An analytical piece on the concept of "Truth" within Social Documentaries, through the len
Throughout the more recent generations, documentaries have massively increased in popularity within the world of film. With video databases like Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, and Fullscreen, the concept that documentary films help reveal hidden truths and realities to the public, has become greatly praised by many. However, especially since the rise of fake news and social media, this newly profound genre of film also has many critics questioning how much truth actually goes into these documentaries, and how much of the information fed to us is just a grand representation of someone’s individual ideologies? I want to ponder these questions by commenting on the format and algorithms used to create four different films, that all lay within the niche market of food docos. Gleaners and I, Food Inc., Supersize Me, and The Garden are all social documentaries made about the process of agriculture and food, and its effects on the world. Each one, addressing a social concept around food that controversially brings to light the fine print little details and societal consequences of these social conformities.
How can we differentiate genuine authenticity from manipulation, within these documentations of truth? The film “Food Inc.”, is a doco revealing the negative truths of the American food market at its current state. The producer portrays his information through an algorithm of fast paced data, intense graphic visuals and a multitude of credible sources that allow for the audience to freely choose which truths they’ll buy into. The doco hits the viewer with hard facts and vibrantly effective imagery right off the bat. It starts with a voiceover giving a brief lesson on the birth and history of factory food. (Food Inc., 05:20-08:40) Meanwhile the visual is b-roll rolling super fast paced on the screen, many cuts, and live footage of different things, including lettuce, cows, tomatoes and chickens, in a surplus abundance, in very condensed spaces. This gives a fast paced, urgent feel, capturing the attention of the audience, in hopes that they begin paying super close attention, not miss anything. They also move through the cuts so quickly that is adds an element of surprise and discomfort when you see the living animals mixed in with the scenes of the non-living ingredients, simply because it creates cognitive dissonance within most viewers who eat meat but disagree with unjust treatment of the animals that produce them. Right after that scene, the film jumps into a quick animation that aids a realistic visual representation of the reveals being given by the voiceover, on the actual reality of the treatment of these animals.The fast pace movement of these scenes represents, visually, the idea of these living animals being simply just commodities to our food system, impartially, outside of the producer’s biases or opinions. This is live footage of these animals in their confinements and the factories they are kept in.
The director of Food Inc. utilizes his characters and settings in a way that creates unbiased negative correlation between factory food and farmers, as well. The film does not follow one main character, but instead tells multiple shorter stories from multiple sources that each fulfill different character roles with different sides and stances on the format of the business, including farmers from private farms, to Walmart, Purdue farmers to even those working in the factories that add preservatives to meat. One of the major manipulation accusations within these interviews falls at the question of moral purpose. The doco states that the Tyson meat company was not willing to give a statement or play a role in the documentary, right after Vince Edwards, the Tyson grower, changes his mind towards letting the director see and film his chicken coop. (:10:00-:12:10) This scene sends a simple message, that holds a lot of weight to the viewers, as they have now unconsciously positioned Tyson as an antagonist who has something to hide. Was that positioning at fault of the producers, or was that simply just the message that Tyson was intending to send by refusing to make a statement? After all, the producer was simply just revealing to the audience the outcome of their attempts to gather more information. This is one of the many scenes that leave this ambiguous nature towards bias truth. Steve’s, a private farmer, character is shown as a wholesome farmer who engages in the natural part of the farming agriculture. With a charming smile, glasses, suspenders, and the sun beaming on him at exactly the right angles, his scenes gave a genuine and positive feel to them. There then is a segment where he is talking about how much more humane his farming practices are than factory food, while he simultaneously manhandles these animals that he is raving better treatment for. This scene is one of the more important ones in the film, simply because it is the most unbiased of them all. All throughout the film, the audience believes that the stance of those behind the making of this documentary is to stop the cruelty of animals all together. However, this scene introduces a character that is portrayed as a good guy by the filming and form of the shot, that is simultaneously still harming and harboring the animals, just the same. Which leaves the audience confused on their stance, and the filmmaker’s stance, on what he wants the outcome of this film to be. I believe that he does this, consciously, as well, in order to purposely eliminate any conversation of bias, and focus solely on the truths that he wanted to reveal to his audience.
