DOCUMENTARY FILM AS EVIDENCE IN THE DIGITAL ERA ALEXANDROS VALSAMIS A submission presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Glamorgan/Prifysgol Morgannwg for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supported by the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece (I.K.Y.) November 2013 DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my beloved father, who did not make it until the end of this journey. 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people who have invested in my work over the past five years and I am enormously grateful. There is no way I can thank all of those who made this journey worthwhile, fun and intellectually stimulating. In short, I am greatly indebted to my friends and family. Their love, encouragement, and kind support, have raised the bar for what I expect of myself. I am truly grateful to all of them for investing in me and my ideas. I also feel the need to thank my director of studies, Professor Stephen Lacey, for being so loving and encouraging to me and for teaching me how to be a good scholar. I hope someday I will be able to be the kind of mentor he has been to me. I thank him from the bottom of my heart. Finally, I would like to thank my dear friend Lena Hadjiioannou for offering me her excellent editing skills and for the endless hours of conversations in a field which is not her own. Her brilliant skills in English language, her patient love, and unconditional support, have not only made the completion of this PhD study possible but have also made me a better person. Words cannot describe how grateful I am to her. 2 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT This PhD thesis consists of three components – a written component which follows, three short documentary films on a Digital Video Disc (DVD), which can be found attached at the back of the written thesis, and a website on the World Wide Web, which is dedicated to the aforementioned films and can be found at the following address: http://www.documentarytruth.comule.com/index.html. All three components complement each other and should be examined together. It is recommended that the reader/viewser first read the text, go on to examine the website and watch the short films in the end. The DVD contains a 29 minute documentary film, Syntagma 34 (Valsamis, 2011), and two variations of it: Syntagma Sq. (ibid., 6 m.), and Syntagma Diary (ibid., 5 m.). In all three I acted as producer, director, cameraperson, editor, and sound recordist and so I have exercised absolute creative control over the making of the project and I take final responsibility for the resulting films. I shot these short documentaries in Athens, Greece, at Syntagma (constitution) square on June 28-29, 2011. The shooting was done during the two-day general strike and the demonstrations that took place to protest against the recent cruel austerity measures as well as the widespread corruption in Greek politics. The website was also created by me and I am solely responsible for its design and contents. The films and the website account for approximately 35 percent of the thesis and the written component for about 65 percent. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 ABSTRACT 6 INTRODUCTION A. Background and Motivations 8 B. Reality - Veracity/Truth - Fiction/Non-fiction - Shared Authorship 10 C. Filmic Verisimilitude 14 D. The Chapters of the Thesis 15 E. Methodology 18 CHAPTER I I. A. A Short Prologue to Chapter I 24 I. B. The Soviet Montage Cinema 25 I. B. 1 Dziga Vertov and the Cine-Eyes 35 I. C. Robert Flaherty 47 I. D. John Grierson and the British Documentary Movement 53 I. E. Cinema Vérités: The Fertile Seedbed of the Long, Strange Sixties 66 Direct Cinema and Cinéma Vérité, Two Observing Methods I. F. A Short Epilogue to Chapter I 78 CHAPTER II II. A. A Short Prologue to Chapter II 81 II. B. The Origins of the Internet 84 II. B. 1 Characteristics of the Internet 87 II. C. Digital Representation and the Documentary Online 99 4 II. D. This Is a Copyrighted World 105 II. E. R/W and R/O modes of Culture 108 II. F. Fair Use 110 II. G. The Author in the Blender 114 II. H. A Short Epilogue to Chapter II 118 CHAPTER III III. A. A Short Prologue to Chapter III 120 III. B. This is what Democracy Looks Like (Friedberg and Rowley, 2000) 122 III. C. Into the Fire (Dicks, 2011) 128 III. D. Bahrain: Shouting In the Dark (Welsh, 2011) 133 III. E. A Short Epilogue to Chapter III 140 CHAPTER IV IV. A. The Film’s Context 147 IV. A. 1 The Debt Burden 148 IV. A. 2 Political Corruption and the Dawning of Fascism 151 IV. A. 3 The Mainstream Media’s Role 153 IV. A. 4 The People As the Enemy 154 IV. A. 5 The Need for Change 158 IV. B. Syntagma 34, Syntagma Sq., Syntagma Diary (Valsamis, 2011) 159 IV. B. 1 