The Uncertainty of Documentarism

“Paradoxically, documentary images are so powerful because there is no more unbroken belief in their truth.”

• The certainty of documentaries is being challenged.
• Example
  • A live broadcast in the 2003 US-Iraq war
  • “Due to the low resolution, the only things in sight were green and brown blotches, slowly moving across the screen.”
  • “The aforementioned pictures on CNN also follow this logic: they are no longer about information that could be mediated through simple, intelligible images. Instead, they are all about an admixture of panic and excitement that comes from the feeling of being there. We do not need to see anything concrete to feel the atmosphere of war.”
• Uncertainty Principle of Modern Documentarism
  • “We are surrounded by rough-cut and increasingly abstract documentary images, shaky, dark, or out-of-focus, images that show little else than their own excitement. The more immediate they become, the less there is to see. They evoke a situation of permanent exception and constant crisis, a state of heightened tension and vigilance.”
  • Honestly, I’m not very sure what aspect of the uncertainty of documentaries the author is referring to. Is it that digital contents are modified just like Photoshop-ed images? Or is it that many documentaries are emphasizing certain emotions, feelings, and senses, instead of “real”, objective information?
  • (One reason why I’m confused may be that I’m not sure what the author refers to by “documentary” at the first point, whether he uses “documentary” as an adjective to describe live broadcasting. I instinctively thought live broadcasting is live broadcasting, and documentary is documentaries, the pre-recorded videos with edits.)
• There is a tension between “expression” and “representation” of truth in documentaries.

 

Certain movies and films are based on a true story. How does truth inform fiction? How might fiction inform the truth?

• Whenever a movie says it is based on a true story, it almost always brings a feeling of “being there”, regardless of being aware of how much the true story has been modified. As humans, it may be an instinct to empathize with true stories, especially those that happen to their fellow humans.
• For example, a person with a tragic life may be made into a movie, providing materials for fiction. While fiction is usually considered to be something based on imagination, it always reflects something about truth.
• However, I feel a trend that the boundaries between truth and fiction have become more blurred, or in other words, they have integrated with each other more than I thought traditionally.

 

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?

• In one sentence, I will say the authenticity and representation of the truth in the media I daily consume is significant, although people may tend to choose the information that they want to consume, both intentionally by ignoring certain information and unintentionally by algorithms.
• On the one hand, the authenticity of the information in the media can be challenging, according to the most basic standards of whether something is true or false. However, I found that even if the information in the media is objectively “true”, there can be some implicit effect on people psychologically. For example, when I was in NYC, most of my knowledge about what was happening in China came from the media. I will say the negative social accidents being reported in the media are authentic, but when I feel like there are so many negative social accidents, those may actually be a small amount out of all the social events going on that are not “positive or negative enough” to be reported.
• I have constantly heard about live broadcasting, although I’m not an active live broadcasting participant myself. First, as for live broadcasting in online shopping, I heard that one reason people watch it is that they want to see the “authenticity” of the products, although I think it may not be as true either when a lot of hosts are sponsored and do not bear objectivity. Second, as for live broadcasting in sports games, I want to relate it to attending a concert online versus in person. When I know a game has not ended and there are possibilities, it makes me as excited as if I’m actually participating in it. That may be what makes a person human, being unable to predict futures (compared to the Heptapod) and being immersed in the present. In that sense, live broadcasting becomes a tool for people to gain the “feeling of being there”, whether the contents are only “green and brown blotches”.