Mikael Opstrup: The documentary Narrative 3

Remark to Ib Bondebjerg by Mikael Opstrup

Thanks for Ib Bondebjergs comment on my ‘Den dokumentariske fortælling’ which I guess can be translated to ‘The documentary narrative’. However it misses my approach to the matter.

Remark to Ib Bondebjerg by Mikael Opstrup

Thanks for Ib Bondebjergs comment on my ‘Den dokumentariske fortælling’ which I guess can be translated to ‘The documentary narrative’. However it misses my approach to the matter.

First of all my view is the creators point of view, it’s an attempt to clarify the elements the documentary creator works with. It is not a genre classification. Secondly I deal with the narrative structure – not the format or the aesthetic solutions.

Making a documentary, the director needs to know whether the story is constructed by the theme or the narrative.The first one being the journalistic driven documentary program and the second the narrative driven documentary film.

By journalistic driven I mean that the next possible scene in the film is decided by the theme, the purpose being to deepen and improve the knowledge of the theme. In the narrative driven documentary the next scene is defined by the story you’re telling. Let me give an example: in ‘The Monastery’ it is just as impossible for Pernille Rose Grønkjær to include an informative scene about the roots and history of monasteries in Russia and Denmark as it is for Alistair Maclean to include a scene that describes the political role of Greece in WWII in ‘The guns of Navarone’.

The creation of this narrative documentary is what my poetic ‘The documentary narrative’ is about. A genre that is defined by the complementary conflict between re-telling reality and reconstructing it artistically.That – for the creator – contains an insoluble contradiction and it is the successful solution of the insolubleness that is the artistic core of documentary film making. And that fascinates me so much.

This point may not be so interesting from the point of view of the product – the documentary film that is finished. But from the creating point of view it is the key question.10 years as tutor at pitching workshops around Europe; 4 years as production adviser at The Danish Film Institute and 15 years as documentary producer has confronted me with an endless number of projects where the major struggle for the creators has been to find the creative narrative that is included in the actual reality the film apparently is about.This is the core of the director’s work when developing the project at the early stage and with trying to explain it to film consultants and commissioning editors.

On top of this comes HOW you choose to tell your story once you have found out WHAT the story is: do you include dramatizations; interviews; a strong narrator; poetic montage etc. But that’s another story…

Mikael Opstrup

Jørgen Leth: Portrætfilmene

Så er boksen med film 22 til 29 kommet. Portrætfilmene. Som malede portrætter handler de nok alle om kunstneren, som maler, i hvert fald mere end om kunstneren, som sidder, står, er model. Derfor er øvelsen for mig at finde ud af hvad det så er for et materiale, hvad det er for en iagttagelse, hvad det er for en udforskning, som ligger i disse film. Og hvordan det stof føjer sig til det øvrige i det monument af en sammenhængende omverdenstolkning, som The Jørgen Leth Collection nok også, måske især udgør.

The Jørgen Leth Collection, Portrætfilmene: Klaus Rifbjerg (1974), Peter Martins – en danser (1978), At danse Bournonville (1979), Kalule (1979), Step on Silence (1981), Dansk litteratur (1989), Michael Laudrup – en fodboldspiller (1993), Jeg er levende – Søren Ulrik Thomsen, digter (1999) + bonus, Leth om Laudrup (2007). Det Danske Filminstitut 2008 http://www.dfi.dk/boghandel/videoshop.htm

Still: Peter Martins – en danser

Ib Bondebjerg: A Poetics for the Documentary

A poetics for the Documentary – basic genres and formats

Ib Bondebjerg

I think it is a very valuable endeavour Opstrup (ed.: Mikael Opstrup: “The documentary Narrative / Den dokumentariske fortælling”, 9.10.08 on this site, written in Danish and English. Search on “opstrup” at the left column) has embarked on trying to define what is specific for a documentary narrative and comparing it with documentary (TV)programs and the fiction film narrative. To see the documentary project as a working with contradictions between reality and narrating reality is certainly an aspect worth noting…

Photo: Ib Bondejerg right.. Henning Camre left

A Poetics for the Documentary – basic genres and formats

Ib Bondebjerg

I think it is a very valuable endeavour Opstrup has embarked on trying to define what is specific for a documentary narrative and comparing it with documentary (TV)programs and the fiction film narrative. To see the documentary project as a working with contradictions between reality and narrating reality is certainly an aspect worth noting.

However, I think Opstrup misses some very important aspects of documentary poetics and aesthetics by not taking into consideration that it is impossible to talk about the fiction film, the documentary program and the documentary film in the singular. Both documentary films and fiction films have very different genres and forms of narration. In the case of documentary forms these cut across TV-programs and documentary films. To construct a basic difference between documentary TV-programs and documentary films is therefore problematic.