The film “Gleaners and I” falls on quite the opposite end of Food Inc. It is the lowest budget and quality movie of the bunch, and has a very separate message about our food system. Gleaners and I is a doco made by a woman who want to reveal the concept and mindset of a gleaner. She does this through sentimental storytelling and abstract perspective. Agnes uses minimal equipment to tell her storyline and the scenes fluctuate between recordings that she takes, each in an intimate and genuine setting like someone’s home or the local park corridor, and recordings of Agnes herself recording other things. Agnes’ character and being, as the filmmaker, is very prevalent to the telling of the story. Very different than Food Inc, which only had a narrator, but we never really see the filmmakers at all. Agnes records herself in situations that allow her to tell the story. In the beginning, she interviews many different people about what gleaning means to them and what their relationship is to the gleaning world. I could argue that “Gleaners and I” has the most interviews out of all of the docos, yet the snips are so short that it doesn’t seem like there are many other recurring, recognizable characters, aside from Agnes herself. Each character, however, adding a little more soul to the conversation, as Agnes is, very good at drawing out natural emotion in people, if only for those short scenes. So, as an audience member, it adds a genuine truth to these interview scenes, because Anges places herself in them, allowing the viewer to feel as if they are also within those same spaces at the same time. It is no longer just a documentary, it is a conversation. Similar to “Exit Through the Gift Shop” in that she creates a perspective for the audience that allows them to feel like they have entered this journey with them, within those exact moments, simply by the camera work and form that is portraying these scenes. For example, the scene with the rubber boots man is one of my favorites. (Gleaners & I,:54:00) He is full of personality and charm, as he speaks on scrimaging through garbage, not out of necessity, like the other characters, but because he simply does not see the need in wasting food. He holds the same weight for me, as the wholesome farmer in Food Inc, because he represents the middle man. Gleaning, by definition, is the act of picking things that grow from the ground. In France, the poor have a specific time of the year in which they are allowed to scrummage through farmer’s leftover crops to keep for themselves. Gleaning is a controversial topic, especially in France, because it is seen as subjective. Gleaners have a curtain reputation, as most do it out of a necessity for food, and lack of resources to attain, otherwise. Rubber boots character, however, is shown as a man who is not in need, but is still choosing to glean. His character is naturally extroverted, yet he also has a sense of wackiness to him that is subtly intentional. This is backed up when he is asked why he chooses to wear rubber boots and he says that they make him feel like the lord of the town, even though he’s digging through garbage.(:56:15) Nonetheless, the middle ground that his character operates on adds substance to his segment that leaves the audience unable to determine the filmmaker’s point of view on his viewpoint. Agnes, who is so prevalent within the other scenes, really sets focus on him alone, giving him the sense of ambiguity that is unbiased and uninfluenced. Within this film, there are no hard facts, outside of some b-roll in place to articulate the whale issue (G&I, :55:00) and history of, the only farmer to be warm to his gleaners, Jerome Noel's farm. (:48:17) The majority of the entire doco is based on the opinions and insight of the people she records. Giving the entire film a sense of genuine truth, but with little credibility, which is why I feel it is also the least respected of all of the food films.
“The Garden” is a documentary vaguely about food agriculture, told through the story of Latino farmers, who are fighting to keep their community garden in California. The doco covers very serious topics of inequality, community work, and government regulation, which makes it uniquely dense in its nature, even through the conversation of planting food. The filmmakers of this doco reveals their story through an algorithm that says “minimally simple is best”. For example, the setting of this doco falls only in between two places for a majority of the film. We, as the audience, are either in the garden, during interviews with the farmers and families who have been tending to the garden, and the courthouse, as the farmers attempt to convince the court that they should have right to keep the garden. This is very telling to the audience, because you begin to see, within the back and forth of the scenes, a physical back and forth between the courthouse and the farmers. When they transfer back to the garden, the film flips over to them with minimal transition on the cuts, while the scenes that are in court are transitioned with scenes of the courthouse from outside, “court is in session” signs, and shots of the plaques and name tags of judges, senators, and government officials. This extra scene to settle the new mood change, shows the seriousness and importance of the court conversations. The color tones and filming methods also change between the two locations. For example, there is a scene (The Garden, 41:05-42:15) that shows many lawyers of Mark Horowitz, the antagonist fighting to buy the garden back, and they are working. All standing up, in suits, with a very professional feel. The camera is set at one location and only captures one side of the room which gives it a very condensed feel. That, in addition to their tone, give it a very melancholy vibe, that can be read off by the viewer as “bad guys”. The farmers are all shot within the garden space, so the scenes are inevitably brighter, as they are outside with natural sunlight, and the shots are wider, in more open space. The camera gets to move around a lot, or film a lot of the surrounding happenings within the garden, that inevitably show these normal citizens, all wearing regular, colorful clothing, at work on their garden. It creates a feeling of relatability and connection to the farmers, which turn the audience, inevitably, onto their side. This is then enforced when one of the community citizens get so emotional within an interview for the film, that she literally walks out of the scene. (The Garden, 42:59) This is meant to seem like a natural occurrence, that places empathy towards her discouragement and disappointment, as she slams her hands on the table, gets increasingly louder in tone and then repeats “I’m finished” as she walks out of the scene. What I found super interesting is that if you go back to 42:59, you can hear someone from behind the camera speak. Which leads to questioning the true reality of the scene. Was he giving her direction, ergo making it more artificial? Were they reenacting a scene? Or was his voice within that scene just a coincidence? The movie then transfers over to it’s community event that is meant to bring awareness and aid towards the garden. There are multiple scenes within period that show natural scenes in a way that could not be reenacted. At 56:00, when the mass crowd of people are changing towards the garden’s preservation, it really relinquishes the thought of manipulation of truth, and just follows the genuity and unity within that community, and the viewer watching. So that in the end, when these citizens are hurting and crying when watching their garden be teared down, the audience feels their hurt as well. That is what makes for a good documentary.
