A & E Bio

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by David

Not necessarily. Subjectivity may render complete correctness impossible, or at least unlikely. Personal point of view always colors the data, to some extent. Consider some of Wiseman's documentaries, for example, all of which have strong points of personal view, or Riefenstahl's docs, in which the camera itself seems to infuse the subject with a glowing fervor, or even "The Sorrow & the Pity" by Ophuls, which pokes & prods its camera subjects for revealed truth but finds ... a confused morass of individual recollections.

Well, you expect that subjectivity from the people interviewed. I am not going to take anything that Welch or Clifford says as the unvarnished truth. I will look at what they say through the kaleidoscope that is their own particular view. But when the narrator says that Kirwan composed Albatross, that becomes a problem. It's not supposed to be an opinion and the statement is not coming from someone who would have a biased view of the facts.

But in many instances I would agree that the best documentaries have a Rashomon quality. I don't watch them for the truth, as much as I watch to see what the truth is for the subjects in the film or what they want to portray the truth as being. What people omit and won't admit is as telling as what they say. Michele