In my recent book “Virkelighedensfortællinger. Den danske tv-dokumentarismes historie” (Samfundslitteratur, 2008) I try to define the four basic formats and genres in documentary, and in doing so I continue the work of international scholars like Bill Nichols, Carl Plantinga and John Corner. In my coming book “Virkelighedsbilleder. Den moderne danske dokumentarfilm”, I will continue with a historical analysis of how the Danish documentary film made through Statens Film Central and later DFI have used the same fomats, but in different ways and with different accents.

I my view there are four basic genres and modes of narration in documentary films and tv-programs, each with a distinctly diferent relation to reality and the rhetorical, narrative and aesthetic way of describing reality:

1. The authoritative documentary is informational and investigative and uses a strong and explicit rethorical voice in narrating reality. But it also often uses narrative devices and dramaturgic structures.The authoritative voice can vary from the more objective and didactic to the more critical.

2. The observational documentary takes an ethnographic and open approach to reality and wants to show reality as it unfolds in a given milieu or setting. The voice of the observational documentary is part of the reality being shown. But the organisation and structure of the observational film or program can be narrative in many ways. But often it uses a multi-plot narative unfolding in a mosaic and thematic structure.

3. The dramatised documentary is a complex and often contested and controversial documentary form because it takes a clearly hypothetical approach to reality. When Peter Watkins, for instance made “Wargame” he clearly used a journalistic format, a kind of reportage of an ‘as if event’, namely what would happen if London was hit by an atomic bomb. But this was a hypothetical reportage on a hypothetical event, but based on careful research of the official policy documents on how to react in such an event. Another example is Morten Hartz Kaplers “AFR” mixing factual and fictional elements in a drama-documentary.

4. The poetic reflexive documentary on the other hand is characterized by a personal and asthetic approach to reality. Reality is filtered through an aesthetic principle that becomes dominant or points towards the way reality is portrayed and reflected. When Jytte Rex for instance wants to tell us about European culture she does that in a staggering and beautiful montage of images and forms in “Floden”. And Jørgen Leth is famous for his minimalistic and staged portraits of reality.

The important thing when discussing documentary narration and aesthetics is not to try to distinquish documentary film from fictional on a formal and aesthetic level or to make a sharp distinction between documentary (TV) programs and documentary films. The important thing is to define the aesthtic complexity of all documentary formats, to allow for difference and variation in the way documentary productions are done.To define four very basic formats allow us to start seeing this complexity in both film and tv. But it is also important to realize that when we look at concrete historical periods of documentary we will often see hybrids between de basic formats: the poetic authoritative documentary, the observational-poetic documentary etc. Many documentaries take elements from different basic formats. This is another way of defining the complexity and contradictions Opstrups defines in his poetics of the documentary.

Ib Bondebjerg, Professor Deputy Chair of Department & Head of Section Department of Media, Cognition and Communication Section of Film and Media Studies University of Copenhagen, Southern Campus Njalsgade 80, 2300 Copenhagen S  Phone: +45 35328102 Fax: +45 35328110  Mobile: +45 60241164  Mail:

bonde@hum.ku.dk

Web: http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/aviva/ 

www.mef.ku.dk  

http://bonde.blogs.ku.dk/

Director Centre for Modern European Studies (CEMES)* University of Copenhagen Njalsgade 80, 2300 Copenhagen S Denmark

Web: www.cemes.ku.dk  Mail: mes@hum.ku.dk

Photo: Ib Bondejerg right.. Henning Camre left

Seth Gordon: The King of Kong

János Richter, direction student at the Zelig Documentary Film School in Bolzano has written this review:

Billy Mitchell has a carefully styled mullet haircut and wears patriotic ties. His whole appearance communicates his conception of perfection. He is the owner of a hot sauce company and the world record holder in the arcade game Donkey Kong. „There is a level of difference between people that translates into games“, Mitchell states in an interview. On high score lists he appears as „USA“.

Throughout his childhood Steve Wiebe’s mother suspected him of being a little autistic. Wiebe works as a science teacher and is an obssesive drummer and a would-be composer. He started off with lots of different things, but nothing came up to his expectations. His biggest dream is to establish a new world record in Donkey Kong.

The film follows Wiebe who seems to neglect his family while trying to gain immortality in the world of arcade games. On the contrary, Mitchell is never shown playing the game in the film, though he states the importance of playing in public. He rather exercises himself in psychological warfare by setting people on Wiebe during his attempts to set a new record. At a tournament in Mitchell’s hometown Wiebe desperately waits to play against Mitchell who eventually shows up, but refuses to play. When Wiebe finally breaks the record, Mitchell responds by sending a vhs tape which shows him gaining a higher score than Wiebe just did. Nonetheless Wiebe is convinced that Mitchell made him a better person.

