  I think that this documentary helped to have a better understanding of one of the quotes that Dean Duncan explained, “documentary demonstrates that tribulation is a blessed lot, because it is only in passing through it that we find transcendence.” I spent time with this subject and became to understand his own transcendence in this world in a way that the rolling stone magazine or an obituary couldn’t have portray.

Something else to highlight about Documentary and the Gospel is about the inspirational power that documentary can have. How a story or some images can lift our spirits and make us ponder about divinity and the meaning of life. Is the case of the film After Life, that even though is not a documentary it serves in many ways as how the gospel is related to documentary. The topic was big, and it could have been a way bigger production, but the way is documented this film made all the difference putting much more relevance in the content than the production itself.  As in the Manifesto is mention the scripture of I Kings 19: 11-12, there was a really still and small voice who invite us to reflect upon our happiest memories. I actually liked the film so much that I used it for my last talked in sacrament meeting in which I referred about the importance of serving others as means of being happier and closer to God.

In conclusion, documentary and the gospel are a wonderful opportunity to inspire and to admire the simple things in life. Make as ponder about deep themes without falling in anything cheesy or intend to be overly dramatic, although life can be overly dramatic sometimes. 

Self Portrait

“Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again. That is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of consideration. In each individual the spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.”  -Demian, Herman Hesse.

I thought about many possibilities for this documentary mode activity, and I couldn’t come up with anything but doing the autobiographical mode. My thoughts were in this mode, although I don’t think that putting myself for an audience is very interesting, I couldn’t fight with what my mind was inviting me to do-So I did it.

In the poster I tried to represent myself with different pictures that explore part of my history and personality. I’m from Chile and I was raised with folk music and dance, I was also raised with secrets and frustrations.  The picture in the middle represents that happy place where customs and traditions take place, my love for Chilean folk and passion for music. The picture in the top left is how sometimes I see myself, a mixture of traditions and capitalism, I’ve been in the United States for a couple of years and it is impossible not to be influence by its trends.  At the same time, globalization is total contradiction with my roots and what I’d like to preserve about my history.

 On the bottom right, is represented part of my organize and stable life, there is no contradiction and things are polished-it is my spiritual life. With this description I don’t mean to have a perfect spiritual life, I just happen to believe in something that helps me to improve and to be closer to God.  There is a constrained smile that depicts some feelings of following some pattern and pretending to follow others. Following any belief, even though that can make you happy, it can be hard.  On the other side, the bottom right is dark and shady it is my secrets, or my family’s secrets.

Finally at the top left, is just a plain vision of who I am.

The Black and White decision on one side of the picture  is the fight that I constantly have with myself. Is this desired as Pablo Neruda expresses in his Poem Walking around with the line “ It so happens that I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow. It so happens I am sick of being a man.” Is the overwhelming weight of ‘being.’ The dark side is my sins, my weaknesses and challenges, it’s the duality in myself  that I’ve become to embrace as part of the nature of humanity.

The other side is the light and the good in this world and the good in myself, is my aspirations in life. And my family is along both sides.

The autobiographical mode tells a personal story or different emotions of the individual, and serves as an access point of other bigger question in humanity. I believe that my description of myself, or the feelings and emotion within this pictures encounter the value of opposition and duality. Because both things are needed to progress, and both things [good and evil] are in within us. 

The essayistic Mode

The essayistic mode described by Fox is one that test its content, giving the different examples in the films that we watched this mode would be open to different perspectives or sometimes no perspective at all.  Also this mode takes all the previous modes and put it into this new ‘greater truth’ that the audience will conclude.

With the documentary Something to do with the Wall,   I could recognize just a couple of elements about how this documentary can be essayistic.  According to the reading there has to be some meandering, as I see it might look like different viewpoints about a certain topic in which in this mentioned documentary it wasn’t successfully presented. In something to do with the wall the director presents this as people living and coping with the wall mostly, there was some rambling or a different perspective with people who was fine with the wall, but no one actually just loving the wall as it is.  There is also the case of the sort of division on the documentary when the wall falls and it does look a different interaction with this subject. There is an openness in the final but I believe is an open conclusion to two different subjects.

In the case of the gleaners and I and the case of the grinning Cat there are some more essayistic approaches and also they both start with a subject or its content and there is some evolution of as described in the text this greater truth that as an audience we all get, still it might vary, there are cohesive elements that lead us toward one theme instead of two as is the case of the documentary about the Wall.

