Film Studies: Factors of Documentary Filmmaking

The Biased viewpoint of Michael Moore tears viewers away from the actual problem, and perhaps even the film’s intended message itself…

What were Edwin S. Porter's significant contributions to the development of early narrative film? In what sense did Porter build upon the innovations of contemporaneous filmmakers, and for what purposes?

The movie "Roger and Me" by Michael Moore is a documentary about CEO Roger Smith's takeover of General Motors in the late 1980's that led to the economic decline of Flint, Michigan. Michael Moore being from Flint, Michigan returned to his hometown after a failed job attempt in San Francisco, only to see it decline and wanted to answers. He started on to his interviewing journey with citizens of Flint, lobbyists, hometown celebrities and many others to try and get to the Chairman of GM Roger Smith. In Flint, the automotive industry was the backbone of the economy. After GM hired Roger Smith, they began to lay off up to 30,000 workers in the area. Moore documents the transition from prosperity to poverty in the city of Flint, Michigan. The series of events that happened in Flint, Michigan can be analyzed with sociological theories. The economic decline could have been because of one power decision or it could have been a negative causal relationship. In the film, Moore shortened Roger Smith’s plan: close 11 plants in the U.S and open 11 in Mexico paying workers only .70 cents/hour, use increased money intake to take over high tech firms and weapons manufacturers (where the money was), tell the union you’re broke so they’ll give you billions in wage

With this short but very interesting and informative class I have just scratched the surface of the what it takes to make a full fleged film. It takes much more than I had presumed to make a movie in Hollywood. The number of people that it takes to make a minute of a movie let alone the entire movie was astonishing to me. There are many things that it takes to start making a movie but without an idea of some sort there is no movie to be made.

Rarely has a film impacted an audience and held the test of time as the film Gone with the Wind. I have always been curious if director, Victor Fleming and producer, David O. Selznick and screenplay writer, Sidney Howard knew what they were creating a masterpiece and how this film would have such an enormous impact on audiences for years to come. Interestingly enough there were some who thought the film should not be made, as Irving Thalberg said to Louis B. Meyer in 1936, “Forget it Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel” (Ten Films that Shook the World).

Roger and Me is a documentary that was made in 1989 and it was a Michael Moore film. The film focused on the General Motors (GM) layoffs that happened in Flint Michigan, Michaels home town, in the late 1980’s. The CEO, Roger Smith, decided to layoff over 30,000 people and to close down the GM factory that is in Flint. Smiths new plan after closing the factory is to open one down in Mexico and to hire people in Mexico because the labor cost would be a significant decrease. When Moore found out about the layoffs he wanted to find out more about it and to also speak with Roger Smith. Many of the people of Flint were very angry with Smith. There was a production of people who wanted to interview and talk with Smith and also the people who were laid off and also the people who just lived in the town of Flint.

The extraordinary film The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959) skillfully uses cinematic devices appropriately within the context of the theme. Part of the underlying theme of this movie as explained by Truffaut himself is, “... to portray a child as honestly as possible...”(Writing About Film, 1982). It is the scenes in this movie that are most helpful in disclosing the overall theme of the film. Within the scenes, the camera angles in this film play an important role in accentuating the emotions behind the scene. The camera angles used in this film will be the primary focus of this paper. The high angle shots utilized in The 400 Blows are effective in helping to develop the overall feel of a scene. This movie

Moore also illustrates how America tends to use force instead of dialogue and how, they're quite offensive in their foreign policies, by showing all the archived footage of America having their hands in foreign relations, like, in 1963 to 1975 Americans had killed 4 million people in Southeast Asia. Moore had made one generalisation, where he states that American news had favoured negative stores, whereas, Canadian news had covered positive ones, where we don’t actually know if Canadian news is positive 24/7. To guard against media paranoia, we have to analyse the probability of the story happening to us or someone we know and read between the lines to uncover the facts of the story. Even after the film, many questions are still left unanswered, ‘Why are there so many gun-related deaths in America?’ ‘Why do so many students shoot up schools in America?’

Every year, millions of students across America attend a college or university hoping to further their education and prepare for the futures. The purpose of higher education is to create prepared minds and to help the students reach their full potential. However, the documentary Declining by Degrees, produced by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in 2005, questions and challenges the post-secondary education system. The documentary exposes the problems of modern day post-secondary institutes that are hindering the process of education for students. Despite the secrecy of it all, higher education is jeopardizing student’s learning because of issues within the education system surrounding research driven professors and grade inflation.

There are three major standards through which I decide whether or not I will watch a film: reputation, and genre. Reputation is inclusive of friends and ratings of the film. Usually my friends and I have similar tastes and we are aroused or repulsed by the same films. Reputation is a strong and stable standard for deciding which film to go to, because with such a large population of movie watchers, major biases don't affect the reputation and ratings are fair and accurate. Also, people are inclined to give high ratings to movies that touch them or really make them think regardless

The documentary, Stronghearted, created by Jodie Martinson, tells the story of Evelyn Amony and uses various techniques to support the theme of how God saves people in unexpected ways. Amony was kidnapped by Joseph Kony’s Lord Resistance Army at age twelve and raped by Kony. Yet rather than telling the story of how Kony raped her or kept her in servitude, Amony shares the story about how he saved her life. It sheds a new light onto the event. It does not justify Kony’s misdeeds or water down the obstacles Amony faced, but rather shows that the story is not simply black or white.

The documentary, Stronghearted, created by Jodie Martinson, tells the story of Evelyn Amony and uses various techniques to support the theme of how God saves people in unexpected ways. Joseph Kony’s Lord Resistance Army kidnapped Amony at age twelve and Kony raped her. Yet instead of telling the story of how she was raped or kept in servitude, Amony shares the story about how he saved her life. It sheds a new light onto the event. It does not justify Kony’s misdeeds or water down the obstacles Amony faced, but rather shows that the story is not simply black or white.

Is a documentary always more realistic than fiction film? If so, why? If not, why not? What makes a film more or less realistic?

Michael Moore used comical tactics as a way to appeal to his audience in this piece of literature. Michael Moore’s argument is that capitalism is destroying the nation’s economy rather than helping to develop it. The poor are suffering, while the richer are getting richer. The arguments that Moore used may not be considered tangible by all, but he definitely did have the evidence to support his argument. Michael Moore purpose was to expose this ground breaking issue of the dominance of corporate America through video. He used the web source as a source to get his message across because he knew the internet would be accessible to many people. Moore in this film used the different elements of reasoning to identify the message he was sending

The subject of this paper has at least five names. Documentary Hypothesis and JEDP Theory are the most common. In this paper, this scholarly position will always be referred to as Documentary Hypothesis with a few exceptions.