The flim is made in a conventional way – lots of interviews, lots of music, clear storyline -, but succeeds to entertain. One of the few stylistic exceptions is a montage in which we watch and hear Wiebe playing drums. It is intercut with images showing traumatic experiences from Wiebe’s youth and him playing Donkey Kong. The men’s efforts aren’t really being questioned, although there is a scene in which Wiebe’s daughter remarks that some people „sort of ruin their lifes“ while trying to establish records. It would have been interesting to find out more about the men’s motivations.

USA, 2007, 77 min.

http://billyvssteve.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_king_of_kong

Møder/CPH:DOX 21

Det går sjældent som planlagt, når jeg er på festival. Billetter kan ikke fås, visninger ikke nås, titler ikke til stede i on-line samlingen på markedet. Men, men så er der til gengæld store overraskelser, nye opdagelser, uventede møder. Det begyndte i det planlagte, jeg måtte med det samme jeg kom se filmen om mordet på Anna Politkovskaya.

Eric Bergkraut: Letter to Anna (Det viste sig at være en velordnet, klar og uhyre vigtig journalistisk materialesamling til forståelse af dette usædvanlige menneske, vigtigst er interviewet med Politkovskayas redaktør)

Jonathan Cauette: Tarnation (.. og så løb jeg ind i en række film, som alle er lavet på privatlivsarkiver. Først et forrygende levet og klippet familiedrama. En kvindes opvækst i et helvede – påført eller selvforskyldt, faktisk eller digtet – det holder filmen svævende i sin musikfortælling, men hendes smerte er autentisk)

Michel Auder: The Feature (.. 184 minutters samvær med et menneskeliv i avant garde kunstens centrum, i udkanten af det, vi kalder det almindelige, men i så utildækket ærlighed, at jeg kan overføre selv det mest eksotiske til den historie jeg burde kende bedst – og herefter kender bedre. Mødet med Auder blev mit vigtigste, hans film min allerstørste oplevelse) 

Morgan Dews: Must Read After My Death (.. og så til den nok mest tunge, 73 minutter med det mest ordinære private smalfilmmateriale kombineret med noget så ualmindeligt som en dagbog på bånd, alt gemt som et testamente af denne ualmindeligt almindelige kvinde, hvis fortælling, Dews uhyre langsomt, men konsekvent lader vokse ud af kedsommeligheden ind i den klassiske tragedie)

Agnès Varda: Les Plages d’Agnès (.. herefter til den letteste, mest opfindsomt farverigt dansende film: Varda har ombygget sit vidunderlige privatarkiv og sine erindringer til en komedie, så jeg ler, så tårerne triller og opdager at de kommer af vemod og sorg over det tabte, og kun den energiske evige skabelse af scenernes kunstværker tager kampen op mod forgængeligheden, og den elskedes grav overstrøs med to slags røde blomster, hans og hendes, endnu friske) 

Amir Labaki: 27 Scenes About Jørgen Leth (.. dette arkiv administreres hengivent af en åbenlys beundrer, de præcist valgte citater fra filmene tegner deres billede af et værk, der hænger sammen i en forskning, som endnu en gang imponerer i omfang og konsistens)

Werner Herzog: Encounters At The End Of The World (.. og endelig flyttedes fokus for mig væk fra den tabte tid, og vemodet forvandledes til klaustrofobi med dykkerne under Antarktis havis og undren over naturforskningens galgenhumor, ja, der blev leet meget i salen, til simpel angst, at det efter dinosaurernes uddøen så pludseligt som art dengang i fortiden nu er vores tur, for det minder Herzogs alvor uden nåde og hans tydelige billeder af vore fremtidige ruiner mig om. Og dette møde bliver nok det uafrystelige)   

Awards/CPH:DOX 20

2008 CPH:DOX awards have been given out at the CPH:DOX Galla.

DOX:AWARD 2008: went to Anders Østergaard for “Burma VJ”, with a Special Mention to Mark Hammersberg, Ester Martin Bergsmark and Beatrice Maggie Andersson for “Maggie in Wonderland” (see review).

DANISH DOX AWARD 2008: The award for best Danish documentary was given out for the first time this year, and was split between Nikolaj Viborg’s “69” and Tina Katinka Jensen for “Solange on Love” (see review), with a Special Mention to Janus Metz for “From Thy to Thailand” (see review) and Christian Sønderby for “Side by Side” (see review).

AMNESTY AWARD 2008: This year’s Amnesty Award goes to Anders Østergaard for “Burma VJ”, with a Special Mention to Joseph Bullman for the courageous and provocative “Dynamiters, Assassins, Fiends”.

