The Morale Line Within Documentary Film Making

Several filmmakers within the media industry try to explain the morale line within the documentary sector

The notion of exploitation in documentary making is a subject that lies within every film maker this question underlyingly holds great weight within our industry there are many questions but the main ones remain to be 'to film or not to film' on moral standpoint to blur the lines of morality but the question remains 'where is the moral line in documentary filmmaking' and there are many subjects and directors to choose from with their own answers to this age-old question, a documentary maker has the power to portray a subject in the lightest of lights or the darkest of deception.it is up to the subject in question to let their portrayal in the film to be used for public consumption an example of this is shown within

Trevor Alberts words in regards to his documentary Glen Campbell: Ill be me (2014)

“I don’t think there was anything that we didn’t want to shoot, “I think in your choice lies your talent, and our choice was to always retain Glenn’s dignity and at the same time to not back away from the authenticity of the disease. Glenn did not want to back away from it either so it’s a balancing act.”

“Then it was a question of, how far do we go? How dark do we go?” (Cipriani, 2014)

Within the industry of documentary film making there’s somewhat an invisible morale line of ambiguity dictating between what is righteous for moral values and what is frowned upon in the documentary sector, factual content creators have a choice within the industry to uphold the to the true narrative of the subject they wish to portray but in some cases the creator ,can sometimes cross the moral line to fit the narrative according to their own values

In some situations, this can make the documenting process an uncomfortable scenario for the director and the subject in hand there are many cases of uproar and individual issues within factuality over the past century

Generally, discussions of ethics in documentary have been narrowly focused on the invasion of privacy or, sometimes, exploitation. Asking the question, "Whose life is this anyway?" tries to broaden the discussion of relationships among filmmakers, the people about whom they make films and others involved in the collaboration. We need to consider a number of relationships and to recognize that ethics deals with making choices among acceptable alternatives. What these decisions are can often hinge on one's morality.

Morality is about how one should behave. Ethics is about decisions among equally valid moral choices. "Thou Shalt Not Kill " is a common moral principle that requires ethical principles to sort out the differences between murder, combat and self-defence.' (International Documentary Association, 2018) '

Six different modes of doc filmmaking

Firstly, before discussing the notion of exploitation within documentary making the understanding of styles within documentary must first be discussed we will be looking at the six styles and modes in documentary content creating they are expository, participatory, observational, reflexive, poetic and performative.

Poetic documentaries have many different facets and can also be used with every other style in a collaborative effort given this style of documentary the most flexible nature of the six the most recognizable note within this style is the use of narration or the 'voice of god' this gives us as viewers a sense of world building and isolation, transporting the audience to take their undivided attention in a P.O.V style.

Usually expository documentaries tend to focus on piecing together fragments of the historical world or subjects lost to history, turning the content into narrative framing famous cases of this are shown in Searching for Sugarman (2012) a documentary pieced together with archive, interviews and a goal to uncover what happened to Sixto Rodriguez this style of documentary is the most commonly used in the modern century

Participatory documentaries add the engagement of a presenter, there personal feelings are usually entwined and presented from a P.O.V standpoint to emote and evoke emotion from the audience and to humanise the subject case in hand and in other terms it is a narrative factual depiction of life events being shown through the eyes of the presenter this is commonly used within Louis Theroux's works such as My Scientology Movie (2015)

Observational documentaries are most commonly associated with wildlife programming and can even have a far relation to reality television, relation to observation factual is the use of the passage of time and the outlook on how the world works behind a glass mirror, from a fly on the wall, P.O.V perspective an example of ground breaking observational cinema is David Attenborough's work on Blue planet (2001)

Reflexive documentaries also hold collaborative point with both observational and participatory, but within the style of reflexive documentary's they hold a particular style which do not appear as often as in the other five types of documentary and that is the process of negotiation with the subject and filmmaker Grizzly man (2005) is a good example of a reflexive documentary, uses of reconstruction or re-enactments are commonly used within reflexive content, to provide the audience with an empathic view of the subject In question.

Performative documentaries hold similarities to all other five modes of documentary but a substantial difference within this style of mode is the concept of questioning everything that we think we know, what counts as understanding or comprehension? investigatory journalism is common ground for a performative documentary, and its aim usually leaves the audience with more questions than answers an example of this is shown in Netflix's documentary series making a murderer (2015) in laments terms to look further into a topic that is in public or popular opinion already a closed cased, the opening of the proverbial can of worms so to speak.

Genre study considers the qualities that characterize groupings of various of filmmakers. In documentary film and video, we can identify six modes of representation that function something like sub-genres of the documentary genre itself: poetic, expository, participatory, observational, reflexive, performative. These six modes establish a loose framework of affiliation within which individuals may work (Trilogy, 2015)

(Nelmes and Nichols, 2012)

Jeanie Finlay Expository Documentary's

When it comes to the question of morality in the industry of documentary making Jeanie Finlay is a name that immediately stands out to me as someone who has had her fair share of scenarios that could be construed and perceived with moral ambiguity, in particular all of her films are based on characters who are not overly famous in the world of pop culture but they hold interesting, fulfilling and adventurous livelihood's that give a sense of greatness to all of her films. These include the documentaries sound it out (2011) and the great hip hop hoax (2013) but in relation to the original question the film with the most problematic questions of morality was in fact Orion: the man who would be king (2015).An Expository documentary , with reflexive and performative undertones.

The narrative for Orion follows the life of Jimmy 'Orion' Ellis, after the death of Elvis Presley in 1977 performer Ellis would sing in bars and nightclubs under the alias 'Orion' after being asked by his manager at the time to don a mask to hide his identity, the public flocked in droves to witness Ellis's performance as he had an undeniable vocal similarity to Presley, this culminated in Ellis playing stadiums as the public were duping themselves into a lie about Presley's death and using Orion as a way to prevent mourning , until Orion finally took the mask off at the largest performance of his life ,thereafter the public that originally flocked in droves to watch Ellis perform under a false guise now stopped attending his performance leading to the eventual downward spiral in the life of Jimmy Ellis, as he reverted back to playing, night bars and cabaret nights after giving up performing Ellis decided to purchase an pawn shop which he ran peacefully until the film takes a sudden dark turn with Ellis's murder with the final sequence being shown as the blood soaked pawn shop floor , untouched from nine years previous.

Finlay's choice of using the symbolic blood-soaked floor in this circumstance gives the film an intense feeling that leaves the viewer with an uncomfortable feeling but her decision to use the symbolism instead of the CCTV footage of the murder. Procurring the footage in the making of the film from the arkansas police force is important in nature as it shows she has an moral code to uphold, obviously not wanting to use the footage as the graphicness of the clip would be too gruesome for cinema and also claiming as her most important point not wanting to use the clip as it would bring horrible discomfort to the family members of the Ellis family, even so in the making of the film Orion. Ellis's son Junior was not overly happy with the creation of the film and was not a fan of how he viewed his father was portrayed on the production being vocal about his unhappiness with the ending sequence with his father's symbolic death, proffering that Finlay had left out the whole murder sequence.

This brings us back to the original question and notion of the exploitation in documentary making and the different types of emotional exploitation, Finlay though a tremendous documentary maker made a decision in the best interests for the subjects she aimed to create for, however the subjects where still unhappy with the film Finlay created, where is the moral line in this scenario.

'Documentary Production claim the moral seriousness of depicting the existing world, while also registering on an emotional level that is often absent in the other discourse of sobriety. They may not achieve the status of authoritative factuality that a medical or scientific report can, but films and films may evoke more personal responses from audiences that imbue them with a sense of moral responsibility. The documentary provides its audience with knowledge about its world, what shall we do with such knowledge?'(Marcus and Kara, 2016)

So, who judges what exploitation is in this case?

The judgment literally lies with the own documentarian outlook and view of the events of the film giving her literal all of the power in this scenario, is it morally alright to go against the family's wishes for the film to avoid being shown in certain aspects, is she justified in the right to overrule them in the case, well in a technicality, Finlay holds all of the cards in this situation so from a legal point of view she has every right to overrule the Ellis family. Justifying the film has become an intense topic but Because the film gained traction with the public and has told a narratively obscure story that would not have been told in any other way it is interesting for Finlay to be able to show Orion In a light that his family can be proud of even if they are unhappy with certain aspects of the film Finlay has immortalised the Man Called Orion with 90 minutes of cinema in other terms would have been impossible without her starting the wave of music documentary along with sugar man that have encapsulated the modern era of documentary film making.

In terms of the ability to create the film Finlay and highlighted the fact that Facebook and social media connected her with a key figure in the shooting that killed Jimmy Ellis an survivor of the murder Helen king before social media Finlay noted that 'before social media she would not have been able to find her' (Marcus and Kara, 2016)

Louis Theroux Participatory Documentary's

Another subject of note in factual filming creating, are the participatory documentaries of louis Theroux as style of participatory documentary making Theroux has definitively made this style his with films and series such as Louis Theroux's weird weekends (1999-present) and my scientology movie (2015) Theroux's style revolves around a participatory approach with witticism's and condescending jibes given towards the subjects in most of his films, he is a pioneer of the style, however portraying the subjects in his films demeaning him to make them come across as inferior to himself gives Theroux a characteristic that interests the British public but brings a bias towards his work as he doesn’t necessarily follow the narrative of a story he follows his own narrative to the story, as you can evoke even from the names of his films, this is usually used as an entertainment value towards his works rather than a film with a narrative structure, Theroux has the Simon Cowell approach to documentary making.

'My anxieties took various forms id had the idea of seeing my old subjects because I was curious of what had become of them'(Theroux, 2009)

This quote has an ambiguous thought process to me, Theroux before seeing his old subjects people he has interviewed in the past isn't overly content on meeting with them, does this not show that he regrets showing people in a certain way, or does this show that he's not content with meeting the subjects because he feels they are inferior to him.

Theroux does make so many integral and important points in the art of documentary making by visiting and interviewing people that many people would feel intimidated by, Theroux is a master of the craft in every sense of the word, but his complexity as a character is the drawing point to most of his documentary's rather than the narrative he himself wanting to be the star rather than the film and the subject being the star of the film. He is able to push the boundaries further than any documentary maker in his field but because of his personality rather than his narrative structuring of films.

Theroux states when it comes to the actual film making and narrative process 'There's obviously a lot of controversy around the issue of hunting as there is around gambling, and I like these stories where there is a moral dimension, stories that force you to think about your prejudices about a subject and explore the extent to which they are justified' (Theroux 2009)

This statement intrigues me because I agree with what Theroux does and why he finds stories with certain moral dimensions he does have a moral compass to the public, not necessarily to his subjects that he interviews

he also states in an interview with the daily telegraph in (2014)

'Arguably, there's an emotional side of life that I'm not always completely plugged into.'

He also states in (2015)

'My secret fear is that I'm not helping'

Which leads me to the film Heroin town (2017)

a film depicting the town of Huntington, Ohio a town rife with heroin addiction, Theroux interviews heroin addicts intoxicated and under the influence of the drug, I think this is an integral point in what can be construed as Theroux's type of documentary film making, by doing this and showing this, it's is not only disturbing to the audience by showing the heroin addicts physically shooting up for the camera it leaves the question what the families of the addicts must feel, I think by showing the footage of the heroine users shooting up, this shows Theroux does lack empathy for his subjects, especially for the fact that the subjects within the film are not of the soberest of minds this leads to me to conclude that Theroux's moral standpoint stand with the narrative and not the subjects where in particular there needs to be a balance as in the case of Jeanie Finlay, you need to be able to make assessments of your own moral fibre and sometimes have to sacrifice a scene in the film, so that it stands to be morally right with the production at hand.

The Sydney Morning Herald's Jake Wilson

after reviewing the film Heroin town the herald have a similar view to my own when it comes in particular to Theroux's moral ambiguity within the film

'But the argument here has a degree of incoherence: while Theroux maintains that addiction can happen to anyone, clearly not every town in the US has a problem on the scale of Huntington. At the same time, the film's perspective is unavoidably skewed by the fact that "functional" addicts are far less likely to open themselves up to Theroux's camera. (Wilson, 2017)

The bulk of Heroin Town consists of close-up portraits of the down-and-out – describing their daily routines, regretting or defending their life choices, and occasionally shooting up before our eyes. Theroux responds with a mix of presumably genuine unease and barely concealed delight at the solid gold material Putting Heroin Town on the big screen brings home that Theroux is unequivocally an exploitation filmmaker, in the double sense of exploiting lurid subject matter and specific, vulnerable people. In an especially disturbing scene, (Wilson, 2017)

In the case of most Theroux's documentary's and with his style, he uses emotional exploitation with most of his subjects in the case of just 'Heroin Town' Theroux's exploitation of the addicts leaves a sour taste in my mouth, Theroux is fully aware of what he is doing in this case in regards to this film, but I do not think his witticism's give him a leg to stand on in this case, the judgement of what is exploitation or not is left up to two major parties in film production, the director and the audience, everyone has their own morale spectrum but in this case, Theroux's doesn’t exist, in a case when a director cannot judge what is morally right the audience will decide what's morally right.

All film making can be justified giving the right reasons but has to cause an effect that will change events in this case, I don't feel it has helped or affected any of the subjects within the film to a standard where I can judge Theroux to be justified on the moral spectrum, in some of his ground-breaking films and series such as my scientology Theroux, also came close to the bone but definitively made points that helped the public question what was going on, having reflexive capabilities within the film, to go with his mastery of the participatory branch, so he was justified in this route but that does not necessarily work for every film he creates.

But Theroux himself knows his flaws, which is proven by a statement he uses in his book the call of the weird (Theroux, 2009)

'One of my first thoughts, oddly was that it was karma for the sacks, in that self-flagellating mode people sometimes go through after they’ve made a blunder, I blamed myself for the moral idiocy of toying with the idea of bringing them-flirting with ideological obscenity for the sake of a piquant comical moment'.