Supersize me was made in 2004, and is still known as one of the most popular documentaries ever made. The filmmakers create a strong algorithm that mixes compelling interviews, facts, and figures, with the concept of character development and engagement, as if it were a scripted film. The film starts with the McDonald’s for dummies, history lesson that most doco’s engage with within their perspective topics, to inform and prepare the viewer for the bigger reveals of the doco. This is done through computer graphic b-roll imaging of maps, fast food drinking cups, visual representation of “heavy users”, (Supersize Me, 1:12:00) McDonald’s signs and more. However, the real heart of the doc follows the journey of it’s director, Morgan Spurlock, as he eats only from the McDonald’s dollar menu for 30 days straight, as an experiment to record the effects of excessive fast food on the body. This documentary is special because it follows one main character throughout the entire film, as well as having all the extra characters and sources that come with documentaries. Morgan’s character role is silly, light-hearted, aggressive and extrovertive, which creates for a wacky and extremely likable main character, which creates a special relationship for the viewer, whoms interest has been lured into seeing his outcome. In the beginning, he is a very healthy man, but throughout the film we see, with dismay and empathy, his health begin to deteriorate and his energy levels decrease. Within his storyline, he weaves in many different interviews from doctor visits, and conversations with McDonald’s employees and buyers. Two of the characters within the film really stand out. One of which is the 16 year old McDonald’s worker (:32:00) who talks about societal pressures to be a fit and magazine-cover size. Her character’s dismay is visually represented by placing multiple different model-like woman on the screen until the images of them, overpower the actual live girl, speaking on her insecurities. This representation, including the noise of the door closing, added when the last of the models covers her scene completely, follows in line with Morgan’s silly yet effective character and it reintroduced him as the director of the film, through his segments of creativity. Bruce Howlett is the second character of interest. He is introduced at 1:15:05, while laying in a hospital bed, preparing for surgery. His scenes are placed at the end of the film, as a way to connect the effects to an outcome. Unfortunately, it seems he is used as a pawn in the film, for how one could end up, if they are not careful about their health and food choices. Right after that scene, Adam Naaman and Carl Geisler, laparoscopic surgeons, are introduced. Their scene changes the vibe of the movie as they are one of the only sources in the film that are given a solo shot with a premeditated background setting. They are sitting in fancy office chairs, that don’t really look like office chairs, in what looks like an old library. One of them is wearing glasses and they’re both dressed professionally, as opposed to his Morgan’s doctors throughout his challenge, who are dressed more casually. This gives off the impression that they are a very credible source that the audience should pay attention and listen to. These minimal character, through their words and settings, create a dynamic for the film that allows for both seriousness and a light-heartedness that is extremely hard to balance, yet is done perfectly be these characters, their roles, and the creativity of the filmmaker.
Can we prove the truth of reality, without a partial bias from the artist who created it? Each of these films takes a crack at it’s own individual points of interest and knowledge on the effects that our world’s consumption issues arise. It is obvious that this is a problem that we keep, yet each documentary brings that to light in different ways, and through different viewpoints of these filmmakers. Is one more genuine or truthful than another? The world of documentaries falls within a rough patch of truth and creative direction. I believe that’s the beauty within them, that the audience will never know. We just have to watch these character’s go through their story, and our job is to recognize the relatability of the issue, pay attention, soak up all the knowledge, and spread the word. Whose words? Up to each viewer. But the truth is, each producer uses their own algorithm within the filmmaking process to weave together these beautifully intricate pieces of work that offer both society’s hidden statistical data, through their individual artistic expression.
