Vivian Norris has an interesting article at Huffpo today. Being a teacher and writer I watch documentaries and channels like Nat Geo, History, Bio, stuff that my wife huffs and puffs about. She's much happier with her daytime drama. Norris is afraid filmmakers will stop doing docs because large corporations hit them with law suits. In my mind the more the corps fight them the more interest they generate and more people watch them. My fear is that documentaries will die because no one wants to watch them anymore. Escaping into the oblivion of explosions, car chases, body dismemberments, who cares about "real" reality?
Documentaries can be wonderful ways to lose ourselves in reality, not virtual reality, not reality tv, but "real" reality; they are not only enjoyable to watch, but because they are based on these facts, force us to question when we are fed lies. Good documentary filmmaking preserves our common human accomplishments and documents the natural world and ways of life (which in some cases sadly is disappearing. See a great doc about disappearing cowboys and shepherds in Montana called Sweetwater).
The phrase that Norris uses caught my eye: "real" reality. My things have gotten complicated when we have to distinguish which type of reality we're talking about.
2 comments:
PM: I agree. Too complicated. A well researched documentary on a subject of interest should allow us to expand our horizons. ; )
Thanks, Michael. I thought this would interest you.
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