The Shooting Method 161 IV. B. 2 The Digital Sublime 165 IV. B. 3 The Goals of the Thesis 166 IV. B. 4 Issues of Documentary Ethics 168 IV. B. 5 The Films 171 IV. B. 6 Conclusions 181 BIBLIOGRAPHY 185 FILMOGRAPHY 208 5 ABSTRACT The purpose of this PhD research is to investigate the truth claims of documentary film in relation to the capturing of social reality through the negotiation of digital technology. The following research questions serve as a starting point for the conducted investigation: Even if Errol Morris is justified in stating that nothing can guarantee the truth, by what means might the evidential status of documentary be elevated? In what ways, and under what circumstances, might documentary enhance its claims to represent social reality in the digital era? This qualitative research was conducted through a written thesis and Practice as Research (PaR). Through the history of documentary film, the former investigates the aims and methods of three documentary movements (Vertov’s Kino-Eyes, Grierson’s British Documentary and Vérité, as exemplified by its Direct Cinema and Cinéma Vérité branches), examines three case studies to discuss issues raised in documentary film-making by digital technologies, and critically reflects on the PaR. The latter consists of three short documentary films on video, attempting to honestly record what took place in Athens, during the massive and peaceful protests of the Greek people on 28 and 29 June 2011, and a website aiming to enhance the viewser’s understanding of the films’ subject. The thesis indicates that, although nothing can ultimately guarantee the truth, digital technologies may elevate documentary’s evidential status, since they affect how 6 documentary works are produced, distributed, and received, generally allowing for greater availability, affordability, plurality of views, and cross-examination of testimonies. This study concludes that if documentary film records social reality honestly, without falsifying or omitting crucial facts, it has a certain value as evidence regardless of contents, techniques, or stylistic elements chosen. It also highlights the importance of the open admission of where the film-maker’s sympathies lie in the digital as well as the conventional cinematography. Ultimately, evidence from multiple sources that the rising culture of Remix is able to offer, through digital platforms of communication like the internet, brings together a multitude of testimonies and may lead to higher evidential status. 7 INTRODUCTION A. Background and Motivations. My interest in investigating the truth claims of documentary filmmaking arises from my work in theatre. When I was writing a children’s play, in 2001, on the subject of the life and times of Alexander the Great, I confronted several issues regarding historical reality which led me to a series of anxious questions about what is fact and what is doxa, what is real and what is unreal, and about how to trace partiality and the workings of fiction in historical documents which lay claims to fairness and objectivity. Having decided from the beginning to present on stage nothing but historical facts, in a way a child could comprehend, I had to study several analyses by some of the finest Greek historians in order to evaluate the evidential status of each of my sources. The task was hard but it was possible to achieve thanks to a rich bibliography on the subject that offered me the chance to overcome many ambiguities and be as veridical as can be in my representation of Alexander the Great. However, in the two following years (2002- 2003), during which the play was performed in the capital of Greece, those questions kept coming repeatedly by critics, friends, and members of the audience alike; a great many people seemed to be anxious about the truthfulness of the representation they had encountered. Reflecting on my working experience behind the camera, in several positions both in fiction and non-fiction audiovisual projects, my main concerns have always been rather with the practicalities of each of my undertaken tasks. However, when I was invited to adapt my play on Alexander the Great for a TV documentary, the same questions about 8 authenticity and impartiality reappeared in different form. The sources were there, well researched and evaluated already, but the means of representation had changed. The theatrical conventions, which I came to appreciate during my years of studying and practicing theatre acting, were no longer applicable. Representation through the lens applied new meanings to the old question of truthfulness and introduced a series of implications. Thanks to Charles Pierce, Andre Bazin, and to my years of studying cinema directing, the case seemed clear in the first place.