In this blog post, I’ll mainly focus on those questions bellow.
- Steyerl talks about how the “unbroken belief” of the documentary form is challenged. What does Steyerl mean by this? Certain movies and films are based on a true story. How does truth inform the fiction? How might fiction inform the truth?
- What is the significance of the authenticity and representation of the truth in the media that you consume on a daily basis? What is the role of a live broadcast?
The reading greatly surprise me both by the documentary form and the author’s deep thought. Steyerl states that “paradoxically, documentary images are so powerful because there is no more unbroken belief in their truth.” The unbroken belief may refer to the authenticity it should have had.
One keyword of this reading is lack-of-focus. In the early times, people tended to believe that those things are used to record real events so that we could have a reference later. However, as lives developed, people are no longer satisfied with material needs but seek spirit flourishes. Specifically for each individual, this is a search for spiritual resonance. To find what they want, they turned their attention to some artworks like documentaries. Pushed by the pressure from society, documentaries nowadays gradually target feelings. Through “bringing distant events close enough to get under our skin, and alienating what is closest to us”, they can make people engage in a particular event regardless of where they’re staying at. To get us more involved, a sense of reality is urgently needed. The documentary now makes it with a lack of focus. What’s even more surprising is that people’s doubts about its reality can also be one part of their emotional simulations.
Whenever I find out that the fiction I just read is based on a true story, this sense of proximity always strikes me deeply. On the one hand, the happiness, pities, or pains shown in the book seem so dramatic through the processing of art. On the other hand, they are so clearly shown that I can almost feel them, not to mention that this is based on a true story. The adaptation may better develop our empathy and become more appealing using these points. And fiction let the truth spread further, reminding people of something valuable.
As for me, I attach great importance to authenticity. I’ll require the posters or the account to be as objective as they can when representing some events. And those things posted on media should be classified strictly, which means the objective and subjective ones should be divided based on their functions. For example, some subjective ideas mistakenly appearing in a news report can mislead us a lot. Even worse, it is a way to control the direction of public opinion. The live broadcast is the same. We should deliver them in different ways to satisfy different needs. For reporting, it should be authentic. For people’s entertainment, it can be completely fake as people like it, and no rules are broken.