Category Archives: documentary film

Continued Learning

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I’ve been working on my final project for Adult Education…a video that reflects on my own learning and learning in general.  I started, as I usually would, with about four pages of single spaced text.  Something just felt wrong…too many words for a movie.  So, the first step was to start thinking visually…what pictures and video clips was I going to use to tell the story of my learning this semester.  How could they tell the story along with fewer words from me.  I think I have accomplished that.  Once I had the script, I could start collecting the materials which mostly consist of clips from films I’ve watched this semester.  I took care of that on Thursday.   And here’s the secret:  with a clean script and all the materials in one place, putting the film together has gone relatively smoothly.  I still have a ways to go, but writing and editing the script and thinking about the clips as I captured them really put the film in my head before I ever opened Final Cut Pro.  It’s funny in a way because it is very similar to the process I use for writing.  I read, I jot notes, I blog a bit, I start constructing sentences in my head, so that by the time I get to the actual writing, the paper is almost done.  The biggest difference here is that I started putting the visuals together in my head.

My only concern is that I am using single, lengthy clips from the films rather than several shorter pieces.  It seems to work but it isn’t typical from what I’ve seen.  I would like to do one sequence of short, quick shots.  I’ve seen that in some movies and it looks cool.  I dropped in a quote from Knowles at the beginning and I’ve got a great one from Eartha Kitt for the end but dropped the idea of splicing in quotes throughout the film.  I may go back to that but for now I like the transitions between sections.

As with each project I’ve done, I’m experimenting…in this case, it’s using music or the soundtrack of the films along with a voice over.  I may need to redo the voice overs at the end and figure out how to make the films quieter when I’m talking but for a first step, it’s not too bad.  All in all, it’s been a productive film day.

And I keep learning:

1.  After spending about an hour trying to copy the captured clips from the computer in the media center to my hard drive, I discovered that because my hard drive is Windows formatted, I can only copy about 3 gigs at a time.  Since I didn’t want to reformat the drive, I borrowed one from Troy, but I may need to invest in another one. They are so small now.

2. I needed some soundtrack music so I bought a couple songs from iTunes.  (Remember when you had to go to a store?)  After downloading them, I discovered they weren’t in a format that FCP can use and because they were purchased, I couldn’t convert them.  (That seems like a violation of my rights as a buyer.  I would be able to convert them if I bought them on CD.)  So, undaunted, I went to the web and in just a few minutes discovered the work around:  burn them to CD and then re-import them into iTunes and you can convert them.

Learning Contract Update

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I will admit up front that I am procrastinating.  I *should* be doing some bibliography work for my media literacy research project.  Instead, I am doing everything else–watching Triumph of the Will, canceling my cell phone, doing laundry.  It is amazing how much I get done when I am procrastinating!  Is there some adult learning principle at work here?  What we learn we were are supposed to be learning something else?

Anyway, as part of that procrastination, I thought I would doing a learning contract update.  I have taken the first steps towards learning Final Cut Pro.  I am pretty happy with my first movie and got lots of positive feedback from the class.  This weekend, I want to dig into some of the Lewis and Clark footage I’ve got.  I’m considering doing something that combines footage from our trip with excerpts from my journal and the L&C journals.  Contrast their journey with ours.  First, though, I need to get a look at what’s there.  It’s been seven or eight years since we took the trip.  I reviewed some of the footage this summer, but need to go back through it with a “cinematographer’s” eye.

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Leni Riefenstahl

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The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

This film documents the life of Leni Riefenstahl. It was long–over 3 hours–but well worth it. I watched it in several installments because I got tired of reading the subtitles.

Riefenstahl was a controversial filmmaker because her most well-known works were about the Nazi party. Triumph of the Will documented the 1934 Nazi party Congress in Nuremberg and is considered the most powerful propaganda film ever made. In addition, the film won numerous awards outside of Germany for its revolutionary filmmaking techniques. Riefenstahl also made Olympia, the official film of the 1936 Olympics. Like her previous film, this one is recognized for its innovative techniques–she was the first filmmaker to set a camera on railroad tracks. But, it is also condemned for its portrait of the Nazis.

