What people think about Documentaries:
1. I watch documentaries to widen my horizons. I feel Im learning more about the world in which I live in.
2. Some of these programmes are really quite exciting .You can get very involved in the stories they tell.
3. What I expect from documentaries is that it will tackle issues in much greater depth than a news or current affairs programme ever could.
4. watching documentaries makes me want to go out and discover more about the issues raised. The programme itself often just scratches the surface
-- All these responses show that viewers appraoch documentaries with differenct expectation. They all gain different pleasures (uses and gratifications) from watching documentaries.
Friday 22 October 2010
Questions:
1.Compare documentaries and fictional films about Holocaust....
2. Do we need Fictional films to protray the image of Holocaust, when we have extreme stories already?
3. Blurred boundaries of Documentries and fictional films.
4. Realism in Fictional films
2. Do we need Fictional films to protray the image of Holocaust, when we have extreme stories already?
3. Blurred boundaries of Documentries and fictional films.
4. Realism in Fictional films
Book: "501 must see movies" Pg483
Schindler's list:
' With intelligent script, superb cast and shooting in Poland in many of the authentic backgrounds, in a restrained manner and in full powerful black and white images, hand held camera footage gives it a documentary style---> Spielberg comes closer than most directors to filming the impossible - The Holocaust '
' With intelligent script, superb cast and shooting in Poland in many of the authentic backgrounds, in a restrained manner and in full powerful black and white images, hand held camera footage gives it a documentary style---> Spielberg comes closer than most directors to filming the impossible - The Holocaust '
Book: "A cinematic history of War and Epics"
' Films about the Holocaust have attempted to depict the horrors of the ectermination camps. Documentaries like Shoah (1985) and Night and Fog (1955) expose inhumainty '
Tuesday 19 October 2010
From Andre Bazin’s “Ontology of the Photographic Image”
“The quarrel over realism in art stems from a misunderstanding, from a confusion between the aesthetic and psychological; between true realism, the need that is given significant expression to the world both concretely and its essence, and the pseudorealism of a deception aimed a fooling the eye (or the mind for that matter); a pseudorealism content in other words with illusory appearances. That is why medieval art never passed through this crisis; simultaneously vividly realistic and highly spiritual, it knew nothing of the drama that cam to light as a consequence of technical developments. Perspective was the original sin of Western painting"
http://media.edusites.co.uk/index.php/article/truth-the-photographic-image/
http://media.edusites.co.uk/index.php/article/truth-the-photographic-image/
Friday 8 October 2010
Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution' ---> Documentry.
Auschwitz: The Nazis and the "Final solution" is a documentary which presents the evolution of Auschwitz by interviewing former imamates and guards, using rare archive footage and dramatic reconstructions. The reconstructions help audiences to have a more emotional understanding of the event. However, as a documentary, the reconstruction must affect the objective evidence of the archival footage and also makes the documentary unrealistic.
I found this quote on a website: "Documentary film material about the Holocaust is highly problematic since the circumstances under which it was taken would very often strongly undermine its value as 'objective' evidence. A newsreel filmed by a Wehrmacht propaganda company cannot be perceived as an objective representation of an event, whatever the claims of its makers"(www.kooriweb.org, Item 9)
In general, the footage helps the director provide a sense of realism; different documentaries need different kinds of footage. As the documentary is about the Holocaust, the director must have struggled to find footage. In the period of the Holocaust, the whole world was a mess. Even though it's archival, some of the content might still differ from the truth. We still need to query it.
I did not watch the whole documentary because it is so long. However, when I watched it, a sense of fear was created in my mind very quickly. It made me feel the reality of the events because it looked realistic. When the interviewees talked about their real experiences, we can imagine being taken to the concentration camp. We might start to think about how people survived this “Hell”. The fear is beyond our imagination. I think when people have experienced something they have a kind of power to make you think about things deeply when they talk about it.
“We were not only starved for food, but also, starved for human kindness.” (Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution’, (Item 4).
Jews and other races are all human. Why did they suffer this disaster? They could bear starvation, but I do not think they deserved to be treated like this. This documentary suggests its time to reawaken human kindness and prevent any event like this happening in the future.
http://movie.douban.com/review/3762722/
I found this quote on a website: "Documentary film material about the Holocaust is highly problematic since the circumstances under which it was taken would very often strongly undermine its value as 'objective' evidence. A newsreel filmed by a Wehrmacht propaganda company cannot be perceived as an objective representation of an event, whatever the claims of its makers"(www.kooriweb.org, Item 9)
In general, the footage helps the director provide a sense of realism; different documentaries need different kinds of footage. As the documentary is about the Holocaust, the director must have struggled to find footage. In the period of the Holocaust, the whole world was a mess. Even though it's archival, some of the content might still differ from the truth. We still need to query it.
I did not watch the whole documentary because it is so long. However, when I watched it, a sense of fear was created in my mind very quickly. It made me feel the reality of the events because it looked realistic. When the interviewees talked about their real experiences, we can imagine being taken to the concentration camp. We might start to think about how people survived this “Hell”. The fear is beyond our imagination. I think when people have experienced something they have a kind of power to make you think about things deeply when they talk about it.
“We were not only starved for food, but also, starved for human kindness.” (Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution’, (Item 4).
Jews and other races are all human. Why did they suffer this disaster? They could bear starvation, but I do not think they deserved to be treated like this. This documentary suggests its time to reawaken human kindness and prevent any event like this happening in the future.
http://movie.douban.com/review/3762722/
"THE DR. JOHN HANEY SESSIONS" Film
"At the film's conclusion, the audience sat in absolute silence. Once discussion began, a split became apparent — between those who were angry and those who were merely confused. A person identifying herself as a Holocaust survivor spoke first and denounced what she perceived as the "lack of feeling" expressed by these offspring on the screen toward their survivor parents. "Are these the children for whom I survived?" she asked. "If so, I'm sorry I did."
Other people (despite the introduction that had tried to focus their attention) asked how the film could claim to be about the Holocaust when it lacked the images of atrocities. "How is the world to know of the horrors if no horrors are shown, if there are no piles of violins, confiscated eyeglasses, hair, teeth, or clothing?" Others suggested that if professional actors rather than actual children of survivors had been used, the film would have more successfully elicited the audience's emotions.
Some people defended the film enthusiastically, precisely because it avoided the expected approach."
If audiences are knowledged about the subject, they are not influenced and expect the right story of the issue:
"The film was clearly professional and sophisticated; the audience was obviously knowledgeable about the subject matter and comfortable with its Jewish identity."
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC34folder/FriedmanShapiroHolocst.html
Other people (despite the introduction that had tried to focus their attention) asked how the film could claim to be about the Holocaust when it lacked the images of atrocities. "How is the world to know of the horrors if no horrors are shown, if there are no piles of violins, confiscated eyeglasses, hair, teeth, or clothing?" Others suggested that if professional actors rather than actual children of survivors had been used, the film would have more successfully elicited the audience's emotions.
Some people defended the film enthusiastically, precisely because it avoided the expected approach."
If audiences are knowledged about the subject, they are not influenced and expect the right story of the issue:
"The film was clearly professional and sophisticated; the audience was obviously knowledgeable about the subject matter and comfortable with its Jewish identity."
http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC34folder/FriedmanShapiroHolocst.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)