NEW VISION AWARD 2008: goes to Michel Auder for “The Feature”, with a Special Mention to Apichatpong Weerasethakul for “Morakot”.

SOUND AND VISION AWARD 2008: The Award for best music documentary goes to Sacha Gervasi for “Anvil! The Story of Anvil”, with a Special Mention to Margarita Jimeno for her debut film “Gogol Bordello Non-Stop”.

DOC ALLIANCE AWARD 2008: This year’s special Doc Alliance Award goes to Pavel Koutecky and Miroslav Janek for “Citizen Havel” (see review).

Politikens Publikumspris: has been chosen by the readers of Politiken, and goes to Nikolaj Viborg for “69”.

Still: Burma VJ

DOX Forum/CPH:DOX 19

From the very well organised industry part of the the festival, I would like to highlight 3 of the projects that I am looking forward to see as finished film:

”Into Eternity” from Danish Michael Madsen and his producer Lise Lense-Møller. A project about nuclear waste and where it is put with a Finnish underground storage as the example, but a story also with a lot of scientific and philosophical questions to be raised by a young director with his very own voice.

”Hunting Down Memory” from Norwegian Thomas Lien and Petter Vennerød about a 27 year old Norwegian who lost his memory in a Chinese train. The film goes with him back to explore his own forgotten journey. Fascinating clip. (see photo)

”Complaints Choir” by Danish Ada Bligaard Søby and Morten Kjems Juhl, a great film project – quote from the catalogue: … a funny and intimate film about the phenomenon of complaining, set in the heartland of positive thinking and with thought provoking jumps to choirs in other countries and to the Finnish island where it all started.

www.finemellow.dk
www.merkur.no
www.magichourfilms.dk
http://www.cphdox.dk/d1/front.lasso

DOX Forum/CPH:DOX 18

A learning lab. This is what Tine Mosegaard, the organiser, called the DOX-Forum in the catalogue intro for the 3 day industry event, an integrated part of the film festival. A programme consisting of pitching sessions and seminars like the one reported about below.

And it was actually a learning lab for me, who is involved in 4-5 pitching sessions per year, where broadcasters react to projects that are normally still in the development phase. Here it was a different set up. The projects were almost all of them at the end of shooting and those project holders who were best prepared, profited from the presence of skilled people from classical distribution agencies or new online and digital platforms. The possibilities for a variety of distribution outlets seem to be growing at the same pace as the decrease of financial investment from broadcasters into creative documentaries. For more information, go to some of the web sites below.

14 projects were pitched, and as an experienced pitch trainer, it hurt me to experience several of them stumbling blindly through their presentation. The result was naturally that the panelists spent all time asking to the project content and therefore did not get to the distribution advice for their soon-to-be-released film. With exceptions, of course, read about those at  text 19.

Picture from Documentary of the Month-film

”Welcome to the New World of Distribution” is an article by Peter Broderick that you can read on

www.peterbroderick.com
www.cineticmedia.com
www.eldocumentaldelmes.com
www.indiepixfilms.com
www.icarusfilms.com
www.microcinema.com
www.widemanagement.com
 

DOX:Forum/CPH:DOX:17

Nomally panel discussions are boring with a lot of repetitions. This one was different. The panelists complemented each other and were open in their sharing information and points of views on the involvement of the art museums in distributing films.

Jytte Jensen from MOMA New York told that the museum is pretty active in that field, showing documentaries regularly and keeping a film on the agenda for a week. The latter provokes a review in the NY Times. Without paying rental fee, as it is great promotion for the film and filmmaker to be at MOMA! However, when the museum buys a print for its collection, they pay 2,5 times the print prize. Or money is given through handling fees. She mentioned ”Dinner with the President” (= Musharraf), updated version, as a current example. Director: Sahiba Sumar.

ICA in London was represented by Mark Adams, who takes care of the film activities of this Institute of Contemporary Arts. He stressed that their documentary involvement had grown, both in terms of their screenings and with the, primarily 35mm, distribution they operate. Re payment ICA operates as every other art cinema distributor.

Andrea Picard from Cinematheque Ontario, curator of Wavelengths at the Toronto Film Festival, was the one who underligned that there are more and more visual artists who move into making films, but she also stressed that there is actually nothing new in this: dada, fluxus, surrealism, Dali, Man Ray etc. But there is also a move in the other direction, from the film world to the art world. The names of Chantal Akerman and Pedro Costa. This move seems also to have a financial reason, if I understood it correctly – more funding available in the art scene. Crossover is the key word, as it is for the cph:dox programme policy.

http://www.cphdox.dk/d1/front.lasso