The gleaners and I start with the description of the painting and then during the evolution of the documentary there is this study about different kind of gleaning and how we all became gleaners at a certain point. There is some poetic approach, in the process of the director recognizing herself as a gleaner, the different images and the self reflection while looking at her hand. All those elements are a collection of different modes that help the audience to get this understanding of what is represented in the director’s style. In the case of the Grinning Cat, although is was a bit harder to follow because of all this different elements related or not related, there is the basic element of the essayistic mode or this meander that lead us to a certain point.  I felt very identified by the French way of treating liberty and politics and how sometimes these sorts of different protests don’t have any sense-same thing happen in Chile. On the other hand, the meaning of the cat and its representation of taking freedom of speech is an invaluable mean to myself even though sometimes this may be a trend more that a conscious effort of self awareness. 

In short, on the contrary of the expository mode, the essayistic mode won’t give you all the facts or tell everything as truthful or one conclusion.  It would expose different perspective; related or non-related with different means to get to a bigger picture about what is being on discussion.

The Autobiographical Mode

The autobiographical mode put the filmmaker as the subject, its his/her own life who is in display and because of that the subjectivity of the work is put into question. For some, this mode could be one of the most reliable ones because is the subject telling their own story and for others it could be one of the least trustworthy of the modes. The documentaries that we watched show how these two point of views can be valid.

Nichols on his book talks about constructing national identity, and quoted Marx “ They [the working class] cannot be represent themselves; they must be represented.” Adapting this to film, this means that people in a documentary cannot represent themselves as the subject because they are not going to be in a reliable position to tell their own stories-They are too involved. Then Nichols explained how this may vary trough history and from different film directors. It is also the case of the reading of Fox that speak about the film Tongues Untied and the difficulties that the director had to face to broadcast his documentary. Riggs [director of Tongues Untied] would become the face of the gay black rights during this time. During this period people from the outside misrepresent Riggs work and because of that he was not able to show his film.

The films that we watched in class also portrait the differences of how this representation of the “self” can become a powerful influence in society.  The clip of Roger and Me became a big influence for people in Michigan and in any place were many workers would loss their jobs.  The autobiographical approach validates the story, Michael Moore never worked for General Motors, but all his family did. He grew up with a community that was influenced by this company. His point of view reinforced the information that he is presenting through his own experience with the subject.  On the other hand, the example of History and Memory:  For Akiko and Tagashige would show the effort of the filmmaker to understand her history and the historical interest of the Japanese concentration camps in the United States. Although she is talking about her ancestries, for me it didn’t quiet work, I believe is because she wasn’t completely in the situation to tell me the story from the inside.  Because of this, it was hard for me to connect with the subject and his philosophical approach of the memories she has about her own life story. I believe the director didn’t intend to do this film for a universal audience, but one who could be involved in this matter.

Others examples that we watched I believe were very edgy and unique, still effective. Is the case of the female director Sadie Begging and Jonathan Caouette  who put themselves in a completely vulnerable place .  Both used a unique and original approach to tell their own story, still both put into question important questions about social relevance on the American family stereotypes. 

In conclusion, Nichols and Fox would examine how this genre influenced film and the pros and cons of this mode.  The autobiographical mode represents the filmmaker as a anchor of its subject and with that depending on how he/she represents him/her self as reliable source or simply a story teller of his own thought and opinions.  

EL HUASO Y LA BANDERA -DOC ACTIVITY

This documentary activity develops the Performative mode.  I obviously got some inspiration from the short film a “Study of Choreography in Cinema” (1945), with that said, El Huaso y la Bandera (The cowboy and the flag) intend to show through dance the sentiment of patriotism.

In the book Nichols presents the performative mode as a mean of showing something or embodied a experience. Instead of telling or informing about determined topic, the director would show trough his subjects. It is the case of the War Game instead of informing the people in London about how terrible would be to have a nuclear bomb. The director show through actors, or sets that illustrate or recreate how the consequences would be. Even though it might be subjective, the fact of showing can be as powerful as receiving only the information of such a catastrophe via pamphlet or through a book.

I selected a subject that I’m familiar with, and I place it in different settings. Also I wanted to express the patriotism of the Chilean cowboy. Although is less clear than the War Game, it has many elements that can serve the audience as clues about how this dances is showing patriotism.  I chose patriotism because this is a more emotional thing, rather than rational.  This short documentary expresses how much respect this Chilean cowboy (huaso) has for the flag or for his country. He is dressed with an especial outfit, and dances something that is very unique. Furthermore, the music helps to recreate the singularity of the dance and the traditions that this man has. 

The subjectivity on this work is that for some people it would be only a dance, but for others it would bring strong feeling appealing to a more “visceral feeling” about how important are the traditions in this country. In conclusion, this rough edited documentary expects his audience to feel and experience something that could be familiar or completely foreign.

EL HUASO Y LA BANDERA CHILENA   (watch the first 2 minutes and 5 sec)

 (The 2 minutes version) El HUASO Y LA BANDERA