CHAPTER 21
VALUES, ETHICS, AND CHOICES
ART AND TEMPERAMENT
Documentaries usually assert their truthfulness in one of two ways. In “fly on the wall” observational filmmaking, we see truth in cinema that is supposedly free of the observer’s intrusion. The film tries to be honest to the spirit of its makers’ best perceptions and to earn the audience’s trust. However, it takes considerable artifice to maintain the illusion that truth is unfolding free of the recording process.
In participatory filmmaking the film team’s work and thoughts can become part of the film’s discourse, and in reflexive filmmaking the process reaches farther since the film can examine the act of perception as well as what is perceived.
To sum up, this spectrum of philosophies ...
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