Throughout the documentary, Riefenstahl reminds us that she was never a member of the Nazi party. Indeed, the filmmakers point out that she was often out of the country when the worst events, like Kristallnacht, happened. Yet, she is often mentioned in Goebbel’s diary as being present at Nazi events, something Riefenstahl denies. She was acquitted at the end of the war of any war crimes (she was accused of using gypsies from a concentration camp in one of her movies), but she was also unable to continue her filmmaking work because of her association with Hitler.

Her life and work offer fertile ground for considering the moral role of the artist. Throughout the film, Riefenstahl, who lived to be 101 years old, focuses on her aesthetics, claiming she was fascinated by Hitler but not a Nazi. But at times, she seems to be in denial about her own actions. It is interesting that several reviewers in the Internet Movie Database seem to be apologists for her, suggesting that no one really understood Hitler’s plan in the late 1930s. Yet, excerpts from Mein Kampf seem to make it pretty clear. Riefenstahl claims she never read it. I have a copy of Triumph of the Will sitting by the television but I’m not sure I want to read it.

I can’t help but contrast her with Alice Lok Cahana, a visual artist featured in The Last Days, a film about five Hungarian Jews who survived the holocaust. Cahana’s work is focused on the Holocaust, endowing it with a moral purpose: “”I started to paint only about the Holocaust as a tribute and memorial to those who did not return, and I am still not finished.”

A Horrible Lesson

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Watching a documentary about the life of Anne Frank–Anne Frank Remembered–that includes powerful first-person accounts from Auschwitz survivors.   One of the women talked about arriving in Auschwitz on the train and the horror of having to stand naked in front of the German guards.  It went against all her values and she said that she learned at that moment that her values were no longer important.  She had to learn a whole new set of beliefs and values, and, she said, if you didn’t learn them, you would die.  Another woman comments on how the horror became somewhat commonplace.  The first time she saw the cart of dead bodies, she looked away. The next time, she noticed but was not as frightened.  Finally, the third time, she didn’t even notice.  Her brain, she said, was learning a new way of living.

Documentary Films

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I’ve been blogging about the movies I’ve watched but wanted to create a database as well.  I considered using the wiki but figured there was probably an honest-to-goodness database out there.  Sure enough, the Internet Movie Database has a “my movies” section where you can add movies and add notes.  In addition, you can share the list publicly.  Here’s my URL with the six movies I’ve watched so far: http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=22954544  I feel like I’ve watched more and then I remembered that Monterey Pop was a three-disk set and Netflix only sends one at a time.

Scholastic Withdraws The Path to 9/11

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About Scholastic: News

Finally got around to reading Education Week for September 20 and found this article concerning Scholastic’s decision to pull the classroom materials they had created to accompany the controversial ABC TV drama, The Path to 9/11.
Here’s the intersection of media literacy and documentary film: ABC maintained that their film was a fictionalized version and had already taken a lot of criticism about evident bias against the Clinton administration. Scholastic created materials that furthered inaccuracies. So, Scholastic turned it into a media literacy lesson and, according to Education Week, “replaced the disputed materials with an online discussion guide that took a much different approach to the ABC movie–one that aims to help students dissect the ways the news media convey various messages” (p. 9, September 20, 2006). The article quotes Diane Ravitch who says that creating classroom materials based on “partially fictional accounts of history” is problematic.

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The Criterion Collection: Monterey Pop

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The Criterion Collection: Monterey Pop

From the publishers of the Monterey Pop DVD set, an amazing website about the concert including full text versions of articles written about the festival within days of the event.  Lots of interesting stories of who was there and who wasn’t and why…several musicians were having issues with pot charges and draft dodging.  Extensive musician biographies as well.  We’re watching the third DVD of the set which is just outtakes, stuff that didn’t make it into the original documentary.  Great music cut with shots of the audience.  And it really is about the music.

Some of those writing at the time are critical of the organizers for not having more ethnic diversity.  Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix are in the documentary but so far the outtakes have been all nice white boys.  But the comment I found most interesting was Robert Christgau’s suggestion that “real” hippies were gone: “But there are no hippies—they have disappeared in an avalanche of copy. Most of the originals who were living in the Haight in 1966, when the journalists started nosing around, have fled from the bus tour and the LSD-Burgers and the panhandling flower children who will be back in school next semester.”

I can’t help but contrasting these hippies with the members of the Weather Underground.  While the hippies in Monterey might be anti-establishment, the Weathermen were anti-government.  Christgau suggests that there is sort of hippie-mentality that is associated with liberal ideas.  But the Weathermen were actual communists, politically motivated.  Yet, both groups tended to be affluent white kids; they could afford to be bohemians and radicals.

Quieter Lives for 60’s Militants, but Intensity of Beliefs Hasn’t Faded

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Quieter Lives for 60’s Militants, but Intensity of Beliefs Hasn’t Faded

From The New York Times, an article about the Weather Underground.  I was particularly interested in the quote late in the article from Brian Flanagan.  He did appear to be more “rueful” than the others in the film, something he says isn’t a true portrayal.  This article also highlights some of those who are anti-Weather Underground, feeling they got off easy for their crimes.  But, then, the WU members would say that is typical:  while black radicals were killed outright, these young often well-off white kids did their deeds, went underground, then emerged later only to have their charges dropped.  Flanagan gets quoted a lot: “When you feel you have right on your side, you can do some pretty horrific things.”  So, it seems that the filmmakers used Flanagan as a way to show a different side of the Underground.  And, unlike the NY Times article, the film doesn’t interview any WU members who are now completely negative towards the group.

Exploring The Weather Underground

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I watched this documentary, directed and produced by Sam Green, yesterday. My husband and I both agreed that while we remembered the group–and in particular I remembered knowing that some of them had blown themselves up in Greenwich Village–we did not remember how active they had been in bombing various buildings. I suppose it’s a testament to my age–I was 13 when the Vietnam War ended in 1975–but also to the lack of widespread media in the 70s. The news just wasn’t as big a deal as it is now.

The PBS show Independent Lens has an extensive website devoted to the documentary. In an interview frm the site, Green says that he and his co-director, Bill Siegel, tried to give a fair and balanced account of the history. I guess I agree. They did interview a former FBI agent involved in the hunt for the Weathermen. They also included Todd Gitlin, former SDS president, who is clearly negative towards them for taking over his organization. And the members of the group themselves seemed to cover the various points of view. For instance, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers seem to have little regret for what they did while Mark Rudd discusses feeling ashamed by their actions. I guess I just can’t imagine what it would be like to be them. They are close to 60 years old now, with jobs and families, one of them even went on Jeopardy and won some money. So, what do they tell their grandchildren? “When I was your age, I was at war with the government.”

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Technical Learning

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I am learning technical skills even while I am interfacing with documentary films on DVD.

I learned how to rip a DVD to my iPod using Handbrake.  Learning how to use Handbrake was pretty easy although I think I only got one of the movies on the DVD. But I thought of all the learning I’ve already done to make using Handbrake easy: I can access a webpage, find the download link, pick the correct format, etc. I know how to install programs on my computer and am pretty adept at navigating software. For instance, I opened Handbrake and tried to access the DVD but it didn’t seem to work. It occured to me that I had to quit the DVD player that opens automatically. When I did that, Handbrake worked fine. I’ve learned most of these skills so well that they are automatic; I don’t have to think about them anymore. But I didn’t learn them all at once and I learned them in two primary ways: reading help files and talking to people. I continue to learn from people; I downloaded Handbrake because of a colleague’s recommendation when I told him I knew I could rip DVD to my iPod but didn’t know how.

I wanted to watch The Weather Underground, a documentary I’ve had floating around for awhile now. I started watching it on my laptop and then realized I coudln’t work on my computer while I watched. Luckily, the Fed Ex truck pulled up and my new 20 inch monitor got unloaded. (The computer itself won’t be coming until the first week in October–blech.) I unloaded it and got it hooked up and working in about five minutes so now the movie is playing on the monitor and I am blogging on my laptop monitor. I didn’t really “learn” how to hook up the monitor since I’ve done it before, but I did read the manual just to make sure I was doing it correctly. Also, I was already familiar with the concept of dual monitors and mirroring so I knew I could drag the DVD window to the new monitor.