Documentary analysis

Documentary Analysis by Kameron Brown


Documentaries are programmes that reveal different views on happenings in places common people may not get to see upfront personally. Documentaries come in a wide variety from wildlife to interactive, to sports and even reflective; the genres are limitless. A strong example of a sports documentary would be Bones Brigade by Stacy Peralta which is a features names from the former childrens skate group Bones Brigade including Rodney Mullen and Tony Hawk. This type of documentary has in depth interviews with the skater and is interview based and makes it very personal, emotional and clear to the viewer. An example of an interactive documentary would be Bowling for Columbine which is about a school shooting massacre which took place  in 1999 at Columbine high school in Columbine.

The reason it's an INTERACTIVE documentary is because what took place on screen was driven by Michael Moore himself rather than through narration or video and interview, it differs from traditional documentaries and is more personal and direct. Michael Moore gave a real time following of events, showing all aspects from meetings which led to scenes, failed requests as well as him meeting new people and speaking to them to even his organized protests. He used a number of tactics to give clear evidence on the cause and corruptive spirits behind the school shooting and how it could've been avoided. What made the film so credible is because Michael Moore appears to be a very average man by sight and is seen struggling and fighting to compromise with companies and executives as well as plead to acquire interview time with big names who play huge influence on the theory of guns. A scene that stood out from a lot of the other was a scene set in the house of Charlton Heston, the president of the National Rifle Association who Michael more had stated hosted a huge gun related event right after the school shooting leaving many hugely distressed and causing uproar within Columbine. Mr. Moore after numerous accounts of request finally acquired time with the President after turning up to his front door on-camera to ask personally for an interview which even then was held off until the next day.

When Moore then got in he added immense pressure to the president who couldn't answer or give valid reason for his choice and eventually called the interview off and left when he came to the realization that Moore was very much exposing his ways and clearly on the winning end of the interview. Michael also pointed out the way media review situations like this and got interviews with musician Marilyn Manson who was blamed on a huge scale for what had happened, which in the documentary Michael set out to expose that it wasn't artists and video games as the media was saying but the media itself which played the biggest role. Michael Moore gave an in depth view on how the media harnessed fear and use it against people. He then showed how easily accessible firearms and ammunition was and protested outside the Walmart headquarters on a great scale after the higher ups had shrugged him off serveral times. Michael Moore had a distinctive point he was trying to make a was very bias in making his point throughout the documentary.

A second documentary I watched was Errol Morris' 'The Thin Blue Line' made in 1998 which is based on the story of Randall Adams who was a convict for Murder charges against a police officer which he didn't commit. He spent 12 years in jail and was released only because of the documentary and soon after died. David Harris who later confessed to the murder at the end of the documentary (which added a huge twist to the documentary). The murder of the police officer took place in Dallas, Texas. This documentary is a performative genre documentary because it is pure realism and factual, with interviews from the people involved and interviews included. It shares it's style with other formats of film like a feature film and this is simply due to it's use of shot and dynamics to help tell it's story, adding intensity purposely in close ups or by using shots of an old tape player instead of a person when playing back an interview. These all appear coincidentally but however are very much intentional and have huge addition and impact on the outcome and effectiveness of the documentary as a whole, shots included tracking shots, close ups and mid shots to name a few which included non-diagetic sound to be used with the interviews and credits more in the beginning of the documentary. It's very distinctive in style and is very interactive with it's viewer and doesn't use voice over and has more of a television show aspect in terms of how it feels to watch. To compare to Bowling for Columbine, Michael is in shot throughout whereas Errol isn't in a single scene or voice over which makes Michael Moore's project interactive.

The Night Mail by John Grierson and released in 1936 is a expository due to it's direct approach to it's points and concept. To convey messages to the viewer it uses voice overs in an informative format of what night mail is including it's history and how it works/what is inclusive and how it would've felt. The whole documentary was staged because there wasn't space for the camera on a regular train. The voice over is factual along with dates and more isn't bias in any way, Traditional formats of documentary are Expository and the purpose was to enlighten people's opinion on the large mail operations and mould or change the overall views on it.
It wasn't to one point as seen in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine and had more points and wasn't as much of a sensitive subject .

To conclude, I believe Bowling for Columbine was the most moving and interactive to watch, it kept me interested and kept me learning interesting and relevant information which shaped my own living as well as everybody around me and for that It stood well out of the pack out of